Advice needed ladies and Gents!

[vickieford85]

Well I have a 5 year old I have looked after now for 6 months, this child is a lot of hard work. Harder work than my 1 year old child and trust me its not easily done.

Everything was ok until lunchtime today when my own 5 year old son came and told me this child had wet themself.

I have thought for a long time that they maybe something wrong with this child but having no experience in behaviour problems I have no idea where to start looking.

This child is

Very loud
Doesn't listen
Has very little consentration
No sense of danger
Extermely emontial
(this one will sound strange) eats wierdly, eats the smallest amount of a fork possible taking forever to eat a plate of food, even though insisting they enjoy it.
Finds it difficult to interact with the same age group for periods of time say more than 5/10mins.
Short attention span
Easily distracted
Little to no fine and gross motor skills
Forgetful

I have spoken to school and mother, the teachers are contradicng and the mother also claims the child is hard work but I don't think she will do anything about the situation.

I only have this child afternoon in term time and the 2.5 hours is fine and managable, in the holidays its a nightmare and I countdown mentally till its hometime.

This child can be lovely in small doses, is there anyone who has any ideas what it could be. Maybe its just me, I don't know however I am consideriding terminating the contract but I don't think it's fair on the child.

Some help please

[miffy]

In order for things to change you need to be able to work with mum and decide a common approach - if you don't think that mum will do this then you need to decide if it's worth you carrying on.

It's hard to know from just one post but is a lot of his behaviour just attention-seeking or do you think there are other things that haven't been investigated yet?

Miffy xx

[vickieford85]

I don't know if it is attention seeking because if my son hadn't told me the child had wet themselves then I think I would never have found out.

[Pedagog]

I think we have the same child, I have a 5 year old just like this that I look after.

[loocyloo]

my DD is 5, she will eat a meal one grain of rice at a time should the mood take her ! she is always very slow at eating anything, unless it is sweets!

this 5 yr old sounds quite immature to me, is he 'babied' at home? i had once had one that couldn't do anything for himself, couldn't play by himself or others without an adults attention. turned out mum never left his side at home (and was easliy distracted as mum never encouraged him to do anything for more than 2 seconds). he had been at day nursery before starting school and coming to me. i never found out what he had been like at nursery, but he was the same at school, unless one on one with the teacher.

good luck

[ourmadhouse]

maybe its the age as i also have one too !!!

[SandCastles]

I had one too, who is now 6 and mum recently told me that he woke up one morning a different boy and that he suddenly changed all his weird behaviour.. I don't look after him any longer so cannot confirm, but he was very mothered and was attention seeking, wetting himself and screaming that he cannot use my toilet as it scares him. Drama Queen (springs to mind), I was very firm with him and ignored the bad and praised the good behaviour. Maybe yours will grown out of it as well.

[mushpea]

I look after a 6.5yrod whose going in to year 2 a bit like this,,, I decided this week it is attention seeking partly and partly that because he is slow and awkard things are done for him at home as its quicker. I have had him for over a year and him and my son will get on lovley some times then other times he will wind my son up then my son will lash out and fights errupt,, this week my two went to my mums for a holiday, they came back yesterday, all week the 6ryold has been nothing but a pain,, just silly little things, like not listning, constantly interupting, not doing as he's told,, all the things he normaly does but 10 times worse,, soon as my son comes back from hols he's off playing happily with him, i think he was bored without my son there to play with.
Anyway he is many things on your list too,, I also find that when he isnt on the wii or ds he dosent know how to play with toys verywell and will just sit there staring in to space looking very bored,, he also has trouble putting things like a jumper the right way round and really struggles with sissors,, again because he has had stuff done for him both at home and at school.
it is probably worth asking mum to talk to the doctor about his 'behaviour' and getting it checked out,, you can tell her its just to rule out anything being a problem then go from there,, i would also note down the above in his file and also note down that you suggested she go to the doctor with him.