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Time out nightmare - feeling really rubbish

4 replies

shelbel · 05/05/2008 21:24

DS is 4 and can be a real angel much of the time but the one behaviour we can't seem to manage is his aggression. We have previously used the naughty step but spent most of the time chasing him around the house whilst he threw anything he could get to hand finding it all highly amusing, we've used his bedroom as he can't really do any damage to anything in there but this was reliant on us holding the door to stop him getting out. We've tried withdrawing ourselves from the situation and completely ignoring him but again this is a battle as we hold the doors to stop him getting in (and throwing stuff at us). I don't feel that holding doors shut is the right way to go about time out but don't know what else to do. We've gone back to time out on a mat today and have had up to 45 mins of either chasing him or restraining him (as he tries to punch, kick, bite etc. until he does his 4 mins. All other behaviours we manage quite well with distracting/stickers/positive prasie etc. and i don't know whether this is just the hard bit we have to go through as part of zero tolerance to his aggressive behaviour and its about persisting but I'm worried that we're just not dealing with things well at all. I'm also aware that as we try different techniques we're not being consistent which isn't helping. Please help!

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Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Hogiabach · 05/05/2008 21:35

What triggers the aggression? If you have a sense of the antecedents then perhaps you might be able to stop him escalating to the throwing, punching, kicking stage...It sounds like he responds well to boundaries most of the time.

What do you think is different at these difficult/challenging times?

shelbel · 05/05/2008 23:04

I think its ususally tired or hungry - after a major tantrum last night it was 9pm before he went to sleep and 6.30 when he woke up - he was tired by tea time and barely ate any tea so I guess in hindsight it was both - its just if we do get to that stage i just don't think we handle it well at all

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KarenThirl · 06/05/2008 05:43

The naughty step never worked for my ds, now 9. He has Asperger's and doesn't respond to punitive measures, instead we avoid getting to the angry/aggressive/agitated stage and use time-out pre-emptively, ie "I think you're getting a bit over-excited now, go and take five minute to calm down in your room". It's not an easy answer, it's taken us years to reach this point but that's largely to do with his autism, but I just wanted to point out that punitive time-out doesn't always work and can, in some cases, make the situation worse.

cornsilk · 06/05/2008 06:56

Karenthirl that's just like my ds. We tried the naughty step etc when younger and it was a nightmare. We also try to avoid getting to the angry stage. Shelbel ditch the naughty step. Have you read,'How to talk so kids will listen...' highly recommended on here and avoids naughty step type scenarios.

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