I am a full time nanny to three very loving boys. The oldest is 4 and goes to preschool 3 days a week. He is usually loving giving me lots of hugs and kisses and begging me to live with him. But the last couple of days every time i have put him in time out he has started hitting and yelling, " I don't like you! I wish you didn't come over any more !" I know it's fairly normal for kids to say things like this but it still makes my heart hurt. I have been ignoring those comments but i was wondering if anyone else had this happen to them and what they did to combat it.
a follow up question i had for the nanny was - what does her charge do to get the time out and the answer was " Just generally not listening and even hurting his younger brothers"
ReplyDeleteEh, normal. I'm not being mean, but kids this age are experimenting with words and what us ok to say and what kind of reaction they can get, and it shouldn't be that big of a deal to you. The less drama you create over it (looking hurt sad, etc) the sooner it will pass
ReplyDeleteHave there been any other changes at home, i.e. a parent away on travel, etc? I had a previous family where the kids were the same way - loving and crawling all over me all of the time. The dad did a lot of traveling and it was tough on the kids. Then they all went to Disney World for a week and a half and when they came back and things went back to normal (dad went back to traveling), the 3.5 year old lost his mind. And since I spent 11 hour days with him, guess who got the brunt of the "I hate you, Go away!". I didn't take it personally, because I knew it wasn't me he was angry at. When little kids start to have big emotions, it's hard for them to process and express appropriately, and that's normal and okay.
ReplyDeleteThat being said "not listening" generally isn't a great reason for a time-out unless it's tied to a safety issue (i.e., told multiple times to stop doing something dangerous), though a loss of another privilege might be appropriate. However, hurting another person is an automatic time-out in my book.
I think it's a fairly normal behavior at that age. The child is testing your boundaries. The best way to deal with it, I think, is to ignore it. Or say "Ok, I love you"
ReplyDeleteI've had a 3 year old scream at the top of his lungs for no reason and I simply addressed it as " Oh, you have a lovely voice, can you do it again?", after few times he started to say "No, it's bad. Shouting is bad", and within 2 weeks he stopped doing it. Just don't overreact. Kids are kids, they love you!
If a kid who can talk has never said "I don't like you" you're doing it wrong. This is just code for "I don't like having consequences when I misbehave!" If you continue to take it personally you may be in the wrong line of work, because this is pretty standard. What I usually say in response to "I don't like you" is something like "that's cool. I like me enough for both of us." They usually don't know what to do with that, realizing their guilt trip has failed lol.
ReplyDeleteI would just let it go. I've had a six-year-old tell me that he's going to have his parents fire me. I had asked him to clean his room (per MB's request) on a snow day.
ReplyDeleteMB had a long conversation with him at the end of the day, telling him his words were hurtful and that I might not want to be his nanny anymore if he didn't treat me respectfully. He cried and was very upset at the idea that I might leave to work with another family.
Your charge probably loves you too and is just trying to guilt you into letting her do whatever she wants.
he* I realized your charge is a boy.
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