6 year old hit someone at school — consequences?
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Anonymous
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6 year old boy hit at school. Had to go to principal’s office, and miss recess. Would you give more consequences at home? I think not.
I’m also trying to focus more on the self-regulation skills as he is behind his peer group. What have you found helpful? |
Anonymous
| ^^for more context, they were playing a game at recess and he caught a ball that made the other kid get out. The other kid taunted him that he did not catch it. He should have let it go but he didn’t. |
Anonymous
| First time, I’d talk. After that I’d consider more consequences. But definitely make sure he knows you disapprove and it’s not ok. |
Anonymous
| Yes, I would always give a consequence at home and have him write an apology to the teacher and principal. |
Anonymous
Not to the other kid? |
Anonymous
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Yes, I would give him more consequences. He needs to know that is not acceptable to me (which he should have known already). Hitting is serious and taunting doesn’t make this a master of self-defense.
You need to sit him down and have a long talk with him about when hitting someone isn’t okay (for example, being taunted), and the very isolated exceptions (if someone is hurting him and he has to get away, or a stranger is taking him away which means they intend to hurt him). Discuss options he could have used today instead of hitting. Help him pick a good solution and roll-play it. Then punish. At a minimum, I would have taken away all privileges tonight (TV, dessert, etc.). Depending on his literacy skills, I might have had him write lines if he was up to it (something simple like “Do not hit.”, and probably not very many times, because he’s probably slow.). Otherwise, I’d probably give him a time-out to reflect on his bad choices so he would remember to make better choices next time.). This is assuming he seems to be learning the lesson. If he’s being defiant, you might need to suspend a privilege for longer. Make it clear to him that you expect him to remember this lesson, but if there are future problems, then the punishment will be harsher (longer loss of privilege, loss of allowance, more lines, chores, etc.). You don’t want any more unpleasantness, but you’ll make him however miserable you need to for him to remember that he doesn’t want to hit someone other than when necessary to prevent physical harm to himself, because whatever positive he might get from it in the moment will be significantly outweighed by the negative he’ll get later from you. |
Anonymous
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OP here
I am 99% certain he knows it’s not ok. He has self regulation issues that he is working on in OT. We don’t do TV or desserts regularly, so there was no loss of privileges like that. Sometimes he gets a small treat if he does well at school so he didn’t get that today. |
Anonymous
I’m not sure what “self-regulation issues mean”. If he has problems that he can’t fully control, that’s one thing. For example, if he accidentally hit someone because of a seizure, Tourette’s, or even bad depth-perception, he of course shouldn’t be punished. From your earlier description, it sounds like he made a deliberate decision (however emotional he might have been) to hit the child, which means he needs to be punished so that next time he’ll be motivated to decide differently. The loss of recess today is barely a punishment, but regardless you need to punish him. He needs to know that YOU take this seriously, and he’ll have to face YOU regardless of where he decides to hit someone or what punishment others may or may not assign him. TV and desserts are not the issue. Making him unhappy enough to not want to repeat the consequence is. If he doesn’t get TV or desserts, surely there is something he likes that you can take away or something he doesn’t like that you can give him more of. Allowance? Time-Out? Favorite Toy? Family activity? Playdate? Chores? Surely he has some preferences you can temporarily go against. Not giving him a reward is not enough. This is obviously not the typical level of behavior that doesn’t merit the reward or you wouldn’t have posted. This is apparently notably worse, so the consequence needs to be notably worse than the consequence for his normal level of less than desirable behavior. |
Anonymous
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So would you have your child write an apology note to the other child or is that over the top?
Re: desserts I guess we are going to someone’s house tomorrow and could say no desserts for the weekend. I just don’t know if it’s too removed from the behavior to feel like a consequence. |
Anonymous
| An apology to the teacher and student is sufficient in my opinion. Furthermore, kudos to you for actually parenting! |
Anonymous
Oh yeah that’s just mean and won’t impact his decision making next time. |
Anonymous
The lack of treat was the punishment. He's actively working in OT on self-regulation/impulse control so talk him through this and then raise it to OT at his next appointment. |
Anonymous
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You are making excuses for your kid.
He needs to know that physical aggressions are not OK. If my kid hits another kid at school, he would be running laps after school. |
Anonymous
It's UMC for "short-tempered" |
Anonymous
I wouldn’t make him write an apology to an a**hole kid that was taunting him—if an adult at school has confirmed that this actually happened. He had recess taken away, he was punished. I’d give a stern talking to about how hitting is never appropriate. If it happens again, you are going to have start coming up with rewards so that you can use them as leverage to take away. Some kids are more transactional than others. |