To take my little boys tablet away.

[Laurenandthebump4]

My DS is 6, last night he played on his tab for an hour before bed and when I went up to ask him to get off of it at 9pm he did so, and proceeded to lay down and I tucked him in and went off to my own room to join sleeping DH.

When my DD woke at 12am I got up to see to her and caught my DS on his tab - he must of sneaked on to it!
Anyway he was obviously tired this morning and when I picked him up from school the teacher said he was out of character and he pinched a child in his class - I am mortified! I look like an awful parent now, having a child who acts like that.

Now I know if I take this tablet away before bed, he will scream blue murder and kick the bed and walls for hours on end tonight, I'm worried of the neighbours phoning SS or something (we live on a nice road, we are the only ones with children so a crying child stands out)

Agh I am so stressed!

I think I'd find it stressful too! Bedtimes are the hardest times of the day when you're tired & they won't settle.

We have tried everything we have just come to accept that he doesn't listen to us and never will

Ds1 didn't sleep till 11/12 at night for years from the age of 4ish, and it caused lots of stress for us as we thought it was deliberate on his part. It's mostly sorted now thanks to an ASD diagnosis and melatonin. I empathise with you and it's very hard.

I apologise for the accusation.
But clearly you need to remove the tablet altogether for a while if it is causing tantrums. If mine go over the time allowed, they lose it the next day. If they whine about losing it the next day, they lose it for another day. And so on. Dd2's record is 6 days' loss before she figured out that tantrums made it worse. I get full compliance now with very little kickback. He is six not 3 so let it be known that tantrums will be punished as well.

I'd take it away from him all the time if he is behaving like that over it.

Take it away and deal with the tantrums, warn the neighbours, your last post is a worry, if you can't control him now at 6 what on earth are you going to do when he is older

Just hard I guess when you have 2 toddlers sleeping in the room next door to him, I guess I give in too much for an easier life but he just says I'm so mean etc if I take it away and then I think oh heck what if he says that to somebody else and panic

i would take control by letting him scream and tantrum from now until xmas 2020, if that what it takes.
what you have taught him so far is that if he screams long enough you will eventually give in to him.
the fact that he is smirking shows that he knows he's in control.
he needs a very, very good talking to, and as often as necessary for the message to sink in, along with a restriction on privileges, no unsupervised tablet time and consistent discipline.

Just hard I guess when you have 2 toddlers sleeping in the room next door to him, I guess I give in too much for an easier life but he just says I'm so mean etc if I take it away and then I think oh heck what if he says that to somebody else and panic

Why do you panic op?

stop giving in to him!
i would be creasing myself watching him tantrumming about like a little dictator.
i would also film it all to show at his 21st.
but that's just me

You're his mother ffs, take control
You're the parent. Deal with it.

Good one, finnbarcarr, what sage advice for a parenting site.

You cannot just 'accept' that your 6 year old will never listen to you. If things are really that bad ask your gp/health visitor/midwife (if you're pregnant as your username suggests) for a referral to parenting classes, for his sake and yours. And get rid of the bloody tablet!

I suggest you go on a parenting course. At the very least read How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk. You have a very persistent little boy there and you need some skills to deal with it.

Being called mean when you are being fair, firm and reasonable is a good sign. He knows there are boundaries. You cannot give in once you have set a fair and clear boundary. Absolutely no giving in. That is what creates tantrums. He knows they work.

Surely tablet just before bed is not normal for six year old.

Neither is a 7pm bedtime on the other hand.

My 6 year old goes to bed about 8/8.30 (as in that's when I aim to have her jn bed with light out). Before that (once teeth brushed etc) there is a process of reading jn bed - either me to her or her to me or both. Then a cuddle and lights out calmly and then I leave (usually me as dh works late).

I give both my kids a bath around 6.30/7, dd plays or whatever while I get ds (1) down. This involves milk and lullabies and is beginning to involve stories which sometimes dd reads to him with me obviously involved too.

After he is down jn cot I start reading to her.

I don't just bung her in bed at 7 nor do I give her a tablet just before bed to sit up late with. With kids this young you have to engage in a process of calming down to sleep with them.

On our router we can create rules to restrict access to certain times of the day (and other things like web sites), then apply them to individual devices. If you don't fancy the inevitable battle of wills right now ...

It sounds very tough - is your DH on board to help with the tantrams?

But yes, you should remove the tablet - actually remove it permanently and let him 'earn' back half an hour at a time.

I know it will be very, very hard - and no easy answers - we just confiscated our 14 year old's tablet for a week due to rude behaviour.

Sorry for you op, it sounds like your ds needs help because he is using it too much and becoming obsessed.

I think you have to take it away every time he tantrums. It will be awful for a while until he realises the longer he screams, the longer he will lose the tablet for.

Then I would let him have it after school for an hour, then take it away for dinner and homework and don't bring it out again so he can wind down at bed time. Again, any screaming means it goes immediately and he doesn't get it the next day, or gets it for a shorter time.

Ds who is 7 got a bit tablet obsessed and behaved badly if it was removed, but we couldn't let him be glued to it, and once we put boundaries in place he fought against it for a couple of days them gave in. He is much more responsible now and gets tablet in bed for a while at weekends. He is so much better that when we forgot to take it back one night he brought it to us as he knew his time was up.

If you give in too much at this age, any kind of discipline later will eb even harder.

If a child says his mum is mean for not letting him on the i-pad, nobody, really nobody, will bat an eyelid. Nobody will even think of calling SS. SS would NOT be interested. In fact, most people would think: Good on the mum for putting in boundaries.

Same with shouting, kids shout, nobody would call social services. If they did, and you said: Yes he is upset when we don't let him on the i-pad, they would think: Good on her! But they would never come for a crying kid.

Crying is not a reason to get SS involved, SS is protecting children from abuse, not for protecting children's i-pad time!

Where did you get this fear of SS? It seems unfounded!

Could you just give him to pad for 1 hour every afternoon? Set a timer. Timer rings, time's up. This worked and works well for my DC.

I feel for you OP my 5 year old DS is very hard to deal with sometimes and yes it's very stressful. Day to day tasks are stressful. POints of conflict can easily become things to avoid to make it easier or to keep the noise down (I have neighbours below me and I've found it hard to firmly discipline him eg put him on time out properly, because he will react so badly I feel for them!) but it's obviously a vicious cycle. I've found that being firmer and following through on consequences have helped, and sometimes just not worrying what the neighbours think - he'll be on time out. A lot of what you describe sounds like he might be very tired as well but it's not exactly possible to just make them sleep early in an instant. I've also found using 'thank you' and lots of praise to be quite effective, instead of saying 'please'. Don't give the option of non compliance. Also if you get a chance to have a cuddle and a nice bedtime routine and maybe get to talk to him about what might be bothering him he might talk to you.
& a routine like bath, story, make sure he has eaten enough and so on

Ffs Finnbar that's why op is asking for advice duh.

Anyway agree with pp strict limits on tablets and not before bed. They do push boundaries a lot at that age and will keep pushing if they scent a chance of you caving in.

What I find helps is to say that if he continues to carry on like that over tablet being taken away then he'll lose it the next day as well. Ds has now realised I mean business and will only push the pleading so far. Once you stuck to it he'll get the message. Might be a rough week though!

I'd take it off him for 24 hours and inform him that if he tantrums he'll loose it for 48 hours.
Then if he still continues, escalate it to a week.

Then if he STILL continues he looses it for good.

I agree completely with coffee, you need to go cold turkey on him every single time he tantrums til he realises he needs to stop.

DS1 was a bit enamoured with the xbox when we first got it, so we bought a time tracker for him which worked brilliantly. On the rare occasions it hasn't worked, I've removed the following day's privileges. He took a few weeks to work it out but got there eventually.

It sucks, having to be the bad guy, even more when there's more than one DC. But if you let him get his own way now constantly, his expectations will be so much higher once he's into his teens and he won't be answerable to you at all. Good luck.

If my DS got like this I wouldn't take the tablet away completely, but Id download that software so that after, say, 8 at the latest it no longer works. It's not your fault it no longer works, it's the internet connection or something. But I'm a bit soft. I just think any 'punishment' has to be immediate for there to be a causal link. Or if you take it away, you have to be willing to give it back after he has calmed down and asked nicely, and if this is late in the evening you're not going to be willing to do that.. so I'd opt for covertly disabling it

Because the op might as well have said "we've tried nuthin and we're all out of ideas".