8 tips for parents of toddlers who act out at school
“I picked my 18-month-old up from daycare last week, and he was in the naughty corner, getting timeout — again — for taking another child’s juice and pouring it over the child’s head,” mom Shauna-Kaye Bolt shared.
“I told aunty to make sure she punished him for any such future action, but I’m so frustrated, because it just seems like he’s heading down the wrong path, as every single week I get a report that he’s either assaulting other children, or just being rude. I know that he’s a baby, but I get angry because he just seems to have all this negative energy.”
Many parents can attest to experiencing behaviours like these from their young children, with even the ones who don’t misbehave at home getting bad report cards at school. And the pandemic seems to have magnified these issues, especially for parents who have a hard time finding childcare, or in environments where space is limited, so children who are deemed to have behavioural issues are not being given first pick for enrolment.
But child management experts say it’s perfectly normal for toddlers to act out, and it is a way for children to express themselves.
Manchester-based early childhood teacher Janet Rickards, who has taught for over 20 years, is one of those who has seen it all.
“Acting out is developmentally normal, and parents and caregivers need to understand that toddlers have all this energy, but they’re not intellectually mature enough to understand how to channel it,” she shared.
“Caregivers should also know that if a child is tired or overstimulated, they will have more difficulty controlling their emotions and actions. Hitting and other behaviours like these are often because the child is responding to frustration,” said Rickards, who also has a degree in sociology.
What can parents do?
Here are some tips for coping shared by UNICEF and the World Health Organization as part of a series on parenting during the new normal caused by the frustrating pandemic.
1. Acknowledge that all children misbehave. It is normal when children are tired, hungry, afraid, or learning independence.
2. Catch difficult behaviour early and redirect your child’s attention from negative to good behaviour.
3. Stop ‘bad behaviour’ before it starts. When the child starts to get restless, you can distract them with something interesting or fun.
4. Take a pause. Give yourself a 10-second pause and breathe in and out slowly five times, then try to respond in a calmer way.
5. Use consequences. Consequences help teach your children responsibility for what they do. They also allow discipline that is more effective than hitting or shouting.
6. Give your child a choice to follow your instructions before giving them the consequences. Try to stay calm when giving the consequences.
7. Make sure you can follow through with the consequence — for example, taking away a phone or iPad for a week is hard to enforce. A day may be easier for you to enforce. Once the consequence is over, give your child a chance to do something good and praise them for it.
8. One on one time, praise for being good, and consistent routines will reduce difficult behaviour.
