The Kid Whisperer Podcast Featuring Scott Ervin and Pat Kiely: Episode 32
Topics in this episode include:
Please help. I have used your advice to great success and peace at home, but it's like my five-year-old son becomes a different person at school. He had a great experience at the first pre-school he attended and at his summer school right before kindergarten. However, he would yell and try to run away from his parochial preschool, and now that he is in kindergarten, I get alarming reports of physical aggression. He hits his classmates and teachers, runs amok through the school with the special ed team in his wake, bit his teacher, and has met the local police when he managed to escape the building and run down the street. At home, he cleans up after himself and his little sister, folds family laundry, and says please and thank you. He does his Nows before his Laters. He sometimes has to calm down by himself if he is shouting or doing something else that cannot be around the family. But usually, if he needs a reminder, it's a "Hmm" or an "Uh-oh" or a "Who do I help?" from me. If I say I am going to do something later, I do. He has no screen time except talking to his grandparents because in the past it's seemed overstimulating for him. He likes books and listening to audio books, and other typical 5-year-old things. I have tried talking with the school about DLOs but without success. He will get suspended the next time he hits someone. He is next on the waitlist to be evaluated, but I need to help him change his behavior, regardless of whether he receives a diagnosis.
I teach in a self-contained 4th grade classroom. My question is about seating charts. I read your book, and I understand why you don't change kids' seats based on behavior issues or problems getting along with a neighbor. But is it bad to change up the seating just for fun? I used to change my students' seats after first semester each year, and most of them really liked getting to sit in a new spot with different friends.
My wife and I both work full-time and have three kids at home, ages 14, 7, and 5. They're pretty good kids, but they definitely have some habits that we'd like to correct (leaving their stuff everywhere, fighting with each other, not doing chores we ask them to do, getting up late for school and making me late for work, etc). I know I need to work on these things with them, but by the time their mom and I get home from work at night, we are both completely exhausted. It's so much easier to just let these behaviors slide than to add another "thing" to my day. Do you have any advice for small, quick, (and I'll be honest- EASY) things we can try with them to get them on the right track?