What affects a 3 year olds behaviour??



Grumpy BoyG!!



We have had a few behavioural issues with BoyG. Mostly since BabyG was born so at first we put it down to jealousy. BabyG is now 11 weeks old and it had started to get worse instead of better. The main thing was that he was just not listening to what I said to him. As it was getting to the point where I was close to tears, DaddyG and I decided something needed to be done!!

We have put some things in place already but we are still open to try even more.

So far this is what we have tried...

Roaring - BoyG likes to roar at people! Its very frustrating. No one likes it. I hate it! He seems to do it for attention so at the moment we are trying to ignore it. It seems to be working as he is doing it much less than before.

Reward chart - We now have a sticker chart. I just drew a chart on some A3 paper and he gets a sticker if he is a good boy. There are two columns; morning and afternoon. So he can get up to 14 stickers in a week. If he gets at least 10 then he can have a special treat the following week. A favourite for him is to go to a play area with his friends. If he gets all 14 he will get an extra treat.

Television - We realised we had the tv on far too much. We now limit it. We have it turned off most of the day. BoyG gets to watch a little in the morning, and maybe after lunch and then after tea if he has been good. This seems to be working well. When he does have it turned on now, it is more of a distraction than before. And he plays with his toys a lot more now that there is no telly to laze around infront of.

Sweets and treats - Originally I took these away as I thought 'he's misbehaving so he shouldn't be rewarded with sweets and biscuits'. When BoyG had been very good for a couple of days, we let him have a biscuit as a reward. Literally as soon as he had finished the biscuit, his behaviour changed. It was like having another child instead of BoyG!! He was rude, hyper, and stopped listening again!!

With this in mind, I went and bought some healthy fruit treats with no added colours or flavours. And for biscuits we got some rich tea biscuits. I got some PomBear crisps as I believe them to be better, and so far they seem to be fine for him.

All of this seems to be doing wonders for BoyG. He is much calmer (most of the time!) and actually seems happier. Also, because I have to shout a lot less, he has a lot more cuddles for me. All in all its win win!!