Hellobee Boards

We went through something similar with our older son. A lot of times we had to have a sit down and explain to him why the behavior was wrong, and then remove privileges.

I got quite a few negative reports last year from preK (sadly, there was no “bad influence” friend to blame...). We had a sticker chart going for good behavior and I started giving her a sticker for the days when her teachers said she had a good day. I have never taken stickers away because it feels too unfair, like @erinbaderin: said, although I have taken away the prize she previously earned from another chart so who knows if it’s any different. Boundary pushing is normal. My kid definitely took it past “normal” so if I freaked out every time I got a negative report I would have lost my mind. So clearly I don’t know what is the best action since I dealt with it all year...

I would take a similar approach to @chuckles.

Additionally, I have already talked to DD (also 4.5) a few times about making good decisions even if someone else isn’t, and friend choices. It broke my heart to see her copying another girl who was bossing her around at soccer practice and roping her into doing something unrelated to what the rest of the kids were doing. When we got home I didn’t even talk about the “bad behavior” (that was on the coaches to address), but rather about how that little girl made her feel, and how it would make her feel good to hang out with kids who were being nicer. This has come up a few times at school too and i usually try to talk about the bossy/mean kid in terms of them having a hard time (rather than saying they’re bossy/mean) and how she can navigate that (help them, tell them how it hurts her feelings, walk away). This has worked for us thus far, and when she’s told me about doing this we have walked through it afterwards—what the kid was doing, how it made her feel, how she reacted, how that made her feel (and after I observed her choosing to participate at soccer instead of do what the bossy girl was doing, I just said it looked like she had so much fun today and I was proud of how well she did something like kick the ball, IDK). I think 4.5 is way too young to give consequences hours later for basically copying someone they see as “the cool kid” because they probably don’t know what they did was bad, especially if someone else was also doing that thing. That being said when I make what I think is a parenting mistake in how I react to/deal with a situation (like yelling; also not saying what you did is a mistake but just so she’s not confused if you decide it was too harsh), I think 4.5 is old enough to talk about that so I will tell DD that I realize I made a bad decision, and does she agree that it would be more helpful if I did X next time. Your DD might be able to tell you the same: she didn’t know the other girls behavior was bad, or she wanted to be her friend, or something else and then you can talk about why that wasn’t the right choice and how to navigate it next time.

We used to take away DS's tablet in the evenings for reports of bad behavior at school. We did get a report one day that DS was unkind for laughing when someone passed gas (and when he was home, he told us the person who passed gas was his teacher!). I had a hard time taking a hard line on disciplining when I didn't necessarily fault a 4 year old boy for giggling when he heard that so we kind of struggled with how strictly to discipline until he moved out of that teacher's classroom.

One approach that DS's summer camp program is currently using now is a poster board with colors and categories like "Excellent Job", "Need to Think About My Actions", etc. all the way down to something designating bad behavior. Each kid has a clothes pin with their name on it and as their behavior improves or worsens throughout the day, their clothespin moves. Maybe you could implement something like that at home so that if you get a bad report, she moves down and some negative consequence happens when it gets all the way down but it also gives her a little time to improve her behavior the next day. Just a thought.

My oldest just turned 5, but last year she only had a handful of "bad reports" in the whole year. Each time, I would just ask what happened (i was getting everything second hand--from the teacher to my after school sitter, to me), then ask DD about the situation, and maybe talk about it a little and that's it.

In our case, it was a combination of things--the bad reports were always from the Teacher's assistant, not the head teacher. And the TA is also "dramatic" as you say. TAs don't have any formal training or degrees in early childhood development and I sometimes felt like her expectations for 4 year olds were unrealistic. So like one day the report was the DD got her recess taken away because she didn't line up right away the day before. I asked if this is an ongoing issue with DD, like if she's never lining up when asked or if this was a 1st time offense. It was the first time. This was like 7 months into the school year and I feel like it was over the top to make her sit out of recess because ONE TIME she didn't line up immediately after recess. So I just told DD to try to listen the first time and line up when asked, but I also told her no one is perfect and all we can do it try the best we can, because I felt like her school punishment was already over the top. All the complaints were from the TA, never form the head teacher, and every time I talked to the head teacher directly, she said the TA is very sensitive to kids "obeying" and assured me that DD is generally super well behaved and totally typical for her age in terms of following directions.

At my daugher's dance class, There are some kids who have a really hard time paying attention and will often kind of ignore the teacher and be doing their own thing. If I notice DD getting distracted with those girls, I've been known to crack open the door and give her a look and tell her to focus. I want Dance to be fun, but I also want her to be respectful to her teacher that's trying really hard to keep their attention, so like running the opposite direction from the teacher isn't cool.