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When do you intervene? Here is the backstory: We have a little boy who is 5 who I have to keep my eye on ALL THE TIME. He has asked kids to pull down their pants and I caught him telling one of the two year olds to pull his pants down and put the play shot thing "in his butt". Now, that could have meant to give a shot in the butt cheeks like a doctor does, but he chose to hide on the floor behind the table and chair set and tell her to lean down and hide with him. So now all the kids are trying to pull their pants down and shirts up to "play doctor". I do not want any parents to think anything is going on here, so I have told the kids to play doctor on the baby dolls only. There are two 2 year olds who insist on doing it on eachother, and no matter how many times they are made to sit out from an activity for not following the rules, they continue to do it. And if they are both here, that is ALL they want to do. I am not sure how to deal with it further. If I just let it go, off come their clothes. Any ideas?
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I beleive I would play doctor with them. Get down and pretend to give shots in the arm or take temps or count pulse. Make the better way to play seem alot more fun. If someone plays inapprioprately they would not be allowed to play with you. Since your are the coolest one to play with they would miss out. I would tell the parents they been trying to give each other a shot in the hinnie and I was trying to get them to stop. If that didn't work I would take all Doctor toys and put them up for a while and redirect them to a different type of play.
I had a boy once playing doctor with the baby dolls. He said "Hey E---, Lets stick these straws up our babies butts" I said "NO, we don't play like that!"
He said "FINE THEN, I JUST WON"T BE A BUTT DOCTOR!"Not Clueless anymore
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Doctor kits are a fun toy and you can model how they ARE allowed to play, and then address those that are breaking the rules. I have an almost 3 year old here that is very obsessed with pulling her shirt up/off and tries to make the other kids do that.....it did escalate further to comparing underwear and that type of thing. I just have to be on them all the time for awhile to stop the behavior.
HOWEVER, no one hides to do this, it is innocent play that needs to be stopped. I would be worried about an older child telling other kids to hide and play this type of thing with them. That would get a private discussion with both parents and I absolutely would not allow him to stay if it continues. We talk about privacy here, go to the bathroom one at a time, talk about what mom/dad/doctor can do or see that no one else should be doing or seeing.....having this boy teaching the other kids to the contrary is very dangerous in my opinion. And hiding it normally means that they do know it is wrong on some level.Comment
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I finally let the kids lie on the table in the play room. It's a hospital table... for some reason, that cut way down on the weirdness of it all, and they started to play more dramatically. They were less sneaky about it, and the storyline changed to things like "Save him!..he needs to be saved"Comment
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I agree with the pp'ers...either get down and play with them so they can see how to play properly ( 5 yo's will try to make little ones do anything for fun!!) OR take the Dr. gear away for awhile and get them interested in something else!Comment
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That is true. He is being sneaky for some reason and that could cause concern. And sneaking means they know they shouldn't do it.
That same little boy with "butt dr" incident used to try things like that. He would try to whisper things to the others and once tried to get a boy to pull his pants down. If I caught him being sneaky I would seperate him from. The other kids would always tell me if what ever he said. I always caught him because I never trusted him to get a bit out of my sight. His parent practiced permissive parenting and he could be just awful at times.Not Clueless anymoreComment
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I have modeled it. Time and time again. On eachother, on me, on baby dolls. It always reverts back to inappropriateness. I put the doctor stuff up, then they use the tools, the play silverware, whatever they can. It is so frustrating!
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Are things getting any better with this situation?Not Clueless anymoreComment
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