To think there isn’t a way of getting kids to listen to you without yelling your head off

[stressedoutandoverwhelmed]

Fully expecting to be told I’m totally unreasonable here but I have not found one if one exists

I have read the books

the book you wish your parents had read
how to talk so little kids will listen

I am sure there is another I can’t remember

and none of the techniques work.

is this just life now? It’s depressing and miserable if so. I’m starting to think that that’s just parenting though.

If you shout they just shout back. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Right. Reading books and accessing support online shows I have no idea.

Parenting classes will be full of the same have you tried a sticker chart implement a good routine praise good behaviour that a ten year old could work out. Fine if it works. It doesn’t. I’m sure it does for some children.

What does it matter if they’re jumping over the sofas? My 4 year old made ours into a den with a slide yesterday. He was leaping all over the place. You’re seeing everything they do through the lens of naughty behaviour when it’s just normal kid stuff.

Maybe yours do. children are different. Mine don’t.

“A sticker chart” is not a solution in and of itself. There is a bigger picture here of you not knowing how to implement consequences.

You should speak to your GP and sign onto a parenting course. Both will help.

If you have one well behaved child then obviously you won’t get what it’s like. I also never shouted when I just had my eldest DD, why would I? When you have two that fight each other, or one that never listens or screams and tantrums it’s another story 🤷‍♀️

I try my hardest not to shout. My children know if I have raised my voice the last nerve is activated. Ie tonight my daughter did something, went onto repeat it could have broken something expensive.

My husband is a shouter, his Mum was a shouter and it achieves nothing. Usually winds everyone up, we all end up in a state. Pointless (and my younger daughter now competes with him)

I say this as a mother who works FT, it’s tough when they younger.

It’s dangerous. A five year old leaping around near a two year old is a recipe for disaster. A couple of weeks ago my two year old fell off doing that (not on my watch) and was lucky it wasn’t worse but she really hurt herself.

We all have different homes and different things we’ll tolerate.

I am a fucking brilliant mother to just one 👍🏻

Do you do 1.2.3

this was my life saver

”I’m going to count to 3 and you’re going to get off the table and if you don’t there’s no tv after dinner”

1, ok …2, last chance I’m about to get to 3. Right, you’re still on the table. That’s not ok when mummy told you to get down. You can go and cry in the hall and when you’re ready to be a nice boy you can come in.

child returns

Are you ready to be a nice boy? No you’re not? Ok then you’d be better go back outside again until you u can be nice”

repeat about 4 times until child agrees “yes I’m going to be nice”

ok then come and play

can watch tv mummy

no you know you can’t and maybe you’ll think about that when you decide to not listen to mummy next time

painful but it does work eventually

if he cries and begs for it back, does he get it back?

@childoftkty sometimes it does work but in the midst of these hyper, mania type phases I need to properly roar to get them to listen. Otherwise I get tearing around like lunatics.

Tonight was horrendous and I know I was awful to them both, but if I do anything else the house is destroyed and they get hurt anyway. Absolutely everything I have for me is ruined and it does get me down. It’s hard not to.

Why is he on the table have you asked him?

Maybe so but it sounds like you’ve got yourself into a place where you just see them as badly behaved and nothing but a nuisance to you. You need to let some things just be. You’ve decided they’re horrid so now everything is seen through that lens. It’s a vicious cycle.

@stressedoutandoverwhelmedAh OP you’re not a bad mother and your kids won’t hate you!!! Years ago before we had kids we had dinner with some friends of DP who had young children and I remember them saying “we love them but they’re right little aresholes”! At the time I thought they were awful for saying that but I can’t tell you how often that phrase goes through my head when mine are being impossible. Give yourself a break. Hope you get some downtime tonight xxx

Tbh this i wouldnt even bother saying DS get down I would just pick him straight down again firmly with the word no said sternly. He will stop climbing up there pretty quick when he realises he doesn't ever get to stay there.

But generally OP a lot of kids just don't listen tbh. The parents I know who never shout just have much lower expectations of their kids, I find, so basically let a LOT more go than I would.

Or they have a stay at home parent so just don't have those situations at 7. 30 am when you are trying to get everyone out of the house plus yourself to work in a presentable state and you just need them to put their bloody shoes on now not in 7 minutes time when you have calmly got their attention, because you don't have 7 minutes because you have to leave now if you are going to get them dropped at nursery in time and still make it to your train to work. Sometimes shouting a bit is the only thing that gives them that real sense of urgency at these times!

Another one of these threads where we get quick responses from OP rationalising why they are not going to consider any of the responses and a little drip feed each time of slightly more outrageous response.

Case in point as per my post: some who dont shout just have lower expectations and let more shit go.

I'm not having my kids treating the sitting room like a jungle gym so yeah I shout.

No. He then forgets about it and climbs on the table. Again.

It isn’t just the table. It is the climbing and leaping around on the sofa. The tornado of mess left everywhere. The casual destruction of anything DH and I try to have for us. I have a bad back. I have a wheat bag you can heat up to try to help. It wasn’t cheap. It happened to have badgers on it. Kids honed in on it, screaming and fighting over it. Wheatbag destroyed. Back still hurts. Yes, I shouldn’t have got it out in front of them. But I do live a life where I sometimes have pens or sellotape or something somewhere … I have an Amazon delivery and ds is sniffing around me like a hawk. Tearing into it. At school they come out with something in their book bags. Can’t even wait until we’re in the car, tears into it in the playground and snatching it away from me when I try to take it off him. It’s the school photo and I now can’t order it as ds has destroyed the paper. Party bags the same; wait until you get home ds. I had Vinted parcels to send the other day. They are all bagged up, stupid me left them in the back of the car. Ds tears into them all. It’s constant, and exhausting.

It probably is normal kid stuff but the other kids don’t seem to behave like it.

I rarely raise my voice. I wholeheartedly believe that if you’re shouting, you’ve already lost.

Different obviously but when I was training to teach I was told that loud doesn’t necessarily mean authoritative, and I still use that “mantra” now at home.

We have boundaries, firm ones, but they’re communicated calmly and firmly. I think losing my composure almost lessens them, because I’ve lost control of the situation.

The only time I ever yell is if there’s an obvious safety issue.

Other than that, I don’t rate it as a behaviour management strategy I’d want to use in our family.

Oh I’ve definitely lost, I know that much. I am just praying the next decade or so passes quickly. It’s absolute hell.

I am a very strict parent with high expectations. I have a well behaved and polite child who jumps to it without me shouting because all I need to say is “ah, I can see you are choosing to do X when I have told you not to” and he immediately does as he is told.

Consistent swift consequences for misbehaviour. Bullshit isn’t tolerated. I mean what I say and he knows it.

But yes, I don’t mind if he makes dens out of the couch cushions. He’s 4.

Another snidey comment from a poster where we realise why MN is getting less and less popular with every month that goes by.

But I didn’t post expecting solutions. I am completely fucked and so are my children. If you can’t see what a dark place I’m in I can’t help you. Tonight I seriously considered just ending it. I wouldn’t because I am too much of a coward but this life with little children is purgatory. I’ve done my best. Maybe this thread doesn’t show it but I have. And what do I have to show for it but ruins from my former life and two children who to be very honest I dearly wish I didn’t have.

Don’t get me wrong, our kid is really pushing it at the moment.

He’s high needs autistic and his behaviour is horrendous. All I seem to do is tell him off.

But I’m also not arguing with a 9 year old, no means no and wrong means wrong. If I have to do constant corrections and consequences, so be it!

We know. You’re perfect.