Looking for Advice with 5 Year Old Son Behavior/inappropriate Words

Nix the 5th grade friendship. The 5th grader will find other more appropriate friends.

Call the school/bus company and have your child sit in an assigned seat. Follow up with this.

Enroll your child in martial arts. Talk to the director of the program to make sure s/he understands what your child needs and is willing to work on this with him.

Seek therapy outside of school services. School settings sometimes put restraints on treatment goals.

Model the anger management, language, and problem solving skills that you want your son to use at home. If this is a struggle, seek out a family therapist.

Your son is 5 years old. So - he should not be spending too much time with 5th graders, and, you should DEFINITELY be intervening.

A phone call to the mother or legal guardians of the 5th grader is in order, right away!! Make sure they are aware of your perception and feelings about the situation. (Try to catch them at a time when they are not "drunk" - that word seems unusual to me for a young child's vocabulary, makes me wonder what is going on at home.)

Your son is too young to "control" his own friendships and external influences. He is at the age where your intervention is needed.

i'm glad you're working on educating yourself about high-spirited kids and how to parent them.
i hope they include some instruction on how not to be helpless in the face of the world.
if you don't feel your kid should be 'hanging around' with older kids, put a stop to it.
i myself feel that age segregation is entirely artificial and that all kids benefit from exposure to humans of all ages, but whatever floats your boat.
but it's not the 5th grader who is ruining your child.
no one has forced you to make helpless wimpy excuses to this little boy.
you are an adult and fully capable of saying firmly, 'i'm sorry, benedict won't be playing with you (today, this week, any more)' and closing the door.
you are also fully capable of saying with equal firmness to your own child, 'that language is not acceptable in this family. you may not stay in the room with the rest of us if you're going to talk like that. go to your room and think about that.'
have standards.
have a firm no.
use them liberally.
khairete
S.

For starters, I'd be saying to the fifth grade boy that there is no spitting or using words like "stupid" or "drunk" in your house or on your property. Let him know that it's not just because your son is 5, but because you don't allow that talk from anyone. Don't leave them alone together - and you say you are not, which is great. You want to be within earshot to hear what it said and within eyesight to see what is done. The older boy may be enjoying the excessive adoration of a young child, and your son may be enjoying the attention of an older boy who is teaching him the "ways of the world." I would tell the older boy that, if he does it again, he will be going home. Immediately. Then follow through, and don't give a lot of extra chances. One warning, then sent home on the second offense. I wouldn't involve the other boy's parents at this point - you are the one who controls your own home. It's up to them to discipline him and figure out why he's home all the time after school instead of being in your yard.

It's okay to suggest alternative wording, such as "I disagree with my teacher" instead of "My teacher is stupid." My suspicion is that the excitement of saying such things will wear off quickly.

If he defies you in any way, let him know that you will be speaking to the bus driver and stopping the sit-up-front pattern that has gone on so far. There's a reason why the big kids are segregated and the little kids are up front near the driver. All you have to do is tell the driver that there is inappropriate behavior and you do not want this boy sitting with your son. Follow through with the bus transit coordinator if you have to. In writing.

It's really important not to allow the "boys will be boys" attitude to take root, and it's much harder as the kids get older.

Do set up more play dates - every few weeks is not enough. Find some other activities to do outside the neighborhood if there are no kids his age nearby. Is there a park or playground where other kids go?

Good luck.

Your post is like time traveling. this sounds very typical for this age. and you clearly love him dearly.

however, undesirable behavior should not be tolerated. From an emotional perspective, try to empathize. Such as "I know you must feel frustrated." Then guide his behavior. "when I feel frustrated I have to stop what I'm doing and take a big breath." then show him how to do that. If the bad behavior continues you need to establish a discipline routine. Time outs worked great for my DS at that age.

Clearly establish your expectations and when he violates a rule, you can even write them down and post them, then you tell him he broke a rule and then the consequence occurs. After the consequence is completed explain to him again why it occurred. I know this seems repetitive but repetition breeds learning and teaching him and guiding him are your jobs. make sure you and your husband are as consistent as possible, as boys that age live to work the two of you against each other.

Children absolutely need boundaries and consistency in order to predict their worlds and feel safe within them.

the other Godsend for us at that age was the book Parenting with Love and Logic by Foster Cline. It was practically our bible during this phase.

And I agree about ending the 5th grade friendship.

Try to enjoy him. He'll make it through this phase with your love and support.

I, too, would be very wary of an older kid who seems to single out and pay a lot of attention to someone so young. This is atypical for fifth graders. Most (not all) kids in third/fourth/fifth generally look down upon the younger kids and work socially to separate themselves from that group, not to join them publicly. (I'm not talking about older kids who are friendly to young kids, which is great, but this child in particular raises some red flags for me.)

Do try to find peer playmates.
Now, regarding "Can't you see I'm using that?"--when it's not an insult, I'd let it go. I can understand that kids get frustrated in a K classroom. I've volunteered in one many times and used to teach preschool. That isn't outlier behavior by any means; fairly common. Kids in a classroom elbow to elbow with each other all day aren't necessarily going to mind their Ps and Qs, as it were. That said, I'd address the name-calling aspect of some of the comments. Name calling at home means being sent to ones room until you are ready to come out and make amends with the person you have insulted. Give him simple, attainable goals for this. An idea could be a goals chart, where every successful day earns a sticker; after 5 stickers, he gets to go on a 'date' with either you or dad to get a little snack or do something fun. Keep it easy, keep it attainable within a short time. The psychologist we have seen for our son (different challenges pertaining to attention) suggested that the incentives be 'something which will motivate, but if lost, will not devastate'. We must take care of the child's whole being, and keeping things positive (like not removing the chance to do better tomorrow) will help. Each day shows him that he can be competent and can master himself-- off days will be a small setback, not a 'start all over again' situation.

My guess, too, is that he gets very frustrated with himself as well. Maybe he's a bit of a perfectionist? If you can work on teaching him how to be gracious with himself (this is something we are working on in our home with our nine year old), he's more likely to learn how to be more understanding of others and their shortcomings.

I just wanted to say that 5.5 year olds are all super emotional! They have this scream that starts before their 5th bday, I swear. Easy to frustration and difficulty controlling big emotions is a defining characteristic to me of the 5-7 crowd. It gets really bad around 6.5, but you see glimpses of it at 5.5. Luckily, around 7 they settle down and can usually calm themselves down (most of the time).

I say all of this because many kids your son's age are explosive. It's normal.

Sorry but a 5th grader coming around to play with a kindergartner is just weird.
He needs friends his own age - same goes for the 5th grader.
Our son wasn't ready for taekwondo till he was in 2nd grade, but some do start quite a bit younger.
It helps them burn off energy, they often work with older kids - who are respectful and are pretty good influences - I've seen it work wonders for some kids.

I have a comment about the 5th grader. Keep in mind that it's ok to tell him the rules of your house. It's ok to say "Hey, we don't say XXX in our house" when he says something is stupid, or "We don't spit here." If the opportunity comes up, you could even say to him in a conspiratorial way - "You know, since you are older than my son, he looks up to you. That's a big responsibility, and so you need to be a good example when you play with him." You could sort-of get him on your side this way, showing him how to play somewhat of a big brother role to your son.

As for the rules issue with your son - I have that conversation with my kids straight up and often. For example, if we get to the playground and see kids doing something that I would not be ok with, I tell them directly "I know kids here are doing/saying XYZ. I'm not their mom and I don't make their rules. But I am your mom and that means I make your rules. Please remember that you are not allowed to do that. It's not safe/kind/whatever."

And I don't tolerate "but he was doing it" excuses. If your child has been told that particular words/actions are not OK, then the next time it happens, he gets whatever consequence you use in your house (sent to room, loss of privledges, etc). If that means that a playdate ends in the middle, with the friend getting sent home when the kid gets sent to his room, so be it.

ETA: I don't get the resistance to the 5th and K kids playing together. My 5th grader plays with his 1st grade brother all the time. Yes, they are brothers. But the point is that they still have plenty of interests in common. And playing with a younger kid sometimes gives they older kid an excuse to play those games that he still likes, but can't admit to enjoying now that he's supposed to be 'cool'. It can be a really nice break from peer pressure for the older kid, and as long as the older kid is a nice kid, he can be a good role model. You just need to kindly let the older kid know what your rules are so that he can be the right kind of role model.

You need to realize many Kindergartens have older sibling and hear these words/actions. You are 'lucky' you can send the 5th grader away since he is not your child.

Talk to the boy's parent if he is bothering you that much. You are not his babysitter and I'm not sure why he is not playing with other 5th graders. I can see why your son want to play with him though.

Not sure what you can do about the bus. Most parents who are unhappy with the bus (or certain kids on the bus) drive the child to school for a couple of weeks, hoping this will help break any friendships up.

My kids have a large age range so younger kids hang out with teens around here, and when everyone has friends over, it's quite normal for them all to play outside together.

We just have house rules. No lingo or slang that would be inappropriate for small kids to hear. Even just expressions - there's some I don't really want my kids' little friends to go home and repeat. Older kids get this - just make it clear.

If you don't want them to hang out as much, it's fine to just say "not today". I say it to my kid, who then says it to the friend. I got them used to doing that early on.

Even if nothing is going on at our house, some days I don't feel like overseeing children, my kids are ok with it.

Some young kids really look up to older ones. I find the more friends they have of their own age though, the more they will want to play with those ones. So I think you're doing right thing - just have his little friend over. They'll likely have fun, and encourage that :)