Why can't she sit still?

[ninny]

I am going nuts with my oldest daughter. She is 3. She can't sit still is always wiggling and when you are reading bounces the whole time and talks. I think her dad may have been the energizer rabbit. Already this morning we had a 45 min walk and she still couldn't sit down for me to read some books to her. I am going to try and let her have a ball to play with next time. She can sit still for tea parties if she wants too.
Could someone please help teach her to sit still?

 

[heatherlynnky]

I am typing through the giggles. All mine are high energy kids. I have learned to just work with it. Mine tend to draw while I read. I have one who sits and acts out the story with dolls while I read. Even my oldest 2 11 and 13 are still hyper little things. I am very hyper myself. I would be considered ADHD myself if I were not disciplined. I have learned to focus that energy, so thats what I teach the kids. So when they draw while I am reading its ok. They are drawing out parts of the story and I know they are understanding and really listening. Sometimes you just have to find a different way to get them to connect with what you are trying to do with them. You never know she may grow out of this also. She is very young and at this age a story of just a couple minutes is a challenge. I teach a Sunday school class this age and I keep the lesson to about 3 minutes.

 

[moolie]

Personally, I wouldn't make her sit still. The more that children are active, the healthier they are.

Developmentally at her age, there's no reason to sit still for longer than it takes to finish a meal appropriate for a 3-year-old. At most, no more than 15 minutes really.

If she's got her own wiggles that keep her in a chair longer than that, you're doing just great.

If you need her to pay attention to anything longer than 5-10 minutes at 3 years of age, you're going to need to give her something to do with her hands--a ball as you've suggested will likely be too disruptive (it will get away from her), I'd be more inclined to give her some Duplo Lego bricks or something else manipulative like play-dough--things she can build/create with. As she gets older, pencil (or crayons) and paper or a small personal size chalkboard/slate is excellent.

 

[Britesea]

I remember trying to teach my youngest the alphabet... I finally gave up on using the printed page. Instead, he and I got down on the floor and tried to create the letters with our bodies. He loved it.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

She might be your oldest, but she is still a baby. Relax. I'd still be rocking that one to sleep. Maybe improve her diet, if you know she is eating unhealthy things. If she can cut loose sometimes and at least learn to control herself for church, it would be a start. Bribe her....if you don't make any noise for the service, I will buy you a new story book (it worked for Momma with me). I think she is old enough to start learning a few simple lessons, but she has another 3 years before school becomes mandatory, so I wouldn't stress. No way anyone would tell you she is behind and if they do, they have a problem....unless she has a developmental delay and still....big deal. She is a baby...and now is the time to have fun. When she is not a baby, its too late to redo this time. Teach her, but keep it happy and develope a good relationship more and more everyday. She is the first, so she is the experiment.....good luck!!

 

[moolie]

I remember trying to teach my youngest the alphabet... I finally gave up on using the printed page. Instead, he and I got down on the floor and tried to create the letters with our bodies. He loved it.

Love it! We used Lego sometimes, and play dough other times with my youngest, she's a very tactile learner and doesn't do well with abstract concepts (opposite of her older sister). And we read ALL the time. Both my girls are excellent readers and spellers as a result.

Everything my youngest learned in math at school was reinforced at home via counting manipulatives (Lego in separate piles for ones, tens, hundreds etc. or groups for addition/subtraction and multiplication/division) because it took her forever (well still does, even now in high school Algebra and Calculus) to assimilate. But once she's got it, she's got it.

She might be your oldest, but she is still a baby. Relax. I'd still be rocking that one to sleep. Maybe improve her diet, if you know she is eating unhealthy things. If she can cut loose sometimes and at least learn to control herself for church, it would be a start. Bribe her....if you don't make any noise for the service, I will buy you a new story book (it worked for Momma with me). I think she is old enough to start learning a few simple lessons, but she has another 3 years before school becomes mandatory, so I wouldn't stress. No way anyone would tell you she is behind and if they do, they have a problem....unless she has a developmental delay and still....big deal. She is a baby...and now is the time to have fun. When she is not a baby, its too late to redo this time. Teach her, but keep it happy and develope a good relationship more and more everyday. She is the first, so she is the experiment.....good luck!!

Definitely agree with the sentiment that "she's still a baby" plus I have the hind knowledge with one of my own about the fly the nest that they grow up all too quickly. I let my kids be little for as long as possible, and both are very happy well-adjusted polite teenagers that I'm very proud of.

But I (and this is totally personal) definitely don't agree with bribing any child. It sets unreasonable expectations, and (in my experience) children figure out the system pretty darn quickly and then you are totally screwed. I know several parents who went down that road and never realized what hit them till it was far too late and they had a huge fight on their hands to wean their then tweens off the reward system. Intrinsic motivation is way healthier--let her discover the joys of "doing it herself" and be vocal in your praise for good "big kid" behaviour.

But again, she is still too young to have to sit still for very long so don't sweat it, just work with her natural rhythms.

 

[Britesea]

ADHD, and the other things like Turette's, Obessive/Compulsive, and dyslexia that are found on the same gene thread, runs through our family like wooden legs. We have one niece with ALL of them, poor thing. But her mother fought for her in school and managed to get them to give the girl a chance WITHOUT meds. One of the things that worked very well was that, if the girl started having trouble sitting still, she would be excused from the class for 5 minutes or so to go run up and down the hallway until she was tired. Then she was able to sit quietly again. At first, the school was very leery of allowing this, but they ended up discovering that it answered very well and did not cause any undue disruption to class.

Even if a child doesn't have ADHD (and I am somewhat suspicious of this being as widespread as claimed) Children naturally are more active than adults - you shouldn't expect a child to sit still for a long time. Somewhere along the way, we got this twisted idea that if a child is playing and running around and interacting with their world, they aren't learning anything---- this is simply NOT TRUE.

There was an interesting study where a famous triathlete tried to mirror every move a toddler made. He lasted about 3 hours before collapsing in exhaustion. The toddler kept going for another 3 or 4 hours.

 

[Ceilismom]

Small children absorb more while squirming around than you'd think. I'd let that go, and not worry about trying to change it til she's older. Now, the talking while you're trying to read out loud, I would work on. My kids would be told that if they interrupted me while I was reading to them, I'd have to stop and go do something else. They liked being read to, so after a few times of me showing them that I meant what I said, they quit interrupting. As they've gotten a little older (5 and 7) they've learned to gently put their hand on my arm to let me know that they have something to ask/say, and when I get to the end of a sentence, I'll ask them what they need. This is working well for the interrupting of adult conversations too.

 

[Denim Deb]

I like that idea.

 

[moolie]

There is a country in Europe, and I can't remember if it is Belgium or the Netherlands, where daily instruction in primary schools is broken up by quite frequent recess breaks to go outside and play.

The quote I heard from a teacher there when asked how she got the kids to learn anything that way was, "how do you get kids to learn anything any other way? Kids need to be active, to play--that is learning!"