At the end of my tether with DS2 2.10, please help!

[notso]

He shouts, screams, smacks, breaks things, runs off, hurts his siblings, throws things,refuses to be potty trained.
He laughs when we try and tell him not to do something, he doesn't care about time out, he just sits there and will the refuse to get off it when his time is up.
He is unbribable, he will refuse treats or stickers if it means he has to do something in return.
I cry almost everyday because I just feel he is out of control

Sorry, no advice, but mind if I lurk about here with you waiting for some replies?

My just turned 3 year old is exactly the same as you have described in your OP - its all gone very bad today and I am ashamed to say I totally lost it with him

Have a Ezza it is so difficult isn't it?
I feel like such a failure I am a trained Nursery Nurse and TA, I should be able to deal with him!

oh bless you, i went through a very similar thing with my DD (2.11) and we kind of went back to basics with her.

as daft as it sounds, we gave her a little bit of control over situations - after all they are tiny humans who now know their own minds and have a blooming good of idea of how they want to behave and what they want to do....whether that fits in our plans is another matter!!

for instance, if she wanted juice/fruit or whatever and i didn't want her to have it at that particular time, i would get down on her level and say something like "ok, we'll do x, y or z first and then we'll come back and have what you want". if she was being naughty and wouldn't do something i wanted to, i had the "1,2,3" rule - i would say i'm going to count to 3 and then we are going to put on shoes or whatever i wanted her to do...same goes for if she was doing something she shouldn't be, count to 3 and say that she has to stop.

i have to be honest, it wasn't instant and on more than a few occasions i would count to 3 and she wasn't listening so i had to be strict and carry what i said through - when she realised that that was what would happen i'd get to 1 or 2 and she would listen - she was still doing what i wanted but more on her terms and it made life a lot easier.

when she did listen, i would give her honest genuine praise and let her see how pleased and proud i was that she listened - we really turned a corner after doing this.

don't get me wrong we still have our moments when i could cheerfully scream and shout but it is a lot lot easier and she will listen to what i say about 90% of the time.

consistency is the key, and life is so much easier now

HTH x

Thanks for replyingawwwwmannnn. What kind of consequences did you have for your DD?
We have really made a big effort to praise DS when he is behaving and he can be lovely at times but if you say "that was really kind" for example he screams at you to "shut it" (I have 13yo DD to thank for teaching him that)

My DD is same age. My DH is at home full time with her and he is fairly strict about behaviour and routine. His main things are:

First, check if there is any pattern to bad behaviour - DD is a demon if she is hungry, tired or thirsty - DH swears by just making sure she eats and drinks regularly and gets an afternoon nap (even if just 30 mins). She is also much more likely to act up if she is over stimulated so if she has been around new people or places we need to follow that with some quiet time.

Use 1,2,3 as described by awwwwnam

Offer choices - so she says she doesn't want to put on shoes he'll just calmly say 'do you want the blue shoes or the pink shoes?' or 'can you open the cupboard and pick shoes to wear out now?' He also lets her pick his shoes, coat etc

Give a warning about what's happening next, ie we are going to read a story, then have milk, then go up the stairs to bed etc or we are having one more turn on the slide then we have to leave the playground.

Have useful tasks to distract her with so loading the washing machine, given a feather duster and asked to dust, match socks, use a baby wipe to clean the chairs etc. Makes her feel valued and useful.

Make a game of things she doesn't like - ie she gets annoyed about going up stairs to bed so we pretend teddy doesn't want to go to bed and she has to get him to go, so she throws teddy up a few steps while we say 'come on teddy, get up those stairs' - when teddy makes it to the top we all praise teddy!!!

Consequences - usually something taken away! So no Peppa, or no bedtime story or a toy put away. It has to happen fairly soon to whatever the punishable event was or she she won't understand it. Also lift her up and put her in another room away from us (she hates this!!) - we tried naughty corner - did not work at all! For incentives we use a 'smiley face' chart - we draw a smiley face when she has been good and she gets to draw one too. Also have special treats when they get say 5 smiley faces - DD gets to watch something short on u-tube such as Michael Rosen doing 'Going on a bear hunt'.

Limit screens - DD definitely more 'wired' if she has too much TV etc. We try to limit to 20 mins a day - probably hard to do if you have older children.

Good luck

consequences were mainly if she was kicking off because she wanted an apple or something then she wasn't allowed to have it - it would make her worse for a short time, but when she realised that i would not give in, she quickly came around. it was about setting acceptable boundaries for her, she had to figure out that her horrible behaviour would not bring about what she wanted.

its so hard and soul destroying at times - pick your battles wisely. my DD loves a bedtime story and one night when my back was turned as i was getting her stuff ready, she was happily ripping all the pages in her new book - i took it off her and told that really wasn't nice and its not how we treat our things and she wouldn't be having a story as she hadn't been very nice. she kicked right off but i held firm and refused to read her a story - she never did it again!!

be strong, and take each day at a time, do not think you've failed if one day is good and two days are bad - children will test your patience, even the best behaved ones lol

i also second what PP said about offering choices - sometimes getting dressed is a nightmare with DD so we get out two outfits and she gets to choose which one she wears. she has been known to go on a playdate with a pink tutu and peppa pig wellies mind you

also, i noticed with DD that if we were sat chilling out and then we said right come on we have to go out now, she didn't handle it very well. so, again as PP said, we always tell her what we are doing, i.e. we'll do our drawing and when we finish this picture we have to put our shoes and go in the car, we make it into a big adventure for her....she handles that a lot better as its not such a surprise. when we are shopping, she knows if she behaves she is allowed to choose something small as a treat, although most of the time when we say "well done you've been such a big girl today i'm really proud of you, she'll forget about her treat and walk out with a big smile on her face

if i need to things around the house i ask her to be a "big girl" and help mummy - i pass her clothes and she will put them in the washing machine, i'll turn the dial and she'll press the button to make it start. she loves helping me hoover, takes forever but it gets done and she's so happy. it really does make life so much more happier and easier to have them help you and include them in what you are doing.

Thanks all.
I do think a lot of issues with DS2 occur at times when I can't give him the attention he needs, for example when I am helping the older two with homework or doing something with my youngest. Like just as I've been typing this my little one was wearing my slippers and I laughed and made a fuss and DS2 rushed over, pushed him over and took them away from him.
His behaviour is much worse between 3.30 and bedtime and at the weekends when he is competing for my attention and I have things to do. DH is out of the house at around 6.15/6.30 and gets in between 6.30 and 8 depending on where he works that day so it's just me most of the time and I just don't know how to juggle everything so everyone gets enough of me.

Hiya, only just managed to get back on here and properly read replies. Some sound advice but sounds like you are in a similar situation to me notso which may be a factor.

I have a 15 yr old, 12 yr old and newborn and the 3 yr old is a) picking up a lot of 'bad' behaviour from the older 2 - mainly the 12 yr old - and b) finding it difficult to adjust to having a newborn around

My 12 yr old just does not think when she says or does anything and sometimes her attitude stinks which unfortunately the 3 yr old has copied at times.

I'm finding everything very hard work - it wasn't this tricky back when the older 2 were younger - I'm just too old for all this! !!

Yes, totally agree Ezza1 my older two were little angels when they were little. Having them at 19 and 22 was so much easier than having the younger ones at 30 and 31.