Incredibly bored 4 year old.

Dcully

Hi all,we are having trouble with our 4 year old son [5 in October] starting school in September.
The thing is he is incredibly bored where we live and as a result is constantly whinging and being unusually bold when boredom sets in.
He seems genuinely unhappy and it breaks our hearts.
We have a little girl 20 months old but little Sean doesnt seem keen to play with her at all,15 mins and he tired of her.
Recently it has got a lot worse ,so much so it is really stressing both myself and my wife.

The problem is we live in a quiet cul de sac which is lovely but too quiet for Sean.
There are no children near us at all.

There are only so many trips to swimming,park,playground,play centers we can do.
As i type he is having a major tantrum,almost gasping for breath.
He always wants to be visiting people,always asking where are we going today.
He goes to pre school 3 mornings a week but is not fond of it so increasing to 5 days is a no no.

He is a very clever child who always wants stimulation.
People cannot believe the conversations he does have,he is very intelligent.
Could this a cause?

We have bought him so many toys and games [almost a new item every week] that we are running out of room for them.
We are constantly doing activities,jigsaw,games,stories,tv,kids websites cbbc etc,outdoor stuff when we can [weather permitting]

At this stage we are running out of ideas,he is a very good child but when boredom sets in he gets so frustrated he turns into a monster.

Its got to the stage where i even for a few moments contemplated moving into an estate in a sem D or something, not that theres ia anything wrong with a Semi D or estate,its just we are used to ebing detatched and in a quiet cul de sac.

When i mention this to friends,childs grand parents they all think i am mad.
I probably am but they are not exposed to what my wife an I are.

Any idvice appreciated please.

undecided

I have a little fella the same age as yours. I also have an older child going into 2nd class. With both they would get very naughty when bored also. can you blame them they are full of energy and no outlet!

The older one seemed to settle alot more when starting school ie longer attention spans and started amusing herself more and more imaginitive play!

As for my little man he has nobody to play with locally either. I Used to stay outside to play ball, catch etc for maybe 2 hrs each day which helped a little what I do know is bring him to play with a child his own age at the bottom of our estate for hour or so each day. This seemed to do the trick.

Maybe you could arrange playtime with a child his age outside it's time consuming but worth a go. And Come sept. it should start to work out!

Hths!

dame

My first thoughts on reading your post were that the child has too much. He is so used to being brought places and given new toys that he doesn't appreciate what he already has and more importantly has never learnt how to occupy himself and think up his own games. He depends on his parents to constantly give him attention and do things with him. He doesn't use his own imagination much.

My second thoughts are that he may be insecure or jealous of his little sister. Do his tantrums coincide with the times when she is receiving attention or cuddles?

How do you handle his tantrums? Do you give in every time one starts and take him to a new activity, give him what he wants or buy him something new? Is it simply that he is used to getting what he wants by screaming so he has never learned how to control himself and discuss things?

I think you need to work on how you deal with his tantrums. You also need to make sure that his little sister gets all the attention she needs and is not sidelined by her elder brother's behaviour and demands. Other's may have different views but I think increasing the time he spends at pre-school could be good for him before he goes to school. Why is it that he doesn't like going? Is it because he has to share, compromise and doesn't always get what he wants from the adults there? Maybe he feels as though he doesn't really belong there and maybe a bit left out by missing some days and the activities they do on those days (especially if he's hearing about them the day before or the day after). He will have to learn to go to the same place every day, stay put and do what he's asked come september so helping him get used to that with a few extra hours at pre-school may help him settle. You could also invite some of the other kids at the pre-school to visit and play with him in the afternoons. Who knows, they may be in school together in september and having a friend he plays with already might be nice for him.

BoozyBabe

dame wrote:

My first thoughts on reading your post were that the child has too much. He is so used to being brought places and given new toys that he doesn't appreciate what he already has and more importantly has never learnt how to occupy himself and think up his own games. He depends on his parents to constantly give him attention and do things with him. He doesn't use his own imagination much.

My second thoughts are that he may be insecure or jealous of his little sister. Do his tantrums coincide with the times when she is receiving attention or cuddles?

How do you handle his tantrums? Do you give in every time one starts and take him to a new activity, give him what he wants or buy him something new? Is it simply that he is used to getting what he wants by screaming so he has never learned how to control himself and discuss things?

My thoughts exactly!!!!

mountainyman

You could get a dog, good companion for a 4 year old.

MM

Nevyn

While you are doing the right things in interacting with him can be play by himself at all ?

Can he colour in by himself or play out in the garden by himself or play withhis toys by himself ( and I don't mean pc/console games ) ?

IF he is used to such constant interaction and stimulation it can be come a problem when he starts prechool and school.

He is 4 he is old enough to start helping out in the house, to play at washing the dishes or putting the knifes and forks in the drawer or to learn the fun of dusting.

He needs to learn quiet time and to enterain himself.

NextSteps

How about teaching him to read? He sounds bright.

neacy69

get him a playstation/WII/xbox ....problem solved!

Nevyn

Taht would not solve the problem of his behaviour when he does not get what he wants.

dame

UB wrote:

How about teaching him to read? He sounds bright.

Bad idea, he'll be spending junior infants learning the basics anyway. The teacher will do everything step by step and correctly. There's no point in a parent doing a half-arsed job of it and then having a child going to school with bad habits or wrong notions and getting bored and disruptive while the class are taught properly.

Any child who has spent most of their time with adults will sound bright, mainly because they will have older turns of phrases etc. that they are repeating.

If the parents are spending so much time taking him to places, I would say that they would take the time to teach him properly to read. No doubt they could get a simple starter book or some such. I'd second the idea.

dame

Whether they do teach him properly or not doesn't alter the fact that he'll have to sit through it anyway when he starts school. There is no way the school will let him skip junior infants! If he acts as badly he does now when he's bored, what will it be like when he's bored learning his alphabet and looking at flash cards?? I wouldn't like to have my child sharing a classroom with a child who would be disrupting things and taking up the teachers time trying to calm him down or keep him occupied separately to the rest. Teaching him to read now is just a non-runner. It does nothing for the underlying problem and will only lead to further times when he is bored down the line, in a setting where it will really matter.

If you really want to teach him something, teach him how to play properly with something like Lego, without giving up and having a tantrum.

When he learns to read, he can learn to sit quietly with a book. If he really is clever and needing stimulation like his parents say, then there's nothing better than stimulating his mind properly. And even if he is disruptive now, refusing to teach him something like reading just because he might continue to be disruptive is a bit much.
Sure, check out the whole attention thing and have more hours at preschool with friends. But there's absolutely no reason why he shouldn't learn how already. And if he does know it in JI, I'm sure they'll let him read if he already knows what's going on. And it is possible to skip JI, though at this stage it's a little late for him I think.

dame

Reading isn't the only possible form of stimulation for a child's brain. The problem is that he currently can't occupy himself and stick at an activity. What makes you think reading would be any different? Why wouldn't learning to build all sorts of different objects with Lego or doing art & craft type things help in the same way (without the drawbacks when he goes to school)?

Why would you want a child to be starting school and being set apart from his peers from the start by being left to sit and read by himself (assuming that he would sit and read by himself) while the others interact with the teacher?

I knew how to read when I started school so I do know what I'm talking about. I sat there bored silly looking at flash cards of the alphabet and simple words over and over. This is what will happen because the teacher will not want one child doing different activities or the rest will lose interest in working. I was so bored that I occasionally pretended I didn't know things just to keep the teacher's attention and be asked another couple of questions.

dame

dame wrote:

Reading isn't the only possible form of stimulation for a child's brain. The problem is that he currently can't occupy himself and stick at an activity. What makes you think reading would be any different? Why wouldn't learning to build all sorts of different objects with Lego or doing art & craft type things help in the same way (without the drawbacks when he goes to school)?

I did say that dealing with attention span should be involved too. Reading probably requires a bit more effort and mental stimulation than lego so if that's the problem, reading would solve it. I know when I was 4 I'd rather have stuck my head in a book
And if it's not the case, well then, reading early certainly can't hurt anyway

I knew how to read when I started school so I do know what I'm talking about. I sat there bored silly looking at flash cards of the alphabet and simple words over and over. This is what will happen because the teacher will not want one child doing different activities or the rest will lose interest in working. I was so bored that I occasionally pretended I didn't know things just to keep the teacher's attention and be asked another couple of questions.

I also knew how to read and do most of the maths of the first few years of the school when I started, so I was skipped ahead. Children who could read but weren't sent ahead were given a little extra to do and weren't lacking for interaction from the teacher nor friends.

Perhaps you're so set against it because it worked badly for you and I'm so for it because it worked very well for me. But teaching a child to read before school doesn't have to lead to all sorts of issues
though it's been a while since I've seen a class taught, perhaps they do it differently these days

Nevyn

Lego and drawing and colouring and cutting and pasting all work on the fine motor skills children need to develope so that they can write.

I know that when both of mine were due to start school the school sent home a starting school pack which had pages to colour in about school and kids siccors and a how guide for the parents about how to ease your child into the idea of school and how to prepare them.

At 4 he should be able to sit quietly and do a jigsaw by himself with a little supervision and interaction ie while a parent is folding laundry and pre occupied with other chores.

Victor

Is he getting enough exercise? An exhausted child doesn't complain quite as much.

While he is probably a bit young, today I saw a bunch of 5-8 year olds with rollerblades racing about and living it up.

gaeilgegrinds

I wouldn't recommend teaching him to read, what about to cycle, swim, do the garden with him? Paint? Walks to parks?

pubpub

Some ideas to keep him occupied:-

An egg hunt type game - you might hide coloured blocks or pegs around house and garden and tell him how many he has to get.

If you google "free printables" there are some fantastic educational word puzzles and easy math problems you can get. My favourite is http://www.abcteach.com/ and you can get easy sudoko puzzles etc.

Give him little jobs around the house - matching socks from the laundry.

Arts and crafts as previous post mentioned - paint the cylinder shape pasta shells is it the Penne type and give string to lace through to make mummy or granny necklace.


a big cardboard box - put it outside and give him poster paints and let him make a mess and have fun.

Big Chalk to draw on concret or old garage wall.

I grew up in a rural area and had no one to play with but didn't do me any harm - I had to use the imagination - which I think kids don't know how to do these days, I wouldn't be buying new toys and this causes a problem of not being able think up their own games.

Nasty_Girl

How about a musical instrument, like a little keyboard or something?

But I don't think you should be buying him new toys every week either, he'll just always want and expect something new!!

Maybe the constant asking to go places and see people is his way of being in control?

What activities does he enjoy?
Do you know why he doesn't like the play school? What does he say about it?