Aggressive behaviour from DS

dangers

I also give them a timed warning and have always found it works well. I think we have all been in your position and think that we are the only ones with the troublesome child.

At your son's age, he could be testing the boundaries - seeing what he can get away with, especially as there is now the baby in the scene and you are back at work; these kids sure know how to manipulate us parents.

Good luck with it all.

CG77

poppyolivia wrote: »

It really depends on the child....I ALWAYS give the 'right kids, 5 more mins then time to go' speech, it works here perfect, if I didn't do it then it was time to go, they would be annoyed I stopped them half way through a game....

suppose it depends on the child (mine are 8 and 4)

Hi,

I think mrcow was referring more to the 'time to go' part of it than the counting down. I absolutely agree with this. If the problem is that the child doesn't want to leave, then make it not 'ok we're leaving', but make the thing you're going to do NEXT the focus-something they WILL want to do.

I have a 3 and a half year old DS too, and although we don't have these issues with him any more, we did when he was slightly younger. We liked to use the 'choice' element a lot more now he's getting slightly older. So we'd say something like, 'OK, 2 more minutes playing here and then we're going to go home so you can finish doing your jigsaw'. If he then began to play up, we'd say, 'We're going to go home now and you can play with your jigsaw if you like. You have a choice. Are you going to sit still while I put your shoes on without crying or shall I put your jigsaw away when we get home?' If he didn't respond and sit there quietly, I'd say, 'Ok you chose not to put your shoes on nicely so I'm going to put your jigsaw away when we get home'. He'd then cry, 'no, no I want my jigsaw'. We'd get home and I'd put the jigsaw away. Of course he'd cry and we'd hug him and ask 'Oh dear did you make the wrong choice? Did you not want me to put your jigsaw away really? That's sad isn't it?' It only took a couple of times of having to do things like this, before he would cry when I'd taken a toy or similar and then say, 'Mummy I made the wrong choice' Then another couple of times later and we'd see him thinking really carefully about which 'choice' to make, then choose the one with the best outcome for him! It worked because it wasn't us punishing him, but him choosing the wrong behaviour, iyswim?

Another good one we used along the same lines was if he was playing, for example, and we wanted him to stop and have his tea, we wouldn't say, 'ok, put your car down now, it's tea time', but instead gave him some control by saying, 'Ooooh tea's ready. Where are you going to park your car until you've finished eating?' It usually really well and we just use it automatically now.

We used different strategies with unwanted behaviour though to the ones above for moving from one task to another. If he did something we didn't like (banged the TV with his hammer) we'd say, 'Don't do that'. If he did, we'd say, 'If you do that again, I'm going to take your hammer away'. We'd then take it the as soon as he did, again emphasising the 'wrong choice (because you did want to play with it, didn't you?)'.

I have to say though, that ANY type of aggression has always been treated very differently here and there is NO warning, NO chance-it's always been a zero tolerance type of thing for us. We would very calmly pick him up and put him in his room/take him to the car and bring him home. He'd cry of course and we'd leave him for a couple of minutes and he'd be asked, 'Why have we put you in your room?' 'I hit Daddy'. 'Yes you did and we do NOT hit anybody. Are you going to say sorry?' If he said yes, he'd come down. If he refused, he'd be taken straight back-no ifs or buts and we'd go through the whole process again until he said sorry (I don't believe in 'sorry' really as it doesn't mean anything to them, but does show what you have to do if you hurt someone so we insist on it). We never shouted (hard at first!) but would just calmly remove him or sometimes say calmly, 'Oh dear'. We haven't had any of this for the last 6 months or so now, but if (when!) it happens again, it'll be exactly the same procedure.

As has been said so many times though, the absolute key is consistency. Whatever you choose to do, you MUST do it every single time. Once he sees this and doesn't like what happens next, he'll very soon learn. He'll test at first to check it happens every time, but when he sees you don't falter, he'll stop. I like to use the same phrases every time because then it becomes habit to me and DH and we're consistent almost without thinking IYSWIM?

Oh my gosh, HUUUUUUUUUUGE post-sorry!!

Just hope it's some help!

CG. x

beckseven

Thanks everyone for your helpful posts-it's great to hear what works for other people and I now have plenty of tips to put into practice. DS was very good last night but i'm picking up from ps today and he normally gets worked up then so I am going to put your hints into practice.Thanks again and thanks for letting me know that i am not the only person this happens to.

Pee

Could you talk to your mum about it?

I don't hvae a great relationship with my Mum, but one thing I really do respect her for is discipline when I was younger. (When I was 23 and trying to leave home, I don't feel it was so useful, but she did a grand job on the early years and I would love to know how.)

vaio

CG77 did a really excellent post, I tend to lean away from the “explaining to kids” area and more toward “just do as you are told” tough love sort of thing but agree 100% that absolute consistency is the key.

The aim is to produce a sort of fatalistic expectation of listening and good behaviour, once this expectation is developed it can easily be transferred to other areas, room tiding, school work, university etc etc.

The trick is to develop it whilst they are young, it might be hard to do when they are two but it 10 times harder when they are four, 50 times harder when they are eight and just about impossible when they are sixteen.

RedBern

beckseven wrote: »

Thanks everyone for your helpful posts-it's great to hear what works for other people and I now have plenty of tips to put into practice. DS was very good last night but i'm picking up from ps today and he normally gets worked up then so I am going to put your hints into practice.Thanks again and thanks for letting me know that i am not the only person this happens to.

also, don't forget to do some positive reinforcement with him (or whatever you call it!). Praise him for doing things for you (and for himself), tidying up his toys when asked, or fetching you something or helping in some way with the baby. He's not naughty all the time, but quite often that message gets lost and he'll think that everything he does is wrong - you'll only notice the negative and get stressed, and things escalate. I'd like to say it gets better as they grow up ............but can't quite bring myself to.......;)

claireac

My dd is 3.5 yrs old - and a bit of a madam!! I found that I was getting a bit lax and letting her have a bit too much leeway behaviour-wise and making excuses for her (she's tired, ill etc). I've clamped right down and her behaviour is much improved.

I always warn her that we're leaving somewhere. I count to 3 if she's doing something she shouldn't, and I always follow through. I remove her from the situation, there's always a step or chair facing away that she can sit on for 2 minutes. Think Supernanny.

Have you tried having a chat about the hitting when you're having a nice quiet time on your own? He's perfectly old enough to understand and remember.

Don't be embarassed about dealing with bad behaviour - I don't believe anyone who says their toddler has never played up :rolleyes:.

Divas & Dictators book arrived and I'm looking forward to reading it!

beckseven

I have implemented a zero tolerance policy towards hitting and am sticking to it. I went to a stay and play this afternoon and before we went i had a quiet word with DS and said that I didn't want him to run round the carpark like he did last time because it was dangerous etc. Anyway he has a little friend who he adores but together they are double trouble and I could see him getting more and more wound up as time progressed and when it was time to go I was struggling to hold his hand, hold the baby etc and he was getting more and more aggressive to the point that when I put him in the car he hit me so hard in the face my glasses flew off. I said to him 'you've made the wrong choice' and as we were driving past the house to go to nursery (I'm doing 4-11 today) I stopped and picked up his favourite car and said 'Because of your behaviour today I am taking 'Mater' to work with me'. He went absolutely crazy-crying all the way to nursery but by the time we got there he was subdued and I said 'Why did mummy take your car' and he said 'Because I hit mummy. Sorry mummy.' so I said you can have it back tomorrow when I hear that you have been a good boy for daddy this evening.' i've warned Dh that i have a hostage in the car! I've had enough and am not going to accept this behaviour anymore. Claire that book sounds very good-love the name! Pee-I would definitely be on the phone to my mum but she has gone to Spain for the month so dont really want to hassle her! She is an ex headmistress so is normally good at handling him-except he gets away with a lot more than i did as grandkids do! Feel a lot more in control now I have made a decision to be in control.

vaio

Good start, remember consistency is everything and make sure your OH does exactly the same too

beckseven

Thanks-I know that being strong and consistant will make things easier in the long term-hopefully!