Temper Issues with 5 Year Old

Boys especially express their frustration with physical emotions moreso then actual words. My daughter last year in Kindergarten was super hard on herself and got easily frustrated. I explained that I only want her to "try" and I don't expect her to be perfect or always get it right. Take the pressure of of him. 20 minutes to sit and read is a long time for a 5 year old boy even. I mean maybe shift to a easy read more fun book at his choosing first. My biggest piece of advice instead of "giving him anything" try a behavior chart. When a child visually sees his good and bad behavior and is rewarded for the good, it tends to sink in a lot more. If you are giving into the fits, then they will continue. Now is the perfect opportunity to teach consequences and being responsible for his choices. I talk to my daughter all the time about her homework, that it is her obligation and responsbility to finish it, the sooner she finishes then the sooner she can get on with whatever else she wants to do. I tell her that there is a reason for this homework and it will help her not hurt her. My biggest preaching for both of my kids is "you have things in life you will have to do that you may not like, however you have to follow through, that hard work and just trying to do things right is the path to being successful". I always ensure they know it is okay to screw up as long as they are trying.
I don't think giving him supplements of any kind is the solution, he just needs to learn to lessen his own expectations and have follow through. Tell him how open his world will be when he is a good reader too. Hang in there.

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So I will give you the same advice my mother who is an educator (I am as well) gave me when my son Atticus was having a similar experience.... You are stressing him out, he will never learn to read when he is being forced. Do whatever possible to make reading time fun. A 5 year-old's reading chart does not expect them to be the sole reader for 25 minutes. Make sure you are also reading to them daily so they can see reading happening/ being modeled for them. You can take turns reading a page and if a child does not know a word do not make them struggle with it. Slow down....it does not happen overnight they will not be readers until about second grade.... and remember not all readers are phonic readers many are whole word readers. Label your house making the the first letter in a differing color. Make a letter/ sound of the week shelve (you can use the same letter as his class) and locate objects from around the house to visit the shelf... label everything. The Bob book are good and are a more manageable lenght for a beginning reader. If you make reading a struggle/ battle it always will be. Stress hinders learning. If your student is having difficult mornings I would ask for a teacher conference and try to locate what he is feeling stressed out about (do this without the child present). Also I would suggest to the teacher that they try and not and stress him out, it is making school not fun and you want to build a positive experience at school and a positive attitude about learning. You can do it I have been their. And sress can look like ADHD but their are very clear differences... wait until he is a little older for the differences to be present.

C. mother of three and teacher.

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A., I kind of have the same issue. I have a six year old kindergardener, who gets very easily fustrated and has a temper, but also has a hard time foucusing. If you are looking for a supplement that kind of helps the focus and energy I would look into Herbalife. They have something called NRG. For adults in its full serving it gives energy but for kids that might have something like ADD ro ADHD in a smaller dosage it helps them focus and be more calm. This might with getting easily distracted. Hope this kind of helps, sorry I can't help more with the temper I'm still working that issue myself. :)

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I would first try to figure out why the temper. My son would act up when something negative happened at school and hadn't told anyone about it yet. One day he was spit on and came home and was rotten to everyone. I finally was able to stop getting after him for his attitude and he told me what happened. It almost never fails when he behaves this way, that something negative happened and he is just in need of a little extra TLC, and personal attention. Another thing I did to encourage him to read was take turns reading. I would read to him for 5 minutes then have him read to me. You may also want to try letting him get a little sleep and make sure he is not hungry at all when he reads. At our house those are the two best things to fix a bad temper with home work, along with extra attention.

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Hi A.,

My oldest son, now age 12, had issues in school too. I would caution you not to be close minded to any suggestions. My son had learning issues, and after many years of testing and observations, he was diagnosed with ADHD, Asperger's Syndrom, Axiety Disorder with some OCD tendencies. We don't have him on a medicine cabinet full of meds.

The only med he is taking is to help him with his ADHD, and that med we are not increasing as he gets older. We don't want him dependent on these drugs for life. Our goal is to wean him from it as he grows, giving him time to learn the coping strategies that work best for himself.

There have been studies done that show that children who have a deficit in certain brain chemicals (which is why there is ADHD, etc), will often resort to medicating themselves later in life with illicit drugs. It really is a disease. Their brains are not making the chemicals they need for one reason or another.

All that said, I would strongly encourage you to get him thoroughly tested, then if it is not a disorder of some kind, I think it could be that he is feeding of your anxiety about the 'fight' that is most likely going to be had when it is 'reading time'. Try doing something fun with him that he likes to relax both of you and then slowly get into reading. If he is struggling, don't treat it like another thing on your list that you feel you need to get done in one single sitting. I know as mothers we are constantly marking things off out 'to do' list. Maybe you need to read just a few minutes at a time here and there. =)

I hope some of this helps, and like I said, do your homework and keep an open mind. Best of luck!

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A. you know I work with a great company that focuses on natural you might just need a good vitamin.. but don't be too fustrated, I had the same thing with my daughter.. after some work and tears and you name it we figured it out.. start small and work up.. 20 min a a huge amount of time to begin a habit.. start with 5 make it a huge accomplishment and fun and exciting I acted out some of the things we were reading .. when appropriate.. reading about giraffs what do you think they look like and how do they move take a moment to make it real. Also get some fun little EASY books.. I love the zip, zap zoom type of books when they feel overwhelmed, lost they shut down.. these books have 4-5 words thru the entire book the basically memorize them but the excitement of finishing and doing it and acting it out with you and them seeing you have fun.. changed everything for us.. I hope this helps I remember getting so irritated and even angry then realized that was making her irritated and angry ontop of being defeated..

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