Angry Unmanagable 3 Year Old Needs Your Input Please.

Sounds miserable all around. It seems like there is a lack of consistency and discipline over several generations. Your daughter, for whatever reason, doesn't make her children feel loved. She'd rather give in to the screaming than make anyone go without, no matter who else that hurts. As her mother, you'd be the best one to judge where this attitude developed. It sounds like everyone deals with conflict by leaving - going to a separate room, moving away, separating, etc. No one seems to have one home they can depend on.

I think it's astounding that a 4 year old recognized you after 9 months and ran away from his mother, and that you immediately took him away from her and into the house to see his grandfather. Do you think this was helpful to your relationship with your daughter?

Be careful with diagnosing things like PTSD. That's a complex series of factors and requires a child psychologist or psychiatrist to really evaluate. However, disruption and not feeling that someone belongs anywhere is definitely cause for distress.

I understand that parenting when you are a grandmother is exhausting. think grandparents trying to parent one grandchild and not others is going to mess up the family dynamic if you life on the same street. I think significant family counseling is in order because these children have all been raised to see that the adults in their lives are there for a while, then leave, then come back. That's incredibly stressful to a child's sense of wellbeing. Appearing to favor one grandchild is just as damaging as your daughter's parenting style, which shows favoritism. I think everyone needs significant counseling to help sort out what's helpful, what will work, what won't, and what sorts of things to say and not say for the children's overall wellbeing. You cannot counsel Lium yourself, or Wyatt, unless and until you have a better understanding of all the issues involved, from family history to the current situation. This has NOTHING to do with how smart anyone is. It has to do with stability - and there is very little of that going on in this situation as you describe it.

What's happening?
He has a crappy mother.
So do lots of kids.

Unfortunately, if your daughter doesn't learn how to be a parent, nothing will change. I guess all you can be is a safe place to be.

Good luck.

Added are I reread your post. I realize you are asking for someone else to help him. You're saying you can't manage him. So our answers probably not helpful. know that the moms posting are from all over the world. We have no way to recommend someone to help you That is in your area.

I suggest that it's his mom that needs to ask for help. As a grandmother, you can only help his mom to ask for help.

As a grandmother myself, I do research to find resources and if mt daughter wants her children to use that resource she has to do the initial interview. I can't be involved except to provide transportation if she signs a legal document allowing me to talk with the provider I can be involved with resources. Given your description of your daughter I doubt very much that she would do this.

It may be possible that your state's Children's Services office could help.him. I suggest that you call them. they have the authority to investigate and provide services if their mom is not taking care of the child's needs. They may be able to provide help finding resources. I go to appointments with my daughter so that I also know the resources.

I'm a grandmother of difficult to manage children. I've been helping them and their mom for 14 years. I mostly put their needs above my own. Isn't that what mothers do? Not if they want to be healthy.

I suggest that as much as you want to help Lium you can't take that on. He needs too much. He needs a consistent home with consistent parenting that includes natural consequences. We older people do not have the energy to start over with a child who has not had any consistent parenting.

I fostered and then adopted a child that came from a seriously abusive home. Parenting her has been the most difficult thing I've done up there with being a police officer. I was 42 when I started Parenting her.

I did not have to deal with her birth family or siblings. Your job if you took him in would be even more difficult than mine because Lium's mom will not cooperate with you.

I also suggest you can't have one sibling practically living with you while you ban another from your house. I suggest you find a way to manage Lium for short visits. I suggest that, tho it would be difficult, you might be able, once you learn some skills, to manage him at your house for short visits.

I suggest that you need counseling so that you can learn the dynamics of your family before you can teach your grandchildren to live a healthy life. I also suggest you learn more effective parenting skills. While Wyatt gets along with you now as he gets older he's going to need more than love. He needs consistency now. With his mother being the way she is there will not be consistency even now. The fact she wouldn't let you see him for 9 months has already made it much more difficult for both of them to feel secure and loved.

I urge you to get professional help.

geez. there's multi-generational dysfunction going on here. yes, you do need professional help and no, you're not going to get nearly what you need on an online advice forum.
for serious and true, grandma, get some good family counseling. you can't make your daughter go, and you probably can't convince her to let her kids go (though they need it) but that's where you need to find effective tools to handle the nightmare you're partially responsible for creating.
do it.
don't just wring your hands and google. go get real help for your family and yourself. today.
khairete
S.

I think this mom needs to handle her own results. Next time she asks you to watch him say no, that he breaks your things and you can't handle him. That is she wants some one on one time with him you'll watch the other kids but that he is too much for you.

Stand your ground.

1. She'll learn you are serious and mean your words.

2. She'll have to deal with him on her own without a support system for as long as she stays mad.

3. Learning by getting natural consequences will teach her more than you or your words ever will. Not being there to rescue her will help her to grow up and she'll start understanding what will happen if she doesn't get control of her parenting skills now.

As my father likes to say:

"Plant a potato, get a potato".

What do you expect?

Kids are perfectly capable of learning that different rules apply in different places. School rules, dad rules, mom rules grandmom rules.
Teach him that in your house we don't scream, we ask nicely. Dont keep saying NO dont scream Say Use your words Use a talking voice. Teach him that you will take him to the park and the store IF he will walk beside you and hold your hand, Not if he runs away. TEACH him how to behave. TELL him exactly what you want. Praise him every single time you can. This will take work and it will be easier to say he can't behave because of...his mom, the situation, his living conditions, his little brother, his.....No excuses. Just put some work into this kid, he'll thank you for it, AFTER he grows up.

Of course he can be re-trained, but that's going to take a lot of time, effort and most of all consistency. Doesn't sound like there's anyone in his household to make that effort, or take that time consistently. IMHO, unless mommy does a complete turn-around or Liam is removed from her home, it's just going to continue and you're right, it will make for a bleek future for him. He'll be one of the kids in school that takes up the teacher's time with discipline which will make him very unpopular with his classmates. He is doomed to be lonely at school until he gets into high school where he can fall in with the wrong crowd and really start messing his life up.

If you REALLY want to help, why don't you offer to take him into your home on a permanent basis. That's really about the only hope he has, IMHO.

My daughter was a perfect 2 year old. She did not have the terrible two's. She had the Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad three's. It lasted exactly the whole year. I thought she had been abducted by aliens. So you could have some perfectly normal behavior exasperated by the dysfunction that is going on in your family. I agree with some of the other mom's please get some counseling. I believe there is hope for your grandson. There may be some other underlying problems causing the extreme tantrums. Would your daughter be willing to have him tested? In addition, have you tried eliminating foods with lots of sugar & dyes? Believe it or not this could be adding fuel to the fire. I would also try reading some parenting books for hard to handle kids. "123 magic" is one, can't remember some of the other books that the mom's on here have recommended. Try to carve out special time for your older grandson, but please don't give up on the little guy!

Blessings!