Help with my 7 year old!!!

[frillynat81]

His behaviour is pretty bad right now. His attitude stinks. He has punched, kicked and slapped me. At the weekend me and a friend took our kids to a big soft play centre as a treat. His behaviour started to deteriorate as soon as we got there. I would've took him home if we hadn't travelled so far and I don't drive so I gave him some time out but he wouldn't stay where I left him. I asked him 3 times. Next minute he started punching and kicking me like mad! At that point I was so annoyed, I told him quite sternly to stay where he was and think about what he had done. I left him for 7 minutes then we spoke about what happened, he apologised then I explained he will lose his laptop for a week and he will also be grounded (we regularly go out). Today he has been cheeky and I keep getting "who cares" and "so what". The whole thing is driving me insane! Any advice?! Please!!!

My 6 yo DS is a bit like this. Please let it be a "phase" please!

What we are doing is setting up his computer time as a reward, so he has to "earn it" i.e. behave in order to get his full computer time. If he is naughty at school all computer time goes. If he speaks to me rudely, using potty mouth he loses 5 mins each time, and so on.

Tempting as it is to ban things for a week (and I too have been that cross and done that) I try to keep everything in the same day. Otherwise what has he got to behave for the rest of the week? That may be what you are finding today, the day after the punishment. Bloody nightmare isn't it. I feel like DS won't do anything unless I am bribing him.

We are also having little chats with him, at random times about how we expect him to behave.

I am also trying to give him lots of descriptive praise when he is behaving well, so he gets attention for doing the right thing, this seems to be slowly starting to work (after lots of it just seeming to remind him to play up).

Will watch this thread and hope someone wiser comes along very soon.

Thanks for the reply TreadOnTheCracks.

I probably was a tad extreme banning it for a week but I was mad! I couldn't believe his behaviour.

I find it difficult because I'm a single mum, and his dad can be very soft with him and I always feel like I get left to be the bad one .

Have you taken a look at this thread?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/behaviour_development/1666348-Help-me-to-stop-shouting-really-shouting-at-my-children

Some very good advice and ideas on it.

Good luck to both of us.