Any ideas?

[carterscutie85]

My 5 year old goes to a before school care program for preschool.

In the actual preschool classroom, each kid has a specific hook for their coats and backpacks.

At the before school care they don't. This is a different area of the school.

My son cannot grasp this, and for whatever reason he decided a specific hook is his hook there.

Problem is it's first come first serve and another kid often takes that hook first because they got there first.

Whenever it's taken, he has an utter meltdown over it.

We've been ignoring them and he eventually gets over it but today he had an entirely bad day because of the hook situation. His teacher said he was defiant all day long and actually pushed a teacher. I know him well enough to know that he was acting this way over the hook and not being able to use it. Today there wasn't any getting over the meltdown, while he stopped having a fit the meltdown continued into bad behavior because he didn't get his hook.

Then there's the bathroom situation at home. GOD FORBID I go to the bathroom first. He loses his everlasting mind. The thing is though is he will literally sit and wait for me. Like he will hold it, then when I tell him I'm going because he refuses to, he has a meltdown because he thinks we are racing to the bathroom and I "won" the imaginary race...even though like I said if he wakes up first/gets to the bathroom first he waits until I cannot hold it anymore and then flips out that I "beat" him in the race I never said we were having. I just ignore him but this has been going on for months.

No amount of talking to him or reasoning helps whatsoever.

And I KNOW he is capable of not having a meltdown. Because I tried a reward chart. And some days it works. Some days it doesn't. Some days he doesn't have the meltdown over the bathroom or hook. Other days he does.

I know he is getting plenty of sleep and I've stopped having the TV on/letting him have his tablet before school in case he was overstimulated but that didn't help either.

We cannot get him to the before school care first. It starts at 6am and he is typically dropped off around 7:30am. I am not willing to have him up and out the door by 6am just to ensure he gets the hook first. Nor am I going to ask them to designate a hook for each kid for because that's only going to encourage his behavior.

[Anonymous 1]

First of all, my one kid had meltdowns if I didn't give him the last sip in the Diet Sprite can after I poured it into my glass. My other kid wanted to shake the bottle of Pediasure before I opened it and would scream like a banshee if I forgot and shook it myself. There is no accounting for kids, but they did get over it when they got older.

Secondly, here's how I would interrupt my kids' tantrums. I would say something like "That's a nice blue shirt." And they would stop screaming and look at me like I was crazy and say "It's not blue, it's green!" At that age they just couldn't pass by the opportunity to correct me. Give them something simple to be right about and it breaks up the tantrum/bad mood. Still works on my kid and he's 13, lol.

[KendallsMom]

This too shall pass. Don't entertain or discuss any of it. Continue to ignore it.
DD (16) at that age would melt down if we didn't let her know it was 4:57 on the stove/microwave clock. It HAD to be 4:57. She would come inside from playing just to see it. Her pediatrician told us to stop entertaining it, talking about it, etc. Doc said it's a control thing that's common around that age.We did and within a week or so she forgot about it.

She remembers this and can't believe she was so "cringy" back then.

Best wishes!

[LiveWhatULove]

I have typed out my idea twice and it keeps reloading why!!

[Pjmm]

I agree with everyone else, don't entertain it. I'd tell him if you don't get your hook and you meltdown you will face whatever consequences the teacher deems appropriate. Maybe discuss appropriate ways he can express his disappointment. My oldest had a punching clown or he was allowed to hit a pillow if he got mad. I told him you can pretend it's whoever you like Idk but you're going to punch that clown, not take it out on the person. Same with the bathroom. I'd tell him I'm giving you until this timer (set for five minutes or whatever) goes off. If you're not in there it's your loss. And you can go melt down in your room. come out when you're ready. You aren't going to yell at me though but you can punch a pillow in your room. At least this worked for my son although he was older at the time.

[LiveWhatULove]

My son had a lot of quirks. Many times professionals would have us play games to get him to learn to bend through his rigidity.

Example

So today, we are going to play a game called “count the hooks.” I am going to pick a number that you backpack likes and you are going to see if you can find that number of hook because that is the hook where the backpack will be happy. Can you count with me?

OR, “ I bet you probably do not even want to play the backpack hook game?!?… oh you do, well, when we get to hooks today, you have to pick an empty hook and hang up your backpack by the time I count to 10. BUT here is the tricky part, you can only win if it is a different hook from yesterday (this is requires them to understand yesterday, so make sure he does). And then as always make a huge deal about it when he wins. “Wow, I thought for sure I would win today, but you beat me.”

There are many variations, same thing for the potty situation, have him sing a song while you use the potty and you win if he quits singing.

Start playing games where the goal is different than being first too, we played a lot of those.

You may want to just look at the executive function of flexibility — there are many exercises that you can do trying to encourage them to be more tolerable to change or resilient to losing/not getting their way.