Help please 3 year old DS turned into the devil incarnate

Towser

Firstly I think you are a good parent for trying to sort it out. Don't beat yourself over that. Everybody makes mistakes.

You have had a lot of good advice so far. I only think of this as it happened to us. Have you thought of Autism? I just could not believe parenting could be so hard. It slowly dawned on me especially seeing him with his peers at preschool that something was wrong. People were telling me don't be daft. Autism is especially hard to diagnose, there are all different varieties too.

Have a look with preschool as they know 3 year olds especially well what the problem may be. Work with them. Ours were falling over backwards to try and help and gave themselves a lot of good self esteem by being asked what their expert opinion was. Once our diagnosis did come they were very proud that they could help. They may only be child carers but they are experts in their own field a very important job.

In my world there are only solutions no problems!

Good luck with it nobody said it was easy.

notanewuser

GwylimT wrote: »

She did go through a phase of purposely weeing and pooing in her nappy so one day I left it on her after she had done a poo, she never did it again.

Isn't that what nappies are for!?

fluffnutter

^^ Ha ha! Aren't you supposed to take nappies off when potty training anyway? It sends a bit of an odd message if you tell a child that they're not to go in the nappy when that's precisely what they've happily been doing for the past 2 or 3 years

Mojisola

CRANKY40 wrote: »

I was also so entranced by all the other nasty stuff that the book described that he wasn't doing that I started thinking his behaviour wasn't that bad in comparison (compared to vomiting at will and "smearing" it actually wasn't).

This made me laugh!

The answer for us seemed to be to pick my battles.

Completely agree with this.

GwylimT

notanewuser wrote: »

Isn't that what nappies are for!?

Not when you've been toilet trained and come downstairs in one of your brothers!

supermassive

What worked with my relatives (who I toilet trained because... well, they liked me better than their parents) was *insert dramatic music here that goes 'dun dun duunnnnn'* Sugar Free sweets.

The little bleeders think they're getting a treat - it's called bribery - and you don't have to deal with the rush & crash that comes with plying the demonic-sweethearts with actual confectionary. That's the enforcement for the good behaviour. It's a "if you do this, you get this" and never use "if you don't do it you won't get it" because they were never entitled to the sweets in the first place.

As for bad behaviour - I don't understand why parents don't think back to their school years and adopt one of the best methods, one of the most reliable methods that's slightly humiliating - but that's the point, a deterrent. Put the child in your eye line facing the wall. Do not engage in any conversation or battle. It'll only happen once or twice if your kid is sharp enough to realise it's not a good thing. It doesn't stop there, though. After their few minutes stood thinking about what they've done - it's time to sit and be quiet somewhere without toys or stimulants. After their calming down from this, tell the child again to do what they initially reacted to.

One thing that confused me about OP was the use of the word 'ask'. It makes you sound wishy-washy. You need to be an authority figure, and authority figures do not 'ask' children to do things. The child should be politely told. "Pick up the rest of your toys please." That's it. no "can you" "Will you" etc. That's giving them room to believe they have a say in matters, which they don't.

Regardless of what could be blamed for poor behaviour, the fact is that it's happening and you can't go back and change anything, so deal with the behaviour in a zero tolerance manner. If your child behaves, you're a lovely mummy and everything's skittles and rainbows. If the child misbehaves, you're going to be teacher-mummy and educate the child that actions have consequences and that these actions result in punishment.

You are your child's mother, but most of all you are the owner of your child.

z.n

Mojisola wrote: »

After a week had gone by, my friend's little boy started collecting the baby's things together in a pile. When asked why, he said it had been alright having a sister at first but he thought they should send her back now.

DS did this too- 2 year age gap. He was vastly disappointed she didn't want to play.

z.n

DS was fantastic at tantrums- and protest weeing (not pooing thank goodness.) The tantrums eased when his vocabulary met his need to communicate. The weeing we sorted by making a huge hoo-hah of clearing up and wasting lots of his precious play time (the main reason he stopped going to the bathroom was the time it took to walk down the hall, mess about with clothes etc when he would rather be playing.) We also got pants with pictures on and made sure his clothes were easy to manage/foam rather than soap to wash hands-ie make the whole process easier and quicker than having to sort a change of clothes etc. He quickly became completely independent. Didn't take long for him to do the maths. However. I knew he was being naughty because he told me so!

Shouting back is not helpful IMO- nor is any sort of punishment. Unless you understand the motivation it is impossible to know what behaviour you are trying to stop (eg assertion of independence/individuality.) So be clever and find ways round it while maintaining composure/control at all times. Battles ahead will be worse- so get your game face sorted now! If bribery works then use it to get things back on track.

Do you have Dad at home a bit of 'this is how it is done' can help too.

DigForVictory

I'm all for bribery, blackmail, cuddles, strong drink & trying not to whimper "oh thank God" when OH returns. With OH.

With the little blighters, I tried reasonable negotiation, fancy underclothes, choices & ultimately Outliving the little dears. We all survived .

Vengeance will be mine when they have toddlers of their own.

(In the meanrtime, see if you can get http://www.amazon.co.uk/Now-Know-Tigers-Their-Young/dp/185433140X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1423577421&sr=1-3&keywords=now+i+know+why+tigers+eat+their+young - a penny's worth on kindle. It made me laugh loads, and even if the techniques worked mostly on teenagers, it helped me view my under-5 menagerie with a new affection.

thriftylass

What worked for us (also had a toilet training threenager and a new baby) is to ignore him when he done sth bad after maybe telling him to stop once or twice. Once he didn't get a reaction he stopped. If we wanted him to do sth and he didn't, often (not always ) it helped to give him a choice while telling him what to do. Like: put your shoes on (command not ask!!), do you want the blue or green ones. Many of those things are just phases they grow out of and they want to test their boundaries. If DS wet his pants literally on purpose because he wanted to I didn't get upset (tried, lol) just quietly took him upstairs, changed him and that was it. Before the baby was born he also had a total daddy phase where he just refused to cuddle me or anything and just wanted daddy. It really hurt but too passed.