christmas

[gonnabegoingsoon]

aibu to tell my children santa will not be visiting our house this year due to them being really naughty.
myself and their father split earlier this year, suddenly their behaviour improved but now has gone down hill again. of course i will buy them some thing but not what they usually have, as the saying goes" a little less for more respect". i am tired of being spoke to like rubbish and them constantly fighting. i have said that we will instead make boxes for operation christmas child but pther family members are saying i am being to harsh !!

YABU to make ridiculous idle threats you know you won't keep. Find some other way of managing their behaviour.

YAABU to have anything to do with OCC, see mammoth thread.

I think if your children are young enough to still believe in santa, then the responsibility for helping them through this rough time lies with you - it's not exactly surprising if young children's behaviour is problematic when their parents split up. So, help them to deal with the emotional upheaval, and buy them what you decide you can afford for Christmas.

You're being too harsh. You've split with their Dad in the last year - of course they're going to react against that. If the bad behaviour wasn't immediate then it's probably because they didn't immediately realise that this was it, forever - that not living with Mum and Dad all the time was how it was going to be. It often takes a while before kids realise all the implications.

It sounds like you've all had a difficult year - cut them some slack. Think instead about what you do when they're being naughty - what are your sanctions, do the sanctions actually work? Is it time for a rethink about your approach? They do X, you do Y as punishment, but Y doesn't actually make them stop doing X again. So change what Y is. There are loads of threads on here re bad behaviour and how to deal with it.

How old are they?

your kids are acting out - woman up and help them cope with their feelings

4 under 7 and an 11 year old. their behaviour before their father left was due to the relationship with him then got better when he left. they have become really naughty and i feel i have tried everything, just feel lost right now.

deal with your children behaviour and stop using empty threats.

I really hate it when parents use santa, the lady behide the counter, the bus driver, the easter bunny ect ect to control behaviour.

I don't think its completely unreasonable, although I wouldn't say Santa.

I would say that I would only be buying them any Christmas presents if they were well behaved.

However I think whats to stop them misbehaving after Christmas. You should identify the key issues such as untidiness, the way they speak to you, or whatever the actual issues are and work out how to address that behaviour. A punishment for certain bad behaviour might be no christmas presents but unless its part of an entire assault on their behaviour it won't have any effective but to make them resentful and you probably even more unhappy.

YABU. Don't do this, you are being too harsh on your dcs. They are going through a massive upheaval. Of course I know you are too, and I feel very sorry for you. I can imagine you're under massive strain. Have you got family support?

Really sorry you're having a tough time. Don't use Santa as a threat though. I've had to work hard at my relationship with dd and the thing that works for her is the opposite of what I want to do-praising the nuggets of good behaviour and giving positive attention. Hugging when I feel like running away. Little by little things improved and I now look forward to the time I used to force myself to spend with her. It will get better, you've all had a very rough time.

You have 4 under 7 and an 11year old? Not surprised you feel stressed out and don't know what to do - we often struggle with our two! Added to that you are on your own and it sounds like things were/are tricky with your ex...

Don't threaten stuff that you won't carry out, and don't blow stuff out of proportion. It is far better to deal with each issue as it happens with appropriate sanctions rather than one big blow-out and then there's nothing left to sanction the next time.

Also, particularly with the younger ones, could you do a reward system (particularly running up to Christmas) with them earning stickers/whatever for doing what you ask?

My only advice is to pick your battles. You can't win every fight, so chose the ones you can win fairly easily - focus on the really, really piss-taking bad stuff, and let some of the minor crimes go.

With the 11 year old - does he get pocket money? That worked well with my older ones; something like £1 a week (or whatever), and then I'd subtract 10p or 20p per "crime", so they'd end up on a Sunday night only being given 60p, say (there were some weeks they ended up actually owing me some money).

And with the younger ones - always better to make a huge song and dance when they do do what they're told/get through a day without answering back/having an unnecessary strop. Praising the good stuff really does help reduce the bad stuff. So some sort of rewards system - every day we don't have a row you get a sticker, or every time you're a star you get a sticker, every 10 stickers you get X.

We have a sheet of paper with a title like "we are brilliant because..." I stock post it notes with what they've done which is good. They are pretty small to start with eg "dd1 held the door open in the shop". "ds said nice things about dd1s drawing". Reminds me as much as anything that they ate nice to each other and me more often than I remember!

(I should add that I very often berl like putting up a complete opposite list like "you drive me up the b***y wall because..."