Behaviour modification of Betsy Bully-Bralley

Last night Ben and I had a great discussion of the topic most likely to cause baldness because I want to pull my hair out...Betsy's bully behaviour. It bothers me so much because I'm the one who drops her off at school, and picks her up sometimes and when I see her teacher I get an ear full about Betsy being mean to other kids (as I should, I'm glad to be kept in the loop). And I kind of feel like a parenting failure hearing that my kid is the bully.

I don't think Ben understood the extent of my frustration until yesterday because he would just hear 'Betsy was bad at school today' from me rather than "Betsy and William were very mean to each other and their friends. Betsy kicked William in the back and the two of them tag teamed Susie and pulled her hair." Ben and I talked about being consistent with the daycare discipline policies, namely how we plan to discipline (time out) and what constitutes bad behaviour.

Then we did some role playing with stuffed animals to touch on 'gentle behaviour'. Betsy watched with interest as stuffed Minnie Mouse kicked stuffed Elmo and made Elmo cry. Betsy gave Elmo a hug. Then we made Minnie and Elmo talk and hug. She seemed to follow what was happening.

A short time later Betsy hit one of her stuffed animals and Ben made her face a corner for two minutes in timeout. (Really we're not trying to overreact, who cares if Betsy hits a stuffed animal? but we need consistency). I was surprised she didn't cry in timeout, and she came away from it seeming to understand that she was disciplined (redirected from that behaviour). At that point Betsy picked up her blocks, put away her little people and school bus, and played toss and catch with Ben and myself. After bath time she drank some milk and went to bed a happy girl.

I'm not naive enough to think our behaviour problem is SOLVED but I'm happy to be on the same page with Ben and to see him taking the initiative when it comes to modifying her behaviour. I always worry he thinks I'm overreacting, but as soon as I said 'No really. We have the bad kid in class.' he was ready to do what we needed to fix the problem. Great husband, great Daddy :)