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Personal space?
When should a child know better then to always invade someone else's personal space. I have a 4yo dcg that is always in everyone else's space no matter how many times I remind her she is right in the other children's faces, hands all over them even when thy ask her to stop. I am excepting to much? Is expecting her to be able to keep her hands off her friends unreasonable for her age? Today is the worst yet and it's driving me insane. It's been constant since 7:30 this morning. I've taken her away from the group a few times because it's just been to much.
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Use a hula hoop to teach her about personal space.
One she understands then you can set up a consequence for it. -
I do units on things like this. We get hula hoops out for each child.
Each child then plays within their space (hula hoop). We talk about how others are not allowed to enter the other person's space unless invited or asked. Each person has a right to have that amount of personal space without feeling like the other kids can be closer to them than the hula hoop allows.
The hula hoop is used as a visual so the kids understand how much space is enough personal space.
Once the child understands the "invisible" amount of personal space everyone is entitled to, I will have a natural consequence for them if they don't respect that space. For ex, if the kids are playing blocks and DCG continually enters other children's personal space, then she is removed from the group and not allowed to play with the others.
Each new activity is an opportunity for the child to re-enter the group and demonstrate that she understands and respects personal space.
Rinse and repeat until she clearly knows boundaries. At 4, she is MORE than old enough.
HTH
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Thank you I might have to try that. This specific child has a lot of issues this is just the top of the iceberg
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You could also give a hula hoop to her only and explain to her that she is to play within her boundaries only. (when doing that with one child, I try to use the bigger hula hoops)
Sometimes addressing the issue with only one child is easier than addressing all of them. Especially if the others have no issue with this concept.
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I have used a hoola hoop to reinforce personal bubble. It works about half the time. I have had quite a few "personal space" challenged kids here. They tend to be the "low impulse control" and "attention span" challenged as well.
My own almost 5yo is absolutely the worst about it. 100% of the time he has to be too close, touching, or in someone's face. He is loud, too. And he has all the above challenges, too.
With ds & one other dcb(years ago) I had...punishing/micromanaging made it 1000x worse. It turned my normally sweet boys into ---well---mean little jerks, hitting, shoving, and genuinely didn't understand they were sabotoginf ever single fun thing. They were sad and angry all the time, and gave up trying to control themselves at all. Why try? They were in trouble all the time.
So I backed off, only corrected the "big issues", and let everything else be. I directled play more, set up play spaces just for him (a favorite set of toys). It seems like catering to them, but really it was the opposite...it was giving him a chance to succeed.
Now, my ds's preK teacher had the same issues, with same results. Last year at school she made an effort to get him to maintain personal space. He ended up hating school within a month and had worse and worse behaviors. Now, we are setting up an eval at our dr group's ADHD clinic. We will see what kind if supports we can put into place to help him out.
Just to be clear...most of the time personal space can be taught within a reasonable time frame and without big drama.Comment
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