why can't he just behave himself........in tears again......

[Titania]

My ds1 is 5 and has turned into a horrible little monster.

When he is naughty, we send him to a corner in the hall to let him think about what he has done. He got sent there a while ago this evening. When we let him come back I noticed that he had scraped the paint off the doorframe.....I couldn't believe it......

He is arrogant, naughty, selfish, he lies, hits his sister, and backchats like there is no tomorrow.......I've told him that if this is how he is going to treat somewhere he lives then he doesn't deserve to have his new bedroom in our new house decorated. We let him pick the colour himself too.

He throws his toys around and breaks them, and thinks nothing of throwing his sisters toys in the bin just to wind her up.

I can't put up with his behaviour anymore.......he has me in tears by the end of every day. I dread weekends and how he is going to be when he comes home from school on weekdays.....

I know I'm a bad mummy for saying all this.....

You are definitely not a bad mummy! Sounds like he really knows how to press everyone's buttons and is having a great time doing it.

Is there any other punishment that he would really hate that might be more of a deterrant?

I'm not much help here as ds is much younger (my day will come, I know...)

i have sent him to bed with no books or toys to play with......he normally has a few and plays til he goes to sleep..........dd is still up though. I feel cruel now.....

I really, really wouldn't feel cruel. He needs to have some down time to think about his behavior. The sooner you can find a way to connect with him about what is appropriate and what is not, the better everyone in the family will feel (including him, I bet). Do you think maybe he is just feeling out boundaries?

titania, i so sympathise, it is really hard to stay in that positive parenting mode!!!I went through a tough time with my dd 4.5ys a while ago and friend suggested sticker chart as like u had tried everything else and in the end my room was full of her toys and |i kept taking everything away.

I kept chart simple, happy side and sad side, stickers on happy side for good behaviour and drew a sad face for bad. if by the end of the week there were more stickers than sad faces, she got a treat. We decided together at the beg of the week what the treat would be. It wasnt always buying something, ie staying up late to play on computer...

Biggest way helped me was having a tool to use when having a bad time together, didnt have to react with threats, could go to the sticker chart.

You're not a bad mummy. 5 can be difficult. Will see if I can find some old threads if I get time later. The gist of most of them is though:

• Ignore bad behaviour and you're doing this
• Praise good behaviour. Agree, a star chart is a good idea. I like them.
• Stay calm (impossible all the time IMO and E!)
• Don't let bad behaviour get him anywhere or ever get him what he wants. My ds says "I know, Bad Behaviour never gets me what I want." (as he strops off!)
• Distract if possible and if you see it coming. Doesn't always work at this age though but sometimes worth a go.
• Make things into a game or race i.e. bet you can't get upstairs before me. This still works with my 7yo.
• Exercise! Boys are like dogs sometimes imo, they need a lot of exercise and to run off that energy and testosterone.
• Controversial but we had a behaviour book as well as a star chart for good behaviour. I just couldn't let violence go unremarked so bad behaviour was written down in a book and 3 things written down= something taken away, like a treat or Playstation or something
• Talking of which, too much PS2 caused some of my son's bad behaviour I'm sure. Does yours play it? I don't think they can cope with it sometimes. Good luck.

Poor you Titania. Mine are 4 and 2.8mo so not quite up to yours yet but think www has said all that I would.
From my own experience with ds1, I know that at times we get stuck in a downward spiral. Bad behaviour, time out, punishment, me losing it and shouting,and yet more bad behaviour. So far we've always managed to turn it round. Rational, calm talking from me about the behaviour I'm not happy with, apologising for my "losing it moments", letting ds1 have his say about how he's feeling and why he just did what he did, cuddles of reassurance that things will get better, asking ihm for more help around the house and then lavishing the praise on good behaviour.

Hi all
Has anyone tried the "123 Magic" approach? There's a book you can order on Amazon. It's really just a commonsense counting approach but the idea is that is stops you getting into the downward spiral by minimising shouting and talking. I've tried it with my own challenging (!) children, and when I do it properly it's pretty effective. However, the shouting does tend to creep back in.
Cheers.