If He Was Your Son, What Would You Do?

Sounds like he needs to be taught some manners, boundaries & have some discipline. I would use a stroller and/or leash until he could learn how to control himself. I'm sorry, but this not "boys will be boys", this is "little boy out of control".

Why are you running? Why is he not listening? What do you do when he runs, takes other people's food or drinks? Is there any discipline, or are you just telling him "No no junior!" Not only is it rude, it can get dangerous. I would've left that particular party, end of story.

I am not a huge spanker, but it sounds like he needs more discipline than what you're giving him.

Unless he was bigger and stronger than I was, I would have been able to physically stop him from eating and drinking other people's food! You were afraid that grabbing him would cause bigger embarrassment because he would be louder. Most people understand that 3 yr olds scream when they are not allowed to continue misbehaving, most people understand parents sometimes have to physically restrain fighting preschoolers. Most people do NOT understand when you cannot control your three yr old. So not being able to stop him was much more embarrassing than his throwing a fit. Next time dont worry about him screaming and throwing a fit. He wont do it forever I promise! My most difficult preschooler became my easiest teenager! Her strong personality was stronger than peer pressure, her difficult to please attitude turned into a teen who could not accept bad grades. Continue to work on discipline no matter how hard and he may be your most successful child!

Seems like a lack of discipline to me because you say you've tried EVERYTHING, but for how long? And how consistently? He's only three. That's not very long per thing to try so many different things. The biggest cue is: He ran from table to table eating other people's snacks, and you "tried" to stop the behavior, but then he did something worse....then he ran around drinking other people's drinks....then he threw a fit when you stopped him.....

This is a long line of offenses that never would have happened with our 3-year-old (and she's also my VERY MOST DIFFICULT and third child) because she would have been disciplined the very first time she ignored my warning not to touch other peoples snacks. REMOVED and disciplined for ignoring my "no" to prevent the rest of the chain for the rest of the night. Voila, the other stuff would not have happened past one "no" either. Fits? Not an option either. Nip those! I recommend the book Back to Basics Discipline by Janet Campbell Matson. The advice worked IMMEDIATELY with my easiest, wonderfully with my spirited one, and wonderfully with my hellion too, I just needed way more consistency with her.
Good luck, don't give up!

I agree with freckle momma, your first warning needs to be calm, quiet, said directly to him at his level, preferably while touching him to emphasize you are focused right on him, and you must FOLLOW through when he ignores that warning a second time.

If my child acted this way, I would stop her, hold her shoulders. Look her in the eyes and say, "listen to my words. You do not eat other peoples food. If you do this again we are leaving the party. "

"I want you to stop running. There are too many people here, to be running around like that. "

"Please repeat what I just said" Then she would need to repeat the whole thing back to me.

IF she did this again, we would leave. I would not say anything to her in the car. At home I would sit her down with my hands on her shoulders, look her in the eyes and ask her "Tell me why we had to leave the party?" Then she would tell me.

Then I would tell her, "I am disappointed we had to leave the party, because you would not do what I told you to do. . You will now not get to read the books (that was our daughters thing) you chose for this weekend to read.."

Or "you will not be allowed to play outside with your friends for the rest of the day.".

At another time, when she was in a quiet mood, maybe in the car.. I would then ask her.
"I want to know why when we were at Sam's party, you kept eating peoples food?" "Do we have a rules about how we behave at parties?" "What are the rules?"

"How would it make you feel if someone was taking your food off of your plate?" "How would it make you feel if someone did that to my / mommies plate?"

I also always had a discussion about what the expectation of behaviors were before we went to any event.

This party is at Sam's house. "If we are inside, how do we act? "

"If it is outside how do we act in someone else's yard?" we share the outdoor toys. We ask permission to take inside toys outside, we are careful with other peoples toys, etc..

"If they offer snacks, what do we say?" Thank you, please. Throw away our plate.. etc. Do not walk around with the food.. etc.. In this case you would have him say, not take peoples food.

"What do we do when it is time to leave" She knew this meant help clean up, tell the hostess and host, birthday child thank you for inviting me. "

Tantrums have always been zero tolerance with us.. The moment our child threw a tantrum, we removed her from the situation and told her. "You are in time out for 5 minutes. If you do not sit there quietly for 5 minutes we are leaving.."

Or I would have placed her in the car in her car seat, (turn on the air conditioning) and made her stay in there for the time out.. Me on the outside of the car. IF it continued, we would leave.

Our daughter learned very early on.. We do not do tantrums or fits. EVER.

Running off when you are walking..
Before you leave for the walk you talk about expectations of behaviors.
"You will walk with us, holding our hand. " or "You may walk in front of us, but we need to be able to touch your head with our hand. " "What did I just say/" What will happen if you run off? " Yes, we will go home and you will not be able to play with...

If he runs away or does not follow the rules..
You catch him and take him home for a time out.. End of the walk..

Later discuss your disappointment about his behaviors.

MOM, he is totally testing you guys. He knows he can get away with these behaviors. You need to love him so much, you will not allow him to act like this. be stronger than him and make him follow the rules of behaviors.

If they have tested him, then this is just his personality and he needs to be taught, you are stronger than him.. and he cannot wear you down.. No matter how many times, you must stick with the rules. Place it back on him, if the fun has to end. Better to do this now at 3 than in the future when he is a teenager and too big to control.

Both situations, I would squat down to his eye level, hold his arms, and use my serious face and say, making him look me in the eye: "You may NOT do that. If I see you do that again, you will get a spanking. You can obey, or not obey. If you choose to NOT obey, you will be in trouble and get a spanking. You decide - obey or spanking." At age 3, I would also hold up two hands, one being "obey" and one being "not obey" so that the kid can physically see the two choices.

If spanking's not your thing, I'd leave the room/party and go sit in the car with him for his timeout. Take away toys/priveleges/etc. At the party, I would have physically grabbed him, held him like a sac of dogfood, to the car, and given him his spanking/consequence. On the walk, I would have grabbed him, squatted down, given him that first one time warning, and if he continued to run too far away and not obey, I would turn around and go back home. Or let Dad keep walking and you take him home. "Sorry, You didn't obey, so you don't get to go for a walk with Dad." (or vice versa "Mom").

No matter what - squatting to his eye level is important. Yelling from afar does nothing.

If he was my son, I would discipline him. I know you think you ARE disciplining him, but honey... a three year old can not run around a yard grabbing people's food or drinking their drinks if you're holding on to him. Or if you're sitting with him telling him why he can't do that. And he especially can't do that if you have already removed him from the situation because he's not controlling himself. You say that if you grab him, he throws a major fit and continues the behavior. This means that you let him go. You grabbed him, probably got embarrassed because he was being noisy, and let him go, right? So from that situation he learned that if he yells enough, mom will let him get back to playing and having fun.

Discipline is hard, but you have to do it. And you have to be consistent. Your son needs to know that if he doesn't listen to mom or dad then he's going to have to leave the fun party. Truly, he sounds like a typical hyper three year old who's been getting away with too much for too long. But you can turn this around. If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend Parenting Your Spirited Child. It's a great book that can help you learn discipline techniques and strategies to help your son.

All 3 year olds are energetic and stubborn. Where was the discipline? Why didn't you pick him up and remove him from the situation? The school didn't find anything wrong with him because it's not a child problem.

The same parenting techniques don't work the same way for every child. With some children you need to be more strict. MUCH more strict.

Some children have sensitivities to certain foods and food additives that show up as behavior disturbances. Look into behavior problems caused by high fructose corn syrup and artificial food dyes. They can mimic disorders such as ADHD and other behavior disorders.

I would frankly get a leash for walks or tell him that if he runs away, you will go home and mean it, even if it seems like a punishment to you. Pack up and go home. End of walk. End of park day. End of whatever for that afternoon. Long term he needs to know you are not chasing him and it's not safe.

I would also remove him from the party (maybe have him sit on the front step with a parent who just monitors him but does not interact with him) at the second offense (first being a warning) and if he doesn't settle down, then he needs to leave. How is dinner time at home? Does he eat off of whoever's plate? Does he sit? I would practice the behavior you want out and about at home first. How did you try to stop it? Did you just tell him no? It's unclear what that means.

I do agree that you need to face him, and make sure he hears you and knows you mean business.

If your son does not have any intellectual or developmental disabilities, then firm discipline is what must come into play.

While youngsters are still learning self-regulation, we must guide them with strong direction and clear-cut discipline. When I say "discipline", I mean not "let's punish him", but "let's teach him how to interact with others in his world".

First, if it had been my son who was running around, not listening, I first would have taken him away from the more active areas and sat down with him for a quiet time. Just three minutes on my lap, no talking, just working on 'calm down and control your body'. I would restate my expectation: "You may have the food I put on your plate. You must leave the other food alone. That is for other people to eat." At that point, if the behavior were to continue, it would be time to go home OR time to take a time out in the car or buckled into a stroller. Again, and it is time to go home.

My guess, from what you described, is that the running around/not listening was some attention-getting behavior, which worked for him. He got your attention, albeit negative, and he got to do what he pleased.

This is one reason I highly recommend going home IMMEDIATELY when there is misbehavior happening, either at a restaurant or playdate (if hitting/hurting is involved). If you have other children, then bringing a stroller to buckle the misbehaving child into for a time-out might work, or again, having a car time out (no talking, they must sit in the car and you stand outside. no toys, no fun.)

Your second situation is going to require you to be patient and firm. When you go for a walk and he runs without stopping--which is dangerous, and I'm assuming you are yelling "stop" and he's just ignoring you-- then he must learn that you mean what you say. First, practice it as a game in a contained area. Take turns being the person to run and the person to yell 'stop'. You model this for him and give him positive feedback when appropriate :"High five! You stopped the very first time I said stop!" or correction-- "Oh, you didn't stop, so let's try it again now." Having children go back and practice a needed skill, like "walking feet" in the house or carrying dishes correctly is very helpful. A calm "go back, now, and let's try it again *this* way" is surprisingly usually well received. It's a practice, not a punishment.

Once you've practiced the Stop game and are ready for a walk, give very clear choices: "I need you to stay close, our you will need to hold my hand/ride in the stroller". No extra warnings-- let his actions, not his words, show you the choice he is making. If he runs off and doesn't stop, then he MUST hold your hand or ride, immediately. And then, no more talking about it. If your son complains, it's a simple answer, one time "You would not stay with us, now you must ride/hold my hand." and no more discussion.

You may want to consider finding information or literature which might help you in parenting your son. Here's one article which might be helpful:

http://www.aboutourkids.org/articles/parenting_styleschil...

Some kids are more laid back and eager to please. Some are considered "spirited" and give their parents a run for their money. If it were me, I would look into resources which might help you receive more information. An authoritative parenting style might work really well with your son. For more information and techniques in this realm, consider Love and Logic or one of my favorites, "Taking Charge: Caring Discipline That Works at Home and At School" by JoAnne Nordling. I used this as my primary guidebook both at home (with my husband) and with my preschool families; my son's preschool teachers use it also.

Good luck helping your little boy get the guidance he needs!

ETA: I agree with so much of the advice below, but would add one more suggestion: whenever possible, use clear positive language. "You may leave other people's food alone. You may eat your own food." When kids get a lot of 'do not' instructions, they tend to fixate on the descriptions of what not to do (they almost forget the 'do not' part and go straight to the actions), so make your suggested actions "we leave other plates alone. We only eat the food that is on your plate" very clear.

This was my daughter! It took removing her from the situation every single time for her to learn she was not allowed to act out of line. If she was given a warning and if she continued to disobey I swooped her up in my arms and we left. Once she figured out that she missed out on fun things because she disobeyed she started doing better. I tried spanking but it did not work for her, but it does work for her two little sisters.

For the party, I would have scooped him up and left for a while. If he was able to calm down, I might have tried returning. But otherwise, that situation was no fun for you or any of the guests so just bail.

For the walk, I would limit walks to areas where he can run freely (drive to a local park and run around a field).

Your son sounds like my oldest. The book Raising Your Spirited Child was really helpful to me, as was the Positive Discipline series. I can say that at age 14 my oldest is still a handful but charming, sweet, interesting and energetic. The worst of his behavior, by far, was age 3. We saw dramatic improvements by age 4 and in Kindergarten, he was able to more or less behave appropriately (although he couldn't and still can't focus due to inattentive-type ADHD). You have the benefit of having him not be your first so you can know with confidence that it's not you, he really is different and requires "more" than other kids. It's a temperament thing - once you know his temperament better (the Spirited Child book will help with this) then you can get a better sense of how to divert the meltdowns and avoid dangerous situations.

Good luck - with patience and a sense of humor you will do just fine.

Kudos to you for having patience with your kiddo, and for asking for advice. A few ideas I have are to, before you start an event or activity, face to face with him at his level, calmly and clearly tell him how you expect him to act (ex: do not run, or do not eat other people's food, etc). Then tell him what the consequence will be if he does these things. For example, if you are out somewhere, as hard as it will be the first time, leave (a party, playdate, store, etc) and go home. Remove him from the "fun" situation so that he clearly understands that this is the consequence of his behavior. Keep it simple consequences since he's only three. For every action, there's a consequence (good or bad). Also, ** be sure (and maybe you're already doing this) to give him TONS of praise and encouragement everytime he does something good. You could also try a "star chart"... once he has filled a row, then he gets a prize out of a treasure chest that you keep at home (i buy little $1 toys from the dollar store, or stickers, etc, not candy though).
Good luck and hang in there!! He is lucky to have a great mom who cares :)

You seem to have received some good advice for the party situation. As for situation #2, my son has a lot of energy and loves to run as well. I give him several places along the way, checkpoints if you will, that he has to stop at and wait for everyone else to catch up. These checkpoints are visible from one to the other (i.e., not far apart) and this has worked well for us.

You have some great suggestions already, but I want to add when my daughter wants to run ahead or not stay by my side then she must hold my hand. So that's what I'd make him do, hold your hand and if he refuses then you go home and no walks until he learns.
I'd also have a firm talk with him before going to any parties or get togethers or any walks about what's acceptable and what's not. Then repeat those rules right before arriving. I know some people are anti-spanking but I really think there are situations where it's warranted and nothing else will get the kid's attention. Especially when they're screaming and not even paying attention to what you're saying. Sometimes going to the restroom or the car and giving a firm whack on the butt or pinch on the thigh is all it takes.
I don't think spanking should be used routinely but in the case like you described at the party it might be a last resort. So if it was my son running around and grabbing people's drinks and throwing fits when we tried to stop him yes I'd do what I said. Take him to the car or restroom and give him a whack and a firm talk that we're gonna try this again and that will usually work for my 3 yr old daughter.
Just want to add one more thing. I know a lot of answers are saying to leave, get up and leave, take him home. But if this is happening all the time how are you supposed to ever enjoy yourself out to eat or at a party?? You can't just routinely leave, leave, leave, and let him run your whole life. Like I said a good spanking will probably knock that bad behavior out of him and still let YOU enjoy your time while not catering to how your child wants to act and let him decide what time you're leaving. Of course if it just doesn't stop and he's causing a scene then yeah leave but I don't agree that should be the answer 100% of the time.
I agree with the answer that said it's more embarrassing to let him run around grabbing drinks than for him to throw a tantrum while you restrain him.

Sit #1 - Come prepared. Bring your own snacks and plenty to drink. That way, he has what he needs and doesn't resort to taking everyone else's. If he starts to have a fit, take him to the car and strap him into his seat. If it's too hot outside, then drive around to get the AC cool and ignore his tantrum until he calms down.

Sit#2 - Walks right now do NOT work. You need to be in places where he is contained, OR you need a harness that he wears with a leash. People sometimes look badly at parents who use leashes, but forget them. They aren't the ones who are afraid of their child ending up on a milk carton.

It really sounds like you need an independent assessment (not with the school) later on when he's a little older. It sounds like he has ADHD, to be honest. He seems to have very little control over his behavior, and you do need someone to help you teach him. I would talk to your ped and ask for help. A play therapist would be a great way to start - ask your ped for a referral.

Best of luck, M..

Dawn

Could it be food allergies? My son, who is gluten and dairy intolerant, will act out of control and obsessively if he has too much of either of those substances. Try talking to a Naturopath or a Homeopathic doctor. Or you can do an Elimination Diet to see if its better or worse when you cut certain things out. A good substitute for cow's milk is Rice or Almond Milk. Hang in there, it will get better! :)

He needs to be controlled u n your husband need to find a controlling discipline for him. If it is putting him in a bathroom for time out or his bedroom or where ever he can't rn himself or get into anything there is a book called 123magic. It works if you n hubbie r on bored. Also when he is doing these things you need to grab him tell him no explain to him that it is not yours u don't drink or eat from it. Also you need to make him apologize to te person he ate or drank from. You need to let him know he can get bad germs from doing that you also may want to consult your pediatrician. He either maybe hyper overactive or or have ome kind of thing the pediatrician can suggest discipline.

Updated

He needs to be controlled u n your husband need to find a controlling discipline for him. If it is putting him in a bathroom for time out or his bedroom or where ever he can't rn himself or get into anything there is a book called 123magic. It works if you n hubbie r on bored. Also when he is doing these things you need to grab him tell him no explain to him that it is not yours u don't drink or eat from it. Also you need to make him apologize to te person he ate or drank from. You need to let him know he can get bad germs from doing that you also may want to consult your pediatrician. He either maybe hyper overactive or or have ome kind of thing the pediatrician can suggest discipline.

Updated

He needs to be controlled u n your husband need to find a controlling discipline for him. If it is putting him in a bathroom for time out or his bedroom or where ever he can't rn himself or get into anything there is a book called 123magic. It works if you n hubbie r on bored. Also when he is doing these things you need to grab him tell him no explain to him that it is not yours u don't drink or eat from it. Also you need to make him apologize to te person he ate or drank from. You need to let him know he can get bad germs from doing that you also may want to consult your pediatrician. He either maybe hyper overactive or or have ome kind of thing the pediatrician can suggest discipline.

Have you watched Super nanny? (and I do NOT mean that in a sarcastic way). When I have watched episodes she seems to have some great ideas. THe thing to remember is that nothing is going to work immediately. I have seen episodes where is takes over an hour to get a child to stay in time out, but eventually it does work. I think to watch other parents struggle with situations that seem similar to yours it kind of eye-opening. And lets you know that you are not the only one dealing with this behavior.

One thing I know from being a teacher (and a mom) is that you must follow through. I heard a parent in the store the other day telling her child "if you don't stop you are not going to get that car" (a matchbox car) Well, I heard her say this more times than I could count throughout the store. I am pretty sure that the kids STILL got the car even though he clearly was not following directions! Taking the car would have (I'm sure) ended in a huge meltdown and tantrum, but at least the child would have learned that Mom meant what she said.

Remember too that things get worse before they get better. And there will be some reverting to old behaviors. Being a parent is HARD! Good luck!!!