So, my son is “that kid” in class now. His school has already put the label “bully” on him and told me that they have a zero tolerance for bullying. But I don’t think he is. I feel like he’s in a rough patch and the more attention he gets about it, the more it is happening. I need help. He is my guinea pig kid and I’ve never been in this place before of having my kid be the trouble maker.
School has been in session about a month. The second day of school he pulled the fire alarm, making teachers scramble, kids panic, the whole nine yards. He has brought home writeups for stepping on other kids’ feet, pushing, rough housing. He has laughed when the teacher told him to do something. He innocently called a boy with disabilities a “weirdo” when he saw him licking the door handle. In his defense, we call each other weirdo at home all the time, so I don’t think he meant anything by it. He asked, “what are you doing, weirdo?” Last week I got a call from the principal and she said that Conor was going to eat lunch with her for a few days because he hurt a girl on the playground. He was playing ‘Pachycephalosaurs’ and rammed a girl with his head. He was just trying to play dinosaurs with a group of kids, but she fell and hit her head on the cement slab on the playground. She got a goose egg but is otherwise okay. Friday of last week he pulled his pants down on the bus and was showing his butt off with a ‘butt dance’, I believe he called it. Then yesterday he got in trouble for saying “shit” to another little kid. Overall, he says he is bored in class. He is doing the same things that he did in preschool and it’s too easy.
I have tried everything. He is seeing the school counselor twice a week to talk about proper behavior and safe touch with friends. We have taken away his favorite toys, kept him from visiting his grandma, given him timeouts, had lengthy conversations about how to behave, everything else under the sun that I could think of.
The problem that I see with all of it, is that the boy he is acting like lately is not like Conor at all. He’s sweet boy, compassionate, a lover, snuggle expert. A boy who asks if he can rub my shoulders, wants to sneak into bed to keep me warm when Matt leaves for work.
I don’t know how to help him. There’s no trouble at home that would make him act out. He gets as much food as he can eat. He gets exercise. He has friends. He has lots of loving family around him all the time.
He says he doesn’t like his teacher. He doesn’t like his school. He must wait too much for things all day at school. He wants a new school. He wants his old school. The problem is that the alternative school for our bus route adds 40 minutes on the bus. He likes his speech therapist at his school. And his old school is just for preschoolers. He’s in Kindergarten. And I like his teacher. She communicates well with me.
I don’t know what to do. I want him to have a good and happy school experience and so far, he is not. I don’t know if I’m just overthinking all of this or if he is just going through a phase. I just don’t want my son to turn into a bully because he doesn’t understand how his actions affect other people. I want to stop this behavior, but I feel like I’ve done everything I can so far. Sometimes life gets crazy. I don’t want him to feel lost in the shuffle.
