8y temper and swearing

[barnetbarnet]

Hello
My 8y boy has just had a massive hissy fit at the local footy club he goes to go. It was cold and wet today but instead of getting on with it, it was a massive temper. This temper resulted in him calling me names and swearing front of the other parents and kids, plus hitting and kicking me.

I have two questions -
1- What is the correct 'immediate' punishment for such behaviour? I anticipated this behaviour, as its happened before, so had warned him of the treats he'd get if hes good or the treats he'll lose if naughty.

2- what would you really think of the single parent (me) dealing with it? Only one parent friend backed me up - the others just watched and stared.

3- what do you think of the child?

Concentrate on letting natural consequences happen. He left his bag open and his clothes got wet. He couldn't behave at football and so the lessons stopped. He walked home in his studs and got sore feet as a result.

I'm sorry gooseberry but that is everything I despise about some modern parenting. I don't think I've ever "responded in anger" to my children or used anything other than reasonable force. They're certainly well adjusted, happy, secure and successful adults. I'm not talking about beating up some poor terrified child but about teaching an 8 year old who is the adult before they become a teenager who is too big and scary to challenge.
He doesn't need persuasion or labelling he needs clear boundaries and explicit expectation with sanctions when rules not followed. Last thing an appallingly behaved child needs is to chose the colour of a fruit pastille. We are raising a generation where parents are fearful of actually parenting.

It is possible to have clear boundaries and give the child space/time/politeness/what's happening next. I do with my kids and they are great. I've already said to cancel football if he can't behave.

But What will screaming at a child or fighting with a child teach them? Long term.

And yes SEN does matter. If a child is autistic there will sometimes be better, more productive ways to deal with issues.

1. Remove him with minimal words. Grab his hand and walk him fast to the car

1. Remain in silence in the car. Chance for you to calm down.

1. Tell him to get into his pyjamas

1. Massive bollocking and tell him you're not letting him play football for a month and he will need to apologise to each of the other parents and coach and other children for using bad language before he's allowed to play again and he can think about how he wants to do this. If it's an effective sincere apology fine (no hugs and well dones). Any smirking or whispering it then start again at point 1.

If he's happy to kick his own parent and swear like that at age 8 then he can start suffering consequences.

An 8yo who remains in a heightened state of anger for 4 hours at a time has more going on than bad behaviour.

Clearly football isn't working, shopping sounds tough - yet walking helps.

Therefore crowded places where he'll get touched sound an issue. I'd stop the football - no one is clearly enjoying it. Let his brother go and you and Ds walk whilst he's there.

Have a look at sensory issues and a book called the out of synch child.

This replies are brilliant and really helpful in their own little way.

(I'm on my phone so can't quote them individually very easily)

It's a very interesting point - I can say that the coach called to say his behaviour is not acceptable and doesn't want him back? Better still. I'll just tell him it's not acceptable to me to behave like that.

The other point is I work away for a week at a time so take them every other week, if that makes sense. It's the highlight of my week as when he plays well, he shines, he's happy , enjoys it and that makes me happy so he's happy. When he's bad - I'm sad.

I suppose all I can do now is take his brother to play and we watch and walk around the pitch as a pair. When the younger one gets the team chips and hotdog the elder gets nothing. But going back to my other point - I'm then punishing him for something that happened a two weeks ago(!) and I've been moaned about that before.

I just can't win. Whatever I do is wrong.

I think at 8 you can make it clear at time what is the unacceptable behaviour and tell them the sanction will include missing football for 1/2/65 weeks. Then the seeing through the imposed sanction are a bit later.

Hi barnetbarnet, I know it sounds counter intuitive but what you need to do is reward all the times he is talking to you nicely. Get some 'house rules' up which list 4 behaviours you want to see (e.g., we all use kind words when we are talking to each other - if you're trying to stop swearing) after the rule add a 'reward' for when they do and then add on a 'punishment' if they don't. While 8 may seem 'old' they're still growing up and learning as they go. Everytime your child uses kind words then you say thank you for saying something kind. When he swears you need to just ignore him completely - don't rise to it and let him get on with it. Eventually he will stop doing it. I'm sorry to say that there is no quick fix as you need to undo the current behaviour and embedd a new one! But in a few weeks there will certainly be an improvement.