Hello ladies. I need advice . My son is the most awesome boy, but has become defiant, loud, whiney, and wilder than usual lately. He is terribly jealous of his 2 yo sister & gets rough on purpose. He tells me he wishes it was just us. I am crying more often, privately of course, because losing toys, priviledges, time outs.....nothing works & he is giving me guilt trips too. I know he needs outlets to focus on but I am disabled & can't dive him to places. I rely heavily on family and friends for help in so many daily things, I want to work through this without relying on more people .
I love him so much but have feelings lately that I don't like who he is becoming.
So two issues I guess, how do I stop this ugly personality of his from becoming permanent and how do I calm him dowm, especially when I feel like I understand why he is acting out. Intimate talks work for 5 minutes only. He starts kindergarten this fall and I worry hewill be this out of control.
All input is appreciated. :)
Thank you so much everyone. It is comforting to know it isn't. Just my child. My daughter is autistic and has hearing loss making most days challenging. Some days I feel so frustrated, mostly because my mom did it with six kids, had all of our respect, never ever lost her temper & made it look so easy while she looked like a 50s TV show mom in heels and pearls everyday.
I am glad I came to this site, thanks again. I will try all these ideas!
Try some positive attention.
Do things with just him, not the little one.
Negative attention is attention and he will seek it out of he is getting nothing more.
Take him out for ice cream.
PLay games,
build a fort, go fishing
These are things you can do with help form family.
Boys understand actions better than words. The Talk will only get you so far.
My daughter was behaving this way and none of those things worked. The only thing that worked for us is positive reward system. We have a chart for daily "chores" and a jar she fills with marbles when there is good behavior. It has changed out lives.
Sorry to here that your aon is behaving this way. I know you say that you depend on family and I'm glad that their able to help out. Maybe you can spend a day out of the week with just the two of you. Do something that he likes to do. Maybe put him in an arts and crafts class or music class of some sort. Hope everything works out. :)
Maybe this will help? :)
http://www.babycenter.com/0_defiance-why-it-happens-and-w...
i know just how you feel. my daughter started acting out around age 4 and i have to be honest i am not very close with her at all and she makes me nuts. i feel like a horrible parent for the way i feel about her, im currently in therapy to work thru it and it seems to be helping.
Check out Love and Logic - it's a really good way of dealing with all kinds of parenting problems. There are a ton of books and around here (York, PA) they even teach classes for free through a child advocacy center. If you Google it, I'm sure you'll find something. Good Luck.
P.S. My son got this way when he turned 5 also - I think some of it's an age thing. When he gets mouthy now, I just tell him to go to his room until he can be sweet again.
I like the Love and Logic books too...I am also reading "1-2-3 Magic" by Thomas Phelan and really like it as well. It does a nice job giving you tools to help encourage good behaviors (praise, etc.) while dealing with nipping not-so-good behaviors in the bud. It does recommend typically using time-outs, but emphasizes being firm and consistent, and points out many of the mistakes parents make when trying to discipline (mainly, talking too much and being too emotional). I would read those books, as well as "How to Talk So Your Kids Will Listen and How to Listen So Your Kids Will Talk" and "Siblings Without Rivalry", both by Faber and Mazlish.
I am having similar problems with my son and his relationship with his sister too. My son does amazing at school by the way. This is a home thing. I completely understand how you are feeling. Besides the book mentioned below to help your child, it is important to always work on ourselves. A really good book to read is the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. I am reading this and it is helping with all of my relationships. In particular, I was reading a particularly great passage last night on relationships with our children. We definitely need to guide our children to be good people. But, we also need to think about who we are and who we want to be. Our own reactions to situations are important learning tools for our children.
My oldest was almost 6 when we brought home her baby sister. If you ask her today, she'd still be willing to have us bring Haley (now 7) back to the hospital just so she could be the only child (she's now 13)! We realized that it was a big age difference but my oldest sister & youngest brother are 10 yrs apart & my parents didn't ask our permission to bring him home!!!! Sometimes I think it's hard for our children to express how they are feeling and the one thing that has gotten my oldest to stop in her tracks is when I explain to her that it's normal to feel the way she feels but that she needs to realize that our youngest never had the alone time with us. Haley came into our family w/Sami (our oldest) already a part of things, whereas Sami was our 1st - she was our project, the 1st we did everything with - the one that we learned the most from, and on & on...I think you see where I may be going w/this. When I put things that way to my oldest, she tones down a bit - like when my youngest asks a question while doing her homework and Sami goes to give her a smartypants answer - I just remind her that she didn't come out of me knowing all of the names of the planets, now did she and she gets the hint. I think that a lot of it is that they just don't know how to tell us they miss not being important ones like that anymore because it's almost like they are trying to take on this big role to be this big tough person to this little one they love and care so much about, but can't really show us that because then we'd be onto them and their younger brother/sister would know that they really have a heart! Best of luck to you and know that you're not alone.
