Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy How do I stop my DS6 from hitting and hurting

My DS6 has had a rough year of Kindergarten. The last 2 weeks have been just INSANE. He cannot keep his hands to himself at school. When he's running around during recess he knocks children over and doesn't care that he did it or if they are hurt. He is hitting children when provoked as well as when there is no provocation at all.

I just received a call from the Principal that she has been very patient and lenient with his behavior. And she has. She has kept an open dialog with us and working very hard to come up with answers to stop the behavior or correct it. But he is being formally suspended for 1 day. He cannot return to school until Friday. Nothing seems to work and nothing seems to phase him. He's not a malicious child. He doesn't get pleasure from hurting. But he seems to not be able to control his emotions or care about what he has done to others. His overexcitabilities are EXTREME. I'd say 90% of his hitting/pushing/kicking issues happen at school. Mostly on the playground. His in class behavior is much better than it was but requires constant attention and redirection.

I'm at a loss as to what to do? We've done every reward system under the sun both at school and at home. We've done every disciplinary action under the sun.

We have a previously scheduled appointment with his Psychiatrist for tomorrow. But when I called to confirm his appointment they said the Psychiatrist is out sick and probably out sick tomorrow, too.

I've made a call to a few new Psychologists that work with gifted children. His current Psychologist has no experience with gifted children. I'm just hoping we can get in to see them soon. I've got to get a handle on this behavior before school is over.

Help.

eta- Our current Psychologist listed Disruptive Behavior Disorder and Mood Disorder NOS on DS's evaluation from October 2012.

Is this a public school? If so, can you arrange to have an aid or a para with him for the rest of the year? Obviously it won't solve any underlying issues, but it might give him the opportunity to complete the school year with less risk of incidence occurring.

If it continues to persist with an aid/para and the playground triggers 90% of the behavior, is there anyway that you can have him sit in the office during recess time? I realize that getting his excess energy out is important for him, but I can see the most important issue right now is finishing out the school year safely and until you have a game plan to deal with the disruptive behavior you might want to just put a temporary catastrophic plan in place.

I wish I had a better solution for you. Good luck.

Yes it's a public school.

In class he has a dedicated helper. Not on the playground.
Getting that excess energy out is the reason we've avoided taking away recess. But maybe it is necessary for the next 3 weeks.

Thanks

Best of luck with this. My 6 year old sometimes lashes out for seemingly no reason. It's normally when there are serious issues underneath that he has not shown or expressed. It's only after it comes to a head and he either explodes or cries that we find out what the real trigger is. It's normally as a result of anxiety, perfectionism, feeling he is not heard, worry over something he cannot control or change (death, world issues, parents arguing, bad news from friends etc) and lack of mental stimulation.

Those are our main triggers, and even knowing them and recognising the signs most of the times I still sometimes get caught out and we have him hitting his little brother or me.

Punishment doesn't help - it's not something he can always control - in fact he is excellent at controlling himself when its not about one of the above reasons. We are trying to teach him coping skills. Because he is still so young that mostly means I am his safe place and for now I provide the coping skills almost by proxy while he is trying to learn and remember them.

In your situation you may want to consider keeping him home the rest of the year - let him have a bit of relaxing down time with you alone, with no mention of school anything. loads of physical play time, chance to talk without worry of anything etc. You may find out that way what he is worrying about.

It's so hard and mostly I just wanted to say good luck!

Do you by chance stay at home? If you do, could you go up to the school at recess time and take him for a walk around the neighborhood while the other kids play or be with him on the playground and see if that improves the situation but still allows him to get outside and burn off his energy?

Or see if you could take him in the gym and let him run some laps or play with a ball.

Personally, I don't believe in the reward or punishment system. And rather than trying to stop the behavior, maybe you can try to find out why he is lashing out. There is obviously something going on that he needs to express.

Good luck

I agree with this assessment. I've seen it before somewhere. No amount of punishing or rewarding is going to work here.

I see that you are getting varied advice here. I think that's because there could be many different things happening, and each person has great ideas about some of them.

You have posted previously about his behavior problems, which started when he went to preschool. I would be very curious to know if the behavior problems go away or radically improve over vacations and in the summer.

You said 90% of his poor behavior happens in school. If he is a significantly calmer and happier child when not at school, I would wonder what in the school environment is causing such distress. It could be so many things:

- It could be that school is overwhelming/overstimulating for some reason. Sensory processing issues, CAPD, being gifted and noticing everything but not being able to process it are just a few of the ways this could happen (not saying your ds has any of these, just listing some examples of possible ways a kid could truly be that overwhelmed).

- School could also just be so boring that he is also understimulated mentally. If a kid truly thirsts for more, and already knows several years about grade level, sitting in K all day could really be torturous.

If this is primarily a problem at school, I would second Madoosa: if at all possible, take him home, keep him active and eating well, listen, forget about school, and help get back your kid.

If these problems persist across place and time, I would look closely at what happens and when. Others have good ideas about ways to cope and approach this.

Two books I love about figuring out how problems manifest in gifted kids (and how giftedness can manifest as one of those problems) are:

Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults by Webb
The Mislabeled Child by the Eides

As I recall, you have expressed concern that you have not been to a psychologist who deals with the gifted.

This is really worth traveling for, if needed.

I would hate to see your child continue to be diagnosed with Disruptive Behavior Disorder and Mood Disorder NOS if this is a kid who has issues with overexcitablities, sensory issues, or frustration with boredom.

If he is 2e (gifted and does indeed have a behavior disorder or something else) then I would also want him to be seeing someone who can understand the interplay between those two.

Just to be clear, my advice was not to punish him (sitting in the office at recess). It was to put out the immediate fire (to remove him from the situation that triggers his disruptive behavior 90% of the time) short term because he is in a crisis (suspension) mode.

I totally believe and encourage evaluation to try to determine and assist the underlying behavioral issues, whether they be sensory related or some other behavioral issue.

My advice was for the here and now until she can get the assessment and help because IMHO, sitting in the office for the remaining 3 weeks of school is better then dealing with suspensions. And if this is what has to happen short term, I would in no way relay to the child that he was sitting in the office as a form of punishment. I would let him have some activity to do (coloring, reading, laptop) while he is in the office too.

If it happens primarily on the playground, I'd also consider that others may be directly contributing to it. When a kid is oversensitive and prone to extreme reactions, then the fine young piranhas (aka age "peers") will pick up on trigger mechanisms and lay on. Extra trickier if the triggers as behaviors are not independently judged as being problem behaviors.

Thank you all for so many responses. I don't mind one bit the varying responses. It gives me many different things to consider.

Taking him out of school isn't an option since I am not a SAHM. Since everything yesterday I got hyperfocused and called nearly every Psychologist on our insurance. We do see a gifted psychologist but we pay out of pocket for her time.

I contacted a local gifted psychologist that was recommended on a CA gifted website. We conversed over the phone about my son's positives and negatives and the current situation. Set up a time to have a parent meeting and sent our Oct2012 eval over to her for review. I didn't realize she isn't a covered provider so I had to cancel my appointment. But she sent me the following email:

I let her know that he has not be on any medication since Nov2012 and have already contacted those she recommended. Alliant is very local to us and I'm waiting to hear back from them.

I did finally find a psychologist who takes our insurance and also does testing.
But it is a very far drive for us so we'll see what Alliant can do for us before I move forward with this second option.

As for his behavior; he and I had a lengthy talk about everything last night, which included talking about school. I started with having him talk about all the things that he liked at school. We sang the songs he's learned, heart words, etc. We started talking about the playground and what kind of games they play and who he plays with and who he likes and who he might not like. Eventually we got to it. He started to do the big crocodile tears and was almost hyperventilating type cry when he said to me "I just want [child] and [other child] to like me! Why don't they like me? I try to get them to play with me and they won't and that makes me mad."
Does that sound like the root of the problem to anyone else? It did to me. It triggered a huge emotional reaction and that is what our current gifted psych said to look for. So now I'm waiting on a call back from our current gifted psych to discuss this and try to come up with a way to work on these behaviors at school.

Forgive me if I didn't address everyone's question. I'm just giving an update and will go back and answer others in different posts.

Small update. I spoke to the Director at Alliant and their case manager is on mat leave and their assessment program is going on hiatus for the summer. She referred me to Dr. Timothy Gunn also (not knowing he had already been mentioned) and spoke with him personally about my son and said that he is anxious to talk to me and work with me. The down side is that Dr. Gunn, from what I can tell, does not accept my insurance. But she did mention to him that and he said he's work with us on cost. So I've already left him a message and hope to move forward with him and his practice on assessment testing and counseling.

So happy to hear you got an appt for the evaluation. Regarding your son's heartfelt reaction, I think he is in a catch 22 and unfortunately, I see it alot at school with students who have the same impulsive disruptive behavior.

A lot of times when they lash out and you take some time to get to the root of the matter it is because they actually want so and so to be their friend.

The catch 22 comes in when you realize that they really can't control the impulse to do almost anything to get those other kids to pay attention to them.

I don't do any type of special ed or aid work, I am simply a recess monitor who watches ALL the kids and hugs most of them once a day and listens to their woes.

So I can't give you any advice on what to do to make it better short term. I think the long term is going to lie in that psych evaluation, but for now, either you really have to be able to stress self control to him and trust that he will follow through or you have to remove him from the situation that provokes him because he probably very simply doesn't have the ability to stop it from escalating to the violent behavior.

You poor thing and your son. What happens in the school holidays for care? Is there anyone you know who would be prepared to pick him up at lunch and take him to eat at their house or the park for the last two weeks? Is there any way you could restructure your lunch break until the end of the year? Are there any kids at the school who have aides at breaks who would let your son hang out with them? (my son does this sometimes). Hope you sort it out. Keep us posted.

This certainly sounds like an excellent place to start.