8-Year Old Attacks Mommy

Hi, do you give him a time frame for moving onto the next thing? I tell my girls in 15 min., we are getting ready for bed. I remind them at 10 & 5 min. so it doesn't come out of nowhere. If you knew you were going shopping when your husband got home but didn't have a time and he walked in & said let's go now, you might not be ready. It could be annoying to you. Maybe you were in the middle of a show or wanted to make a cup of coffee or go to the bathroom first. Everyone needs a little warning to mentally prepare for the next thing. In my house, hitting is a double time out. He might become more physical if you try this now. My 8 yo responds better to the threat of something taken away-computer, playdate, afterschool playground for 1 week. When my youngest(5 yo) hit me several months ago, I tried to put her in timeout. She refused to stay. After 1 1/2hrs, I got so angry I put everything in her room except her clothes & bed into bags and put them outside. She had to earn every item back or donate it. She vacuumed, windexed, folded and put clothes away, cleaned the cabinets, stove, dishwasher, bathroom sink. It took her over 1 month to earn everything back but she hasn't hit me since. If she wanted something in the bag, I would say "sorry, you hit me and it was taken away. If you want x back, you need to do y." I tried to show her that just because you say you're sorry, doesn't change what happened. It is tough to stick with it. So many times I wanted to give her the stuff back so I would stop tripping over it but I knew she would learn that she could win by waiting me out. You need to be strong. It is just a repeat of how he tested you when he was younger. How far can I push the line? Soon he'll be 15 yo, and much stronger. If you let him get away with it, he'll probably try to intimidate other women in his life the same way. Start a new rule. There is no free play or dessert or reading until your backpack is ready for school tomorrow. If he takes too long complaining about it, remind him that this time,8:00, is bed. You can waste time stalling and you might not have time to do x but bedtime is not changing. The fun thing in between might have to wait until tomorrow if time runs out. It could take a few days for him to realize you mean business but he will. Just be consistent and have your husband back you up. He needs to learn the important lesson of no hitting mom, no matter what. I hope this helps. Sorry I rambled a little. You can get through this. Be strong and consistent. Don't give a punishment you can't live with. Make it a steep price for hitting.

Many kids that age have a hard time transitioning from one thing to the next, especially playtime to bedtime. Give 3 warnings at different intervals.

For example 20 minutes before you want him to clean up say "Clean up time in 10 minutes" then "Clean up time in 5 minutes" and finally "1 more minute" Make sure he acknowledges you with "Did you understand me? What did I say"

You could also add on a consequence with the warnings such as "CLean up time in 5 minutes. If you give me a hard time no story before bed."

Good luck.

hi Q.;

i really can understand how you feel. i think it's wonderful that you are also expressing your love and devotion to your son in addition to your concerns. sometimes it's easy to overlook our love for our kids when things are tough and we're frustrated; you are really focused on compassion and that's great.

i would say this to you; talk to your pediatrician right away about taking your son to see a pediatric psychologist, and i'll tell you why; NOT because you should assume your son is ill. but we went through something similar here w our son, tho he was only 3 at the time; but we really got scared about his behavior and the psychologist helped us put it in perspective and use practical tools to improve our parenting. it was just a way of making sure that deep down, things were ok, but that we needed to make changes. you might find it helpful.

but do be careful if they try to press behavior medication; that is not always the right answer and i would urge you to try changes in your parenting before anything as drastic as meds. if they push meds right away you should try for a second opinion.

when we went, the dr evaluated us and our son for an hour and basically said that our son is wonderful in many ways but had some stress issues and that as parents we needed firmer boundaries and more consistent discipline. so he taught us to use the "1-2-3 Magic!" system and it is fantastic. you can buy that book on Amazon used for just 8$ or so and read it in two days. if you practice that system exactly as the book says 100% of the time i bet you will see great improvement.

good luck
J.

Hi Q.,

At two you should have slapped your son in the stomach, not as hard as he slapped you, but hard enough for a two year old. He would've understand that it hurt and not do it again.
He doesn't need calming down he needs discipline.

Talking things out does not work with every child. As you have found out with your son. There is emotional intelligence, pysical intelligence, and mental intelligence.
Your son has used violence to get his way with you and now it is a bad habit. Imagine when he is a teenager and he gets mad at you he will be physically able to knock your block off.

I would not recommend this for any other child as each child is different, (all children are not physical, but yours is)but you are bigger and stronger than your son (you won't be for long), and he has to listen to you and be afraid to cross you. He should not be just afraid of his father. You have to meet pysical with pysical. This could mean taking karate classes with him and than play fighting with him, but showing your full strength, not letting him win and dominating him.

If you son was showing mental intellegince which shows itself (if negative) in highly manipulative behavior, I would recommend you play chess with him or scrabble etc. I would recommend long discussions - those type of kids get it. He is showing physical intelligence that needs to be put to positive use with sports of course. He also needs discipline to stop the bad behavior habits he picked up along the way.

He should have learned long before eight to keep his hands to himself.

Watch a few episodes of Supernanny on Fridays hopefully she can help you out.