I have been having issues with an almost 3yo boy. Mom lets him sleep in and his behavior is thus atrocious, and at nap time he is HORRIBLE. I had ALL the kids in other rooms but him and he just screams NO at me, complains, whines, kicks and hits me when I try to comfort him, bites me... This kid is just being ornery and I am DONE.

I want to give him a fighting chance since I can see how the issues mostly stem from lack of active parenting, etc.

I told mom over a week ago WAKE HIM UP EARLY. She claims he got up at 845... I am guessing later than that. Usually they are thrown in the car and arrive here at 10. I have asked her to arrive earlier and that is iffy. I am going to reiterate that.

But how do I get the violent behavior - the hitting and biting me - to stop? Today, he just picked up a plastic baseball bat and went to bash my own 3yo DD over the head with it. She wasn't even playing NEAR him. He has no problems with her... it seemed like she was just there. He does hit/bite/kick in retaliation as well. I do not want to kick him out so quickly but I am at my wits end. Willing to try anything.

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I'll be interested to see the replies to your question because to be honest, I think you need to pay attention to what you wrote. You will not only have to change the child's behavior, you will also have to work with the parents to change their own behavior. If you don't have the parents' cooperation, nothing will change. I get wanting to give a child a fair chance but in doing so, it sounds as though you are putting your own child in harm's way. Misbehavior is one thing; violent behavior is a whole different thing. I would be giving notice.

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My suggestion is to term. I had a similar child and the advice here to me was to send home the child every time they acted out violently. I did and nothing changed. Eventually I termed but I felt like I gave it a try.

A normal parent would be appalled at hearing that their child did these things and work with you to correct it. If that was not the reaction of the parent you are dealing with, nothing is going to change parenting wise.

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She ddoes seem shocked but nothing is changing yet. She claims older sister eggs him on/he needs more attention w her around. Idk.

She would never agree to pick him up for this but maybe if I said too bad he's violent pick him up she would take it seriously. I did have this family last year for a short spell and that was how I got across the seriousness of my illness policy.

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Waking him up earlier will help him get into rest easier, but won't necessarily help his violent behavior end.
Trying to bash another child in the head with a bat is very hostile, I'd be very concerned about him being around other children.

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Kudos to you for trying to help but seriously mom seems to be the issue and her surprise at the fact that nothing has changed yet in only a very short time span says she has a LONG ways to go yet and your work is going to be heavy and tiresome.

Trying to smash another child's head with a bat without any type of reason is NOT normal and would have me seriously concerned. The sleeping issue definitely makes this worse but I doubt it is the root/cause of it.

I would refer this parent to some sort of outside help where she can learn the tools to parent her child.

If I were a parent of other children in your care and I witnessed (or knew about) his aggressive/violent behavior towards others, I would pull my child from your care immediately and not give more than that one second notice.

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Term this child immediately. You HAVE given it a chance by asking mom to wake him earlier and bring him earlier, and she has not. 845am is NOT early. Let him go before he seriously hurts someone or you lose other children.

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Agree with terming. You will lose your other clientele and keeping one family who is uncooperative with a violent child is NOT worth the rest of the families leaving

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Oh and how to tell...
Dcm,
Our arrangement for childcare is no longer working for my program. This is your 2 week notice that our contract is terminated. As per my contract, I retain the right to terminate care immediately if dcb has more instances of violence. Good luck in the future.

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I just had to term because of similar behavior of a 6 year old. Actually, mom termed because she didn't believe her DS was that violent and wouldn't help me.

Life is so much better without dcb. I miss the income but not the stress and fearing for the safety of the other kids.

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I am not sure his behavior is because he wakes up at 9am instead of 8am?? How did you come to that conclusion??

If parents are not willing to make any changes at home and are not on board with helping you I would term.

Make sure you have been making parents aware of his behavior each and every day - and let them know that it will result in termination if you can't work together to find the cause and fix it.

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You just have to decide if you want the money or not. There isn't a plan to be done or a come to Jesus with Mom. She already knows. She's just trying to figure out how long you will last.

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Had a long response typed out and DS hit refresh.

First to quoted - no, I do not think that him waking at 9 (although TBH I think it more like 930/10am daily) causes violent or aggressive behavior. I asked her to please wake him earlier as he was totally disrupting nap time.

This behavior is new. It is an escalation.

DCB (and his sibs) take up 3/4 of my spots when they are here. They were originally PT. It worked and he behaved very well for 2 months. Then they went full time and then we started having issues.

First slapping at me and screaming no when I told him something in a matter of fact voice. (As in, "DCB, you must take your shoes off. DCB, you may not throw toys. DCB, walking feet inside.") Then, he called me a b***h. Then he started pretending to bite me with a "do you see me doing this?" look on his face. He pushed my DD once (like a shove for no apparent reason). He has never hurt anyone besides that (other than maybe not being careful but nothing I haven't seen other kids do, too, like not paying enough attention to where they walk and trodding on toes - accidental stuff). So in total, he would yell, called me a B a couple times, would hit at me, smack me occassionally (immediate time out), smack AT me a lot, threaten to bite, kick at me, scream his bloody head off at nap time. Horrible, horrible, horrible behavior. I've asked for advice here before but didn't get many replies. I will have to go check (I bet they all say "BTDT TERM NOW" and I'll feel like a moron).

Then today. He was evidently out late and slept in.

He came here. It was hot and he was wearing a hoodie that was thick because he wanted to... Okay. I guess that should be a huge sign to me that mom really lets them run the show.

Anyway. This is exactly what happened. He picked up the toy baseball bat (plastic) and started haphazardly swinging it around. I told him, "DCB, you almost hit DCG (sister) please be more careful." Screams no throws it down runs off. Comes back, grabs it, runs to side yard where DD is just dancing, and without even saying hi to her that AM goes to whack her in the head. I have been close to him and I grabbed it before he could do it. He went to time out. He asked why a million times (I don't know if he really doens't understand or just doesn't have any concept of hurting people or what). He was in time out a few more times for yelling at me and hitting at me. Nap time finally rolls around (less than 3 hours after arrival) and we all lay down (well, not me - I wish). He just screams. Chants my name louder and lourder and louder. If I go to comfort him, he would kick, bite, or hit me. I was shaking mad. I mean, I was furious when he tried to hurt DD but a 3yo doing that to me just pushed me over the edge. I was a step below yelling at him. I was literally questioning whether or not I should just call for pick up.

I think that says enough, typing it out. He knows exactly how to get a reaction out of me. My own kids don't push me that far or that hard. They know their limits. This kid has none.

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Annnnnd of course I just get a text from another POd DCM about my illness policy. They are having a sit down meeting tomororw but may pull. WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN SO OFTEN.

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Ugh, I don't mean so often. That sounds like I have people pulling and I'm terming every day.

I meant, why does this happen all at once.

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I was in a similar situation before...this 3 y.o. boy had TERRIBLE mood swings and being disciplined would set him off on a screaming tantrum where he'd scream "NO" over and over and couldn't calm himself back down. At the time I didn't know what caused his behavior, but I told his parents about it and they seemed embarrassed and offered to pick him up any time he lost control like that. Well, of course I felt too guilty to ever call them to pick him up because that's not really a solution anyway, and would only teach him that he can get out of my rules/discipline if he threw a bad enough tantrum. I had a conference with them and said if things don't get better in a month then I would term them. I also told them while it's not required, I think it would help tremendously if he was on the same schedule as everyone else: go to bed earlier, get to school before 9am, so he has enough play time to be tired enough to rest at nap. They admitted they knew he should be on an earlier schedule and that they'd have to do it eventually when he went to kindergarten anyway, so they started bringing him at like 8:50am and he was very tired. He started to take naps eventually, even though he wouldn't fall asleep until our nap was almost over, but I let him sleep 2 hours, because if he didn't sleep he was way more likely to throw a crazy tantrum. So in hindsight, I think his behavioral problems were mostly due to a lack of sleep. I stuck strictly to my rules, and if he threw a tantrum and it scared the other kids I would put him on the other side of the baby gate in the hallway to scream it out, and I would ignore him and go play with the other kids like normal. He began to fall in line, and I would praise him whenever he followed the rules. Eventually he started telling me every time he followed the rules "Look I pushed my chair in" for example, and I think I really turned this kid around. There were times where I wished I had just termed him, but I feel like I did society a favor by "taming" this kid instead of passing him onto the next provider.

Now, having said all that - I wouldn't go through that ever again unless I couldn't afford to term. If I had a good waiting list lined up, I wouldn't put the other children through the stress of having a kid who is physically or emotionally violent. The reason I had kept that boy, is because I had the child's cousin who they referred and I didn't want to split up the cousins, or have both families leave, so I stuck it out.

So my point in sharing my experience is that maybe it is a lack of sleep and slacker parenting - and if you need the money for this client to stay, then you can put the parents on probation, let them know what you think can be done to help the situation, tell them if they're willing to make these changes, then you're willing to stick it out during this probationary period to see if this will improve things. After putting forth that effort on your part, it's up to them if they want to accept this opportunity, or they can get termed and have this problem at the next place.

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I have seen terrible behaviors in children who don't get enough sleep (Mondays were terrible for one family that I termed-the kids just had NO bedtime-10, 12, 2...whenever they fell asleep. They fought naps at my house, too, because the lack of sleep made the kids more resistant to sleep. I told Mom that the kids were on probation. I insisted that she start putting them to bed at 8:30 (they got up at 6). Kids that age need 12 hours a day. I told her to put them to bed (not start getting ready-IN BED at 8:30). She said they WOULDN'T. I told her to get them on melatonin-she resisted. I insisted. Those kids started sleeping at night AND napping at my house.

Their behaviors improved tremendously. Things were great for a short while. After about 6 weeks of good behavior, things slid again. Mom had quit the bedtime routine and they were monsters again. Just as your child and worse (unprovoked violence, destructiveness, swearing, disruptive behaviors-any naughty thing you could think of, they did). I just couldn't take any more of it, and they had to go. I doubt sleeping in is the issue-I'd bet that staying up late is more the issue.

Just imagine how you would be if you were getting 3.5 hours of sleep every night. These kids often get the equivalent of an adult sleeping for about that. I'd be a jerk, too!

All that said, there could be other issues, but sleep is one thing that is EASY for a parent to fix. Parents asking that their 2 year old don't nap infuriates me...their kid not going to sleep has nothing to do with napping at daycare-it has to do with parents not setting priorities and making their child's needs #1. A parent who can't get their child in bed before midnight certainly has no control in other areas, either.

I have to agree with the others...I'd term. Start looking for replacement kids and term as soon as you can.

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