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Expert Q&A
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| By Harriet S. Worobey, M.A. Early Childhood Educator Director, the Nutritional Sciences Preschool | ||
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My 4-year-old is getting in trouble at preschool for calling the girls his "girlfriends" and holding their hands. Help!"
If it makes you feel any better to know that your situation is not unique. We had a 4-year-old boy in our preschool who got a hold of the calling list and used to call his "girlfriends" at night. Children often imitate adult speech and behavior and assume adult roles in their play. Many children speak of boyfriends and girlfriends, as well as act out weddings in their dramatic play. This does not indicate an early adolescence!
There are really two separate issues involved in your situation. The first is typical of the "You're my best friend," "You're not my friend anymore" 4-year-old social traumas. It is really no different because of the girl-boy twist. In my class I wrote a puppet show playing dealing with best friends, name-calling and hurt feelings. There are many children's books you could get from the library that would be beneficial to read to your son, as well as lend to your child's teacher to read to the class: Making Friends by Fred Rogers; Best Friends by Miriam Cohen; Dinofours: I'm Not Your Friend by Steve Metzger.
The other issue is the hand holding going on in school. It is possible that the teacher is overreacting and that the behavior would decrease if she didn't make an issue of it. Oftentimes, young children repeat behavior if it gets a rise out of adults (cursing, for example). If, however, it is physical attention that is more than casual and unwelcome to the other children, I would suggest emphasizing keeping his hands to himself (the same as for hitting, pushing or grabbing) and discussing the concept of body privacy. There are many children's books, again, which illustrate the idea that one's body is one's own in a way that is at a preschooler's level: Loving Touches by Lory Freeman, and My Body is Private by Linda Valvoord Girard. It would be good to approach this in the spirit of helping your son make friends, rather than in a negative way.
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