My ds keep shaming me

I’m actually in the opposite camp to most people here. When my 3 year old started hitting me (just after his baby DS arrived) I realised it was all about attention. Yelling, time outs, stern talking tos all rewarded the behaviour. I started walking away. Absolutely no response at all. It stopped really fast after that. He’s 4 now and we do the same with any language we don’t like. Any time he starts up with poo poo bum bum chat, we glaze over, change the subject. It’s all extremely boring.

We’ve told him that the consequence of unpleasant behaviour is people don’t want to spend time with him. This is paired with loads of positive attention for good behaviour.

Is your husband telling them not to talk to you like that?

Another one asking where have they heard "fat" as an insult?

My kids at that age did not know it was an insult, and now they are older they would never dare be so unkind.

Something missing in your retelling OP. Are they having unsupervised TV or YouTube viewing? Is your DH actually abusive and saying similar things? Do you say similar things?

My ds doesn’t give a shit about cross / stern / teacher voices (I am a teacher so I’m not a newbie at it.) He’d just laugh.

I also 100% think they are bouncing off one another; I know both mine are lovely alone but can get very silly and hyper together.

I would be tempted to just walk out of the room when they do it; every time. And no TV. But sympathies; it’s not as easy as some posters are making out.

It's coming from somewhere.

How do you and your husband talk to each other. How do others around them communicate? What are they watching?

You need stronger boundaries and consequences if soft gentle parenting isn't working. It has to be nipped right back or it will get worse.

Give them instructions without wasting time trying to reason. Give them a time limit. 'You have 5 minutes to do...or otherwise this will/won't happen'.

Stick to effective punishments. Be consistent. If they hit you, return the favour. They will usually stop very quickly when they see the response to their behaviour.

You find something they really care about, tell them calmly that if they are rude or hit they will lose that thing - straight away, no warnings - and then stick to it, every single time. Maybe no TV that day, or no sweets, or no dessert, or no Lego the next day - whatever you know they will care about. At the same time start a "being kind" chart for each of them where they get a sticker at bedtime if they’ve done a whole day being kind (no being rude or hitting). When an individual child achieves say 10 stickers that child gets a small reward (new small toy, extra tv time etc.)

Have you perfected ‘the look’ with a firm phrase ‘thats rude/unkind/enough’? Don’t give it any more time and attention than that.

separately the not giving in to stuff - how are you setting these boundaries? Ideas:Might be better trying to think through ways to boundary things that are not you intervening in their plans unexpectedly (to them) eg provide snacks for the day in a named box in the fridge that they can get whenever they want and once gone it’s gone then it’s on them to learn a responsible limit to snacks not you. As for TV - get any jobs done for the day first so if they put tv on they don’t need pulling away from it to reduce the need to do to do that.

Do you not have a Cross Voice?

Stop explaining and come up with a simple non - emotional statement you make every time they say it, followed by a consequence for non compliance. Eg 'it is not ok to be rude' or 'you need to speak to me politely'. Don't let them know you're upset or angry, you're just enforcing a rule. Firm and clear works best. Then follow up as needed - 'no, we are not baking today as you were rude / called me fat / whatever. Maybe we can do it tomorrow.'

If you aren’t in control of them aged 4 and 5 then at 15 and 16 I can see this being much, much worse.
Zero tolerance measures.
Removing all the things they like and they have to earn them back.
Where have they seen fat shaming behaviour? School?

Zero screen time.
zero junk food if those are the snacks they are kicking off for.

Do you call yourself fat or complain about your weight infront of them?

They learn if they hit someone they get hit back.

Children of this age need pretty instant consequences. Look completely shocked (although that ship has sailed a bit) and say very simply that they are being rude. Remove all snacks/TV remote. Try not to be emotional just shocked and disappointed. When DH returns (if he isn't there) explain in front of the children that there has been some rather shocking behaviour today and that you feel quite disappointed. He then needs to say that he is also very disappointed and hopes that he never hears his children speak like this again. A united front from both parents does tend to be more effective.

First of all, if you are fat, you need to not be ashamed of it. Teach your kids, explicitly, or implicitly that while you are overweight, it's not a character flaw. It's a physical feature that is no more shameful than height, eye colour, freckles. the reason I say this is because children are parasites and they will exploit any weakness you show them to get more out of you. If they know you don't give a shit, it won't work as an insult.

There are very, very few times that my children have upset me personally. When they have done this, I have been very clear: I'm actually upset by what you said to me. I do not wish to be friendly with you. I will continue to feed and take you where you need to go and exchange information, but do not attempt to converse with me until tomorrow. Children are herd animals and hate to be excluded. This works for me, but won't work for everyone.

The hitting needs to be punished, especially if the child is in full control and not overwhelmed/having a meltdown. Do not hit back: You lose the moral high ground and don't solve the problem.

Your kids need to earn these treats, as they feel they are being robbed of what they consider to be an entitlement.

Their dad needs to be on board with the expectations and sanctions. I hope he/you do not insult each other.

If they have ipads/phones, or know how to use such devices, this stops immediately. I should have put this first, as this is often the cause and removal is solution.

Eat some nice treats in front of them and tell them they aren’t having any because they are mean. The insults would soon stop.

I’d read them the riot act in quite a loud voice.

If I'd even dared to speak to my parents like that, I'd have been given the biggest bollocking known to man. I don't mean a smack or anything, but my parents would have made it crystal clear that my behaviour was unacceptable and I'd not have dared do it again.

Pick something they REALLY care about. TV time is a good one. As soon as they call you that, TV is gone for the day.

You need to clamp down now OP, before this escalates further.

This is completely unacceptable behaviour as I'm sure you know. You need to go nuclear.

Not sure I'd go as far as a smack, but they definitely need the wrath of something bringing down on their heads. I'd ground them and only allow them down from their rooms for meals. Then straight back up, until they apologise and mean it.

My eldest dd went through a phase of this and I realised that it was coming from her watching Horrid Henry and her acting like him.
It makes you so sad 😞 but I would be looking at the programmes they are watching and talking to teachers at school about their behaviour.
Firm immediate consequences. No TV, treats.
It did pass once we stopped the horrid Henry and she realised that I was talking to teachers etc.
She was not calling me names as such but she was talking to me like absolute crap. It did affect my mental health too.

I would never say smack them, I have never smacked my children but this behaviour tested me in that way. I could absolutely see why my mum would have walloped me for it. I came close to it a few times 🙈

I can't believe people are advocating smacking children as a way to stop them from hitting!

You don't need to smack children for any reason, but you do need to enforce rules and boundaries.

Totally agree above..