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Daycare Center and Family Home Forum>Aggressive Screaming, Panicked Pestering
Pestle 12:42 AM 05-16-2019
Experiences with older preschoolers who use screaming as a weapon? Not frightened or sad screaming. Full-bodied maximum-volume leaning-toward-us ground-shaking roaring.
Experiences with older preschoolers who go nonverbal when upset? Even when the screaming isn't in play, it's grunts and thrashing around.
Ever have a child this age (going on 4) who compulsively takes toys, swats activities from other kids, seems panicked while doing it? Fixed grin and jerky movements, moaning and hiding face from me.
Behavior escalated at the same time this child finally started to put two and two together that negative behavior results in negative consequences. Child will roar when I put the consequence into place and also will roar immediately following the negative behavior, before the consequence takes place. I guess I should take it as a positive sign they know the consequence is coming.
Redirection has worked a couple of times in the last few days but not at all before then, so maybe we're turning a corner. Child is extremely persistent and will scream up to an hour. Child lunged at sibling today and I held child back while rocking them and saying in a soothing voice, "Nobody gets hurt here. You are safe here. I will not let you get hurt. I will not let you hurt your sister," and child screamed "But I want to!" while clawing at the air in the direction of the sibling. That's the second time the child has verbally announced an intention to hurt another child. They also mock and taunt the other children during structured activities. They interrupt during story time, jump up and run away during meal time, can't seem to focus any more on tray activities or other age-appropriate projects.
Child is getting excluded from activities multiple times a day for aggression/disruption but roars and thrashes around the room they're excluded to and hunts for objects in the room to throw over the gate at us. Child has been known to roar for up to an hour and can't be coaxed to transition to a new activity when they're fixated on the thing they've been denied (a toy they threw, usually).
Child eats well and sleeps extremely heavily here along with a full night at home--so, going on 13-15 hours per day. I was waking them at 2 hours but the last couple of weeks have been bad on the behavior end, child won't rouse for me, and apparently child isn't sleeping well at home just now. So child is napping up to 3 hours a day at an age where they typically stop napping entirely.
Child was sent home for behavior this week, where they prevented parent from getting work done. I've suggested family therapy for anxiety. I didn't mention depression or ADHD because it's not my role to diagnose. Fatigue, desire to make the other children unhappy, an inability to focus, guilt that turns into rage in a split second, backsliding on potty training, extreme clinginess to parent, prolonged full-body tantrums. It's all on the cusp of typical-but-undesirable behavior but, at this extreme and all together, it's adding up to something I think I'm not equipped to manage.
Experiences with older preschoolers who go nonverbal when upset? Even when the screaming isn't in play, it's grunts and thrashing around.
Ever have a child this age (going on 4) who compulsively takes toys, swats activities from other kids, seems panicked while doing it? Fixed grin and jerky movements, moaning and hiding face from me.
Behavior escalated at the same time this child finally started to put two and two together that negative behavior results in negative consequences. Child will roar when I put the consequence into place and also will roar immediately following the negative behavior, before the consequence takes place. I guess I should take it as a positive sign they know the consequence is coming.
Redirection has worked a couple of times in the last few days but not at all before then, so maybe we're turning a corner. Child is extremely persistent and will scream up to an hour. Child lunged at sibling today and I held child back while rocking them and saying in a soothing voice, "Nobody gets hurt here. You are safe here. I will not let you get hurt. I will not let you hurt your sister," and child screamed "But I want to!" while clawing at the air in the direction of the sibling. That's the second time the child has verbally announced an intention to hurt another child. They also mock and taunt the other children during structured activities. They interrupt during story time, jump up and run away during meal time, can't seem to focus any more on tray activities or other age-appropriate projects.
Child is getting excluded from activities multiple times a day for aggression/disruption but roars and thrashes around the room they're excluded to and hunts for objects in the room to throw over the gate at us. Child has been known to roar for up to an hour and can't be coaxed to transition to a new activity when they're fixated on the thing they've been denied (a toy they threw, usually).
Child eats well and sleeps extremely heavily here along with a full night at home--so, going on 13-15 hours per day. I was waking them at 2 hours but the last couple of weeks have been bad on the behavior end, child won't rouse for me, and apparently child isn't sleeping well at home just now. So child is napping up to 3 hours a day at an age where they typically stop napping entirely.
Child was sent home for behavior this week, where they prevented parent from getting work done. I've suggested family therapy for anxiety. I didn't mention depression or ADHD because it's not my role to diagnose. Fatigue, desire to make the other children unhappy, an inability to focus, guilt that turns into rage in a split second, backsliding on potty training, extreme clinginess to parent, prolonged full-body tantrums. It's all on the cusp of typical-but-undesirable behavior but, at this extreme and all together, it's adding up to something I think I'm not equipped to manage.