how to help DS (3.5) understand his own physicality?

[mousemom]

DS is getting bigger, heavier and stronger. He has a tendency to climb over us when sitting on the couch with us, hang off our necks when trying to give hugs, run and smack into us to hug our legs, etc. He is not being mean or trying to hurt anybody, just exuberant. But 35 pounds hanging around your neck or slamming into your leg when you don't expect it can hurt. We've tried many, many times to explain to him that he is getting bigger and could really hurt someone now if he is not more careful. We've talked about and shown him gentle touches. We've given him time-outs if he is climbing on us and we've already asked him to stop. We let him know when something he does hurts one of us. But, he just doesn't seem to get it. Anybody have any ideas on how to help a 3 year old understand this?

[Indianamom2]

I don't really have a good way to communicate it to your 3.5 year old, but my DD was (and still is) like this. She was always very physical and quite tall and she is just rough. Turns out, she has some sensory processing problems and craved lots of contact and roughness was her way of trying to regulate herself. It is quite common.

SPD is not her only issue and she is slowly (at almost 8) growing out of some of it, but a few of the things suggested to us to help her was to give her lots of opportunity to run and jump and swing and push/pull heavy items (like opening heavy doors or pushing heavy boxes around the room). These actions help her regulate that need for sensory input and then she doesn't have to be so rough with the rest of us. I know it seems a little bit counter-intuitive, but it does help.

For a while, we had a few little excersizes that we would have her do a few times a day, especially when we started to notice her getting rough. We would have her do 10 jumping jacks, 10 standing push-ups, pushing off hard against the wall, 10 hard jumps (where she would jump as hard and high straight up and pound her feet into the floor/ground as she could). Sometimes we'd repeat this for a couple of sets. You could adapt these excersizes to your child's ability, but the point is to make him do some really physical work to help him self-regulate. DD never minded it...in fact, she loved the opportunity to do it, in part I think because she was old enough to realize and verbalize that it made her feel better.

[mousemom]

I don't really have a good way to communicate it to your 3.5 year old, but my DD was (and still is) like this. She was always very physical and quite tall and she is just rough. Turns out, she has some sensory processing problems and craved lots of contact and roughness was her way of trying to regulate herself. It is quite common.


Your suggestions are very helpful. It reminded me that lately, DS has been asking for tight-tight hugs (tighter than I can give him), which I hadn't really connected to the other actions, but also seem to suggest that same desire for sensory input.

[Indianamom2]

Your suggestions are very helpful. It reminded me that lately, DS has been asking for tight-tight hugs (tighter than I can give him), which I hadn't really connected to the other actions, but also seem to suggest that same desire for sensory input.

Glad I could help a little. If you're interested, the book "The Out of Sync Child" http://www.amazon.com/Out---Sync-Child-Recognizing-Processing/dp/0399531653/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338866197&sr=1-1 is a good resource and has lots of info and helpful suggestions. It's not so technical that it's hard to read and it gives lots of examples of what a child with some sensory issues might look like.