I am a teacher at a preschool/childcare center. I recently had a child join my class of 3 year olds and I don't know what to make of him! I can blame some things on bad parenting and quirkiness, but I am also wondering if there might be a bigger issue (aka potential diagnosis).
Firstly, upon meeting this child I knew something was off. He is 3 years 7 months old, and can read. However, he has NO concept of what potty training is, and is therefore still in diapers. Our classroom is meant for 3 year olds and is therefore not equipped to have a child in diapers. We have been trying our best to potty train him, but it has become clear that he just does NOT GET IT. Mom and dad said he was "potty training defiant" but that's clearly not the case-he isn't being stubborn, he genuinely does not understand the concept. He can say "in the potty" when I ask him where pee goes, but when I ask him why his diaper is full of pee he will reply "because I want to put it in the potty" which makes absolutely no sense. He also goes back and forth on whether or not he even tries the potty at home, so I can't get a straight answer which is frustrating. He is obviously smart enough to read, how do I get the point across that he needs to be at least TRYING to put pee in the potty?
Secondly, he has some other behaviors that may be quirks, but also seem too off-putting to still be considered typical. He repeats a lot of what he hears, which is frustrating and annoying for myself and his classmates. It doesn't seem to be the kind of mimicking you see in someone with aspergers, because there is no self-soothing component to it. It almost seems like a reflex for him to repeat what has just been said. No matter how many times I tell him or ask him to stop, or how many different ways I phrase it, he keeps doing it! He also makes strange faces when I try to really communicate with him. For example, when I was trying to tell him that we pee in the potty at school, I finished with "do you understand?" and his eyes got VERY wide, but otherwise his face showed no emotion. And then he just responded "understand." With NO emotion or tone in his voice.
Lastly, he has had some very odd and over the top responses to very normal things. As a group, we stepped into an elevator once, to go to the next floor of the library, and he immediately began to scream bloody murder and cry. He only calmed down once he was out of the elevator, and acted like nothing happened. He did it a few minutes later on the way back, but showed zero signs of being nervous or worried as we got ready to go and pushed the button-he only lost it when we got inside. The odd part was that we had already been in an elevator together before and he handled it like any other normal kid! I would normally assume that he doesn't get out much, but then I remembered we had been in an elevator the same size with the same amount of kids previously with no problems! He had the same crying/SCREAMING response when a teacher told him that he needed to go back to the bottom of the steps on our playground. He didn't have the space to turn around, so he had to crawl back down the stairs backwards. He immediately began shrieking and shaking with fear, and the teacher had to physically move him off of the stairs because he refused to budge and seemed unable to piece together how to crawl backwards down a few steps (ate age 3.5).
Mom and dad have proven to be fairly clueless in terms of realistic expectations for this child. They were shocked that we go on field trips with a group of 3 year olds because he frequently runs away from them in public, and they apparently assumed it was common for kids to sprint away from their caretakers. I simply told them we don't have that problem and it wouldn't be an option for him to just "run away" from us. They also suggested that I show him a YouTube video to help him calm down if he ever has a meltdown. I just responded "good to know" instead of telling them that their almost 4 year old should have better self-regulation than that, and that we do not use screens in our school and I have 15 other kids to take care of and I would never have the time to turn on a YouTube video and watch it with him just to calm him down. The child also FREQUENTLY has disgusting boogers hanging out of his nose, and had an absolute melt down when I forced HIM to wipe them off of his face. I soon realized it was because he genuinely did not know how to wipe his own nose at 3 and a half....
Basically, the parents are obviously not the best in terms of being aware of what is socially appropriate/acceptable for a child his age, but part of me wonders if the inability to comprehend the idea of potty training, frequent nonsense responses to simple questions, and other odd behaviors are something more than bad parenting.
Would you diagnose this child with something? Would you bring it up to the parents? I'm not sure if this is just an odd kid with bad parents or something that is more serious. Help!
Firstly, upon meeting this child I knew something was off. He is 3 years 7 months old, and can read. However, he has NO concept of what potty training is, and is therefore still in diapers. Our classroom is meant for 3 year olds and is therefore not equipped to have a child in diapers. We have been trying our best to potty train him, but it has become clear that he just does NOT GET IT. Mom and dad said he was "potty training defiant" but that's clearly not the case-he isn't being stubborn, he genuinely does not understand the concept. He can say "in the potty" when I ask him where pee goes, but when I ask him why his diaper is full of pee he will reply "because I want to put it in the potty" which makes absolutely no sense. He also goes back and forth on whether or not he even tries the potty at home, so I can't get a straight answer which is frustrating. He is obviously smart enough to read, how do I get the point across that he needs to be at least TRYING to put pee in the potty?
Secondly, he has some other behaviors that may be quirks, but also seem too off-putting to still be considered typical. He repeats a lot of what he hears, which is frustrating and annoying for myself and his classmates. It doesn't seem to be the kind of mimicking you see in someone with aspergers, because there is no self-soothing component to it. It almost seems like a reflex for him to repeat what has just been said. No matter how many times I tell him or ask him to stop, or how many different ways I phrase it, he keeps doing it! He also makes strange faces when I try to really communicate with him. For example, when I was trying to tell him that we pee in the potty at school, I finished with "do you understand?" and his eyes got VERY wide, but otherwise his face showed no emotion. And then he just responded "understand." With NO emotion or tone in his voice.
Lastly, he has had some very odd and over the top responses to very normal things. As a group, we stepped into an elevator once, to go to the next floor of the library, and he immediately began to scream bloody murder and cry. He only calmed down once he was out of the elevator, and acted like nothing happened. He did it a few minutes later on the way back, but showed zero signs of being nervous or worried as we got ready to go and pushed the button-he only lost it when we got inside. The odd part was that we had already been in an elevator together before and he handled it like any other normal kid! I would normally assume that he doesn't get out much, but then I remembered we had been in an elevator the same size with the same amount of kids previously with no problems! He had the same crying/SCREAMING response when a teacher told him that he needed to go back to the bottom of the steps on our playground. He didn't have the space to turn around, so he had to crawl back down the stairs backwards. He immediately began shrieking and shaking with fear, and the teacher had to physically move him off of the stairs because he refused to budge and seemed unable to piece together how to crawl backwards down a few steps (ate age 3.5).
Mom and dad have proven to be fairly clueless in terms of realistic expectations for this child. They were shocked that we go on field trips with a group of 3 year olds because he frequently runs away from them in public, and they apparently assumed it was common for kids to sprint away from their caretakers. I simply told them we don't have that problem and it wouldn't be an option for him to just "run away" from us. They also suggested that I show him a YouTube video to help him calm down if he ever has a meltdown. I just responded "good to know" instead of telling them that their almost 4 year old should have better self-regulation than that, and that we do not use screens in our school and I have 15 other kids to take care of and I would never have the time to turn on a YouTube video and watch it with him just to calm him down. The child also FREQUENTLY has disgusting boogers hanging out of his nose, and had an absolute melt down when I forced HIM to wipe them off of his face. I soon realized it was because he genuinely did not know how to wipe his own nose at 3 and a half....
Basically, the parents are obviously not the best in terms of being aware of what is socially appropriate/acceptable for a child his age, but part of me wonders if the inability to comprehend the idea of potty training, frequent nonsense responses to simple questions, and other odd behaviors are something more than bad parenting.
Would you diagnose this child with something? Would you bring it up to the parents? I'm not sure if this is just an odd kid with bad parents or something that is more serious. Help!
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