To ask for help over my children's behaviour

[Imissgoldengrahams]

I can't lie I'm at my wits end. I have 4 children
In the past 24 hours my 8 year old has stolen money out of my suitcase (Not long back from holiday so haven't unpacked) and gone over to the shop and got sweets
She took pens upstairs and has drawn all over her pillow and her sheet.

Two days after we got back from holiday she had a friend in the house to play, she let this kid through her brand new lego (from the aforementioned holiday) out of the window and now the bits are lost and you can't build it back up

Another friend she has, will come in and take everything out of her cupboard, on hangers and my daughter just let's her, they chuck the clothes about her room. So I've banned her from coming bsck in

They found my partners permanent marker (by going through his work bag) and they've drawn all over our kitchen chairs with their names and various numbers

I'm really struggling, I don't know what to do. They go out to play and they end up throwing stones at the house, so they get grounded.

They hit each other all of the time, they kick and spit at each other or on the walls

I don't know what to do anymore. If I ask why they've done something, I just get 'dunno'

I think you are misunderstanding my thoughts pattern. There are non judgemental places out there and cost effective places and places with grants. Sometimes you have to email to ask is there somewhere i can apply for a grant for my child to go and they are really helpful and it was simply mentioning two. There will be many more and I can only mention the two I know personally. But if you want to research other places so you can be positive too. Feel free

Sit all the children down get each ones version of the events, talk to them one at a time, the 3yo is hard, they are going to mimic the bad behaviour so your just going to have to keep repeating the same message it’s not allowed. The 7yo is old enough to understand just because big sis is doing it dose not make it right, their current punishment is grounding but it will get worse if they repeat. You want them to walk away not join in going forward.

The 8yo obviously has some issues going on, you need to find her Achilles heal in punishment. But most importantly talk to her calmly, why she thinks it’s ok to destroy your house, it might be her room but it’s your home, why would she let a friend throw out new expensive lego, is the child making her do it. Have you spoken to the other child’s parents to get that child’s version? Dose your dd have her own money, is their financial consequences to her actions?

I think I’d be sitting all 3 of the younger ones down and asking what they would like to do while your at work, some easy crafts and games that don’t require your babysitter to help too much or need to clean up afterwards.

id also be making sure the oldest one is also hanging with his younger siblings, being a boy isn’t an excuse not to spend time with them and play games especially in the holidays.

This you need to source better childcare and come up with clear and reasonable boundaries as well

Sounds like your child needs closer supervision and for you to take more control. So I'd be going back to basics, and even though she's 8, I'd be 'child proofing' the house. So no pens or anything she can cause damage with left around. No instances of other children in your home out of your sight with her expected to police them. No opportunities to be unobserved long enough to steal money and take herself to the shop without you realising. Some children need a lot of direction and guidance, as left to their own devices they are not sensible. Your DD is one of them, so you need to step up the vigilance and keep her entertained in positive ways.

You can't punish bored, unhappy kids into being 'happy to have nothing to do all day' kids. And saying your kids arses would glow if they behaved liked that is just vile - if you can only control them by hitting them then you don't have control of them at all.

This a huge problem OP but it's not your kids fault. They need someone around to put in consistent, fair boundaries and to keep them busy. I'm not religious but 'the devil makes work for idle hands' is definitely true here. It would be much easier if you just had one or two children, but the cost of decent care for 4 is going to be high and difficult to find.

I wish there was an easy answer but there really isn't unless you have a lot of money to throw at the situation. Just please don't have any more children.

It's not up to a 10 year old to be entertaining his 3 younger siblings in the summer holidays. 10 year olds do not want to play anything that is suitable for a 3 year old. Punishing the 8 year old will also not improve her behaviour when the person punishing her has left and the 8 year old is left at home bored out of her brain.

The three younger children are not going to be able to play games or do crafts without an adult actively involved, especially the 3 year old. They are also just not going to calmly sit down and do these things if it's not how they're used to behaving at home. With 3 kids all trying to grab the best craft items or taking all the turns it's going to just be chaos and it really doesn't sound like the disabled babysitter is up to organising it all.

The one thing that might entertain them all in this weather is a paddling pool but even that is a danger for the 3 year old if the disabled baby sitter isn't up to watching him like a hawk (and it definitely doesn't sound like they are). I really don't think there are any easy answers here that don't cost a lot of money unfortunately.

She hasn't had her tablet since her friend did that to her lego, maybe an unfair punishment because it wasn't her herself but its almost like she doesn't care
She hasn't even asked for it

Is this with all punishments?

I had a child who didn't seem to care about punishments - reward charts made them worse - even a few teachers complained he didn't care. However he's now a pretty great 18 year old. He did have a lot of home supervision - lot of time outside and lot of tiring activties and lot of chances to behave well and get praised. He also got consistacy- even when he played up and we were exhausted. He was quite an labour intensive child TBH - they all were - (ND/SEN is an issue with all of mine but know other kids with no known underlying issues who were also just more work).

Child proofing the house - and having some outdoor fun activties as pp suggested - sand pit maybe - sound like a plan but it does sound like you need to re-think the childcare situation - it's just not working for at least the 8 year old - and yes I undertsand that no easy or cheap but something needs to change.

in every single post there is excuse after excuse, holiday clubs are too far away, too expensive, you can’t take them out, you can’t do activities with them.
frankly I am not surprised they are bored and playing up. Can’t you plan a few outings and activities? Take them to playground or park, on their bikes, with a ball?
if nothing is possible why did you have 4 kids in the middle of nowhere?

The problem is you have too many children and you are not supervising them.

You need to lock your door so your children don’t escape and have the older kids look after the younger kids.

Clearly this doesn’t work. You need proper childcare in place and the kids need to actually do something. Of course they are up early and bored if they don’t do anything all day.

Trying my hardest not to blame it on shit/lazy parenting, but OP you just need to discipline them. You’ve already set the standard that has allowed them to get away with this behaviour, but it’s not too late to lay down the law. It will be difficult and they may not take you seriously as first, but if you follow through with what you say you’re going to do every single time, you can turn this around if you want to.
You could sit them down and calmly explain things need to change and they will be, that you won’t tolerate XYZ behaviour anymore. Then from then on you come down on them like a tonne of bricks every time they display bad behaviour.
What you’ve described is extreme bad behaviour for an 8 year old IMO and I would not stand for any of it.

I'd start by making her scrub the chairs to get the Sharpie off

After eight hours of that she won't do it again

Sounds like you're far too passive op

What’s the point in grounding her if she’s kept inside all day anyway?

I’d be seriously concerned about her being able to wander off on her own. As everyone else has said you need better childcare, it’s not fair on your children, your disabled relative, or you.

Try and find some activities they can do at home, and next year skip the holiday and Lego and pay for adequate childcare.

I think you need to do crisis management OP. Firstly get bloods and talk to the GP and make sure there is no medical reason you are exhausted.

I think 4 kids is too many when both parents are working but they’re are here now so no point dwelling.

If 8 year old is co/operative in school it may be that she responds well to the structure.

Can you get someone else to either mind the kids or help their current disabled minder?

4 kids 10 and under is a huge responsibility.

Curtail the 8 year old when it comes to playing on the street and having kids in the house.

As others have said they need something to do during the day. You are going have to come up with something. Send them to a camp each or change your minder and have someone take them to the park, the library etc. timetable each day - write it out so they know what to expect. They need go leave the house at least once.

This is what happens when you ban smacking.

If 8 year old enjoys school would she enjoy playing school with the youngest? You could get her some fun “teacher” supplies and get the youngest some workbooks and activity books for her to “teach” them

The older kids should absolutely not be looking after siblings.

They need to fix what they have caused and maybe that will stop some of it. Eg. stolen money: she earns it to pay you back with chores or has spends taken from her, same to replace the Lego, clean her own Sharpie graffiti, tidy her own clothes away including after laundry is done as punishment, tell the shop not to serve her. Also no friends over.
I hear a bunch of excuses from you OP but you’ll pay for it later when your kids are reckless teens with no respect or aspirations for the future due to their upbringing.
Too late now but you’ve got more kids than you can handle, but the lack of discipline means they’ll be even more difficult to handle.
Sort it out and step up.

OP hasn't mentioned if she lives in a country where hitting kids is banned?

How would hitting them help, specifically? Should it be the babysitter or the parents?

They need structure and activity.
Can you get different childcare in the mornings to take them out? Children need to be active.
A park, a bike ride, kicking a ball, running are all good. Are there any clubs you can enroll the older kids in? Swimming? Tennis? Any sports?
If they’ve been active in the morning then afternoons might be calmer.

😆😆😆😆

So when the children are playing up, you are not there? Or do you work from home?

Referring to your op, if all that is happening when you are not around because you are working, I am not surprised. You need a very experienced person to be able to keep them all entertained for six weeks.

Sorry but your set up seems impossible. Can you split them up and put them in to different childcare? Do you have another family member to help out from time to time? Or a friend who will take one or two out with them?

My child is younger than yours (6) but until recently did similar things (drawing on walls, being destructive). I recommend observing to try and work out what the triggers are- what happens directly before she does something like this? For my son, it was feeling like he wasn’t getting enough attention- for example, if DH and I needed to discuss something and we said ‘we need you to play on your own/not interrupt for 10 minutes so we can talk about getting the car fixed or whatever, he’d be off finding something to draw on or wreck. It was exhausting (and obviously a totally unreasonable way to behave on his part) but understanding WHY he did it, even though it was still totally unacceptable, did help. There were other triggers too, this is just an example.

We then had a proper sit-down chat and said we’ve noticed that when we need to have grown-up conversations, you do xyz. We’re not asking you to not interrupt/go and do something else because we don’t want to be with you, we’re doing it because we have very dull things that HAVE to be done. Destroying things is unacceptable, xyz will be the consequence if it happens again. I think it made a big difference to him to know that we knew exactly what he was doing and why, he seemed to realise that we had his number after that point because it stopped quickly.

Our consequence is that you pay for anything you destroy on purpose. Obviously he doesn’t have access to more than his pocket money as he’s six, so our solution is that he ‘works’ (by doing extra age-appropriate chores) to ‘earn’ the money to rectify whatever he’s ruined. I explained that when something is ruined, mummy and daddy have to work for x amount of time to pay for a new one/for something to be fixed. The money doesn’t just magically appear and we don’t have an endless supply of it. This was highly effective and only had to be done once.

I also recommend getting them involved in looking after the house in general. I’m not suggesting huge amounts of chores for young children, but everyone needs to contribute to keep our shared house a nice place to live. I give mine quite ‘grown-up’ jobs and we do them together (he likes laundry, cleaning bathrooms, cleaning and organising cupboards etc). I make it fun, we have a playlist for chores that he made and sing and dance as we do it, we have a good chat and I go really overboard on praise, telling him how lucky I am to have such a grown up, helpful boy, what an important team member he is to our family etc etc. At first there was resistance, now he glows with pride over keeping our house nice and being a team player.

Also recommend taking a weekend or a few days off with them and spending that time fully focused on setting good behaviour habits (and making sure that you’re learning to be totally consistent with praise and consequences, when I realised that something desperately needed to be done to turn around my son’s behaviour, I realised that I needed to be more disciplined with myself in how I parented). Mine needs to be kept busy, and yours sound similar, so you might need some kind of quite set routine for school and home days, especially at first. While you’re resetting boundaries, avoid activities that you know are likely to be a nightmare (shopping for my boy) and have a plan so that boredom isn’t a factor. In other words, make it as easy as possible for them to behave well while they get used to a firmer approach.

Sorry for the essay, your DD sounds so similar to my chap so hopefully some of this will be helpful. I really sympathise, it is hard work!

Thank you for asking for help OP!

I’d deal with burning off that energy first. I’m at a park in the rain so my kids will be less destructive…

Can you hire an older child for a few hours a day to take the kids out to the park and play hard? Playground and swings but also football, explore nature, races, chin up contests… Can disabled relative put them in the garden more? Bribe with ice cream or only serve lunch out there. Set up whatever games they CAN do. Indoors can the caretaker do board games and craft kits? 3yo can be on a team with relative or 10yo.

Download craft instructions and lego build instructions and stuff like that if you can’t afford the kit.

Put stuff in the house or garden to burn energy like a trampoline basketball net, rope ladder….

Talk to 8yo friends’ parents so they can still play without getting into nonsense (or at least learn to be subtle)

8 years old is old enough to know better OP. I feel that 8yo is misbehaving for attention.

Firstly, you need to have proper childcare in place. Even for a few hours per day if you cannot afford the full day. Leaving kids with a person with a disability who cant leave the house is a recipe for disaster and they are likely left to their own devices (no shame on the babysitter, theres nothing more they can really do!)

Failing that, if childcare really cannot be afforded, you need to plan activities better with babysitter and provide the activities/supplies when they are dropped off along with a schedule. Make sure babysitter adheres to the schedule! This can be arts and crafts, puzzles, screen time etc. Lay it all out. Kids do well on set schedules.

At home, its important to set boundaries for bad behaviour and also reward for good behaviour. Positive reinforcement.

For now, at home, DD who is misbehaving is not allowed her friends in the house and can only go outside if she behaves. If not, she can't see any friends. And she has to come inside and help with chores. If she doesnt comply, you send her to a room with no devices etc until she is ready to apologise and continue the chores. Once chores are done, you tell her well done, and allow her outside again. Rinse and repeat.

These chores can be anything - hoovering/brushing, drying or washing dishes, tidying her room, dusting around the home etc. Also get kids involved in cooking etc. It keeps them busy and they learn life skills.

The issue nowadays is that parents are emphasising on the fact that "kids should be kids" too much. Not every day needs to be a fun day, especially if both parents work.

When I was little, I didnt go to summer schemes very often. I had opportunities to go outside and play, or I had books, TV etc inside if I didnt fancy going outside. But I also had chores from a young age also. I had to make my bed daily, tidy my room, help with cleaning around the house and laundry. I was tasked with putting dinner into the oven from about 9 years old!

My 8 yo can be challenging also, especially as he is ND. He thrives off having something to do. If he says he's bored, I give him a cloth and let him dust surfaces in the house, or I get him to brush or hoover. He helped wash the car the other day. He also has to help and observe dinner being made every single day and help set the table. If he does well, he gets a treat or a fun day doing activity he wants at the weekend.