my son has become v demanding when i engage with other adults thus he is incredible bold

[hermykne]

visited my dads this mron and he plays up the whole time, annoys his sister, whines at me, just bold stuff, cannot be his usualy entertaining wee boy, my father laughs it off or tries to distract but god at the end of our visit he just said is it a sibling thing or a centre of attention thing..i give up, ineed a new outlook of this behaviour.

dd is at a party this afternoon and he has been good for me, done what i asked when i asked, lost his toy for being bold earlier and wont get it back maybe til tomorrow.

so thoughts please

he seems to do this whenever i am trying to have conversations with others and its usually me he does this with not so much with his dad.

long and tirsome post sorry

how old is he? He sounds very possessive- your my mummey and I don't want you ...
I'm guessing he's around 5-ish?

You could be describing my ds (5) . This behaviour drives me nuts.

He's either totally demanding and whingey like you've described or refuses to join /talk at all no matter who tries to engage him.

I find I apologise on his behalf and I'm embaraased for how he is, because he is different at home (some of the time!)

I'm hoping he will grow out of it if I ignore. But I do find asking him to rephrase things if he asks in a whingey way sometimes works.

I totally sympathise!

he is four this week.

hmmm so not unusual

It's totally normal.

I'm a bit at the idea of 'bold' as a bad thing ...

My son is like this - 3.5 years. It is worse when we are at home - if we have people over and I try to talk tot the adults it is dreadful. If we are out, he is distracted by the new toys but at home... oh dear. Sometimes just ignoring him works, sometimes I ahve to say over and over agian, 'I'm speaking to x, we'll be finished in a minute' and then make sure I do politely turn to him after a minute or so so he knows I will come back to him. Sometimes I have to sort of set up a game where I say 'See how many x you can x' and then he can come and tell me after each one, so that it is a short amount of attention that doesn't take much energy from me.

Exhaustiing, isn't it? And very demoralising because they are so good at dominating you - I wish I could find more creative ways to stand my ground without it ending in a scene...

Notquite, I think there's a fine line between 'bold' and 'rude'. When my son acts like this, he is def. being rude! And he knows it.

Bold is the Irish word for naughty.

bold=naughty in Northern Ireland. May be the same for op?

Sounds normal tbh. It will pass!

oh what a relief to read this thread - DS is like this at the mo. The worst is overdoing it and really acting up to interrupt us when we are talking, even briefly.

agree - bold can mean naughty in some places

whats our intrepretation of bold NQC?

bold = naughty for me.

Podsquah you echo my scenario. the dominating bit is so upsetting as u try so hard to be fair and accomodate them and their minds and behaviour and then you ask why and 40mins passes and itsfine again til the nxt round.

w&P - he acts up too,

i cant believe this will pass and when? what influence , positive, could i use in the meantime, is a reward chart a good or bad idea, will he cotton to oh right if i'm good i ll get X. i suppose i could do it over 5 days or so, it ll be tough

ds (3.9) is bad at this. He even puts his hands over my mouth so I can't talk, shouts so no one can hear, starts acting particularly 'cute' etc. Not so bad with his dad either.

I think it's just a possessive stage he's going thru at mo. He likes to be attached to me at all times and to have my full attention.

It gets really annoying though.

armadillo ds does that over my mouth if i am trying to negotiate tough rules or something like "i dont hear you"

could cbeebies make him this way

My ds 3.5 can be the same. With very mixed results I try to stop his interruptions by making clear that I am talking to person x and that it will be his turn in a minute. I then have to remember to turn back to him in a minute. Very distracting. I am hoping it is a phase and that he will start to outgrow it and that also the start of school and experience in an environment where he needs to learn to give others the chance to speak will help.

so those of u with a wonderful boy like mine whats your reaction? or what would you like your reaction to be

ds does the hand over my mouth thing too. Not cbeebies though cos we live abroad and don't get it! Bloody annoying.

bluebutterfly ds was v good in in his preschool. they loved him.

the girls too, the wee ones!
but maybe its a mother thing or is that too fricking physc babble for just an ordinary life

so i need a thread for mothers of 6/7 yr old boys and did they experince this and did their sons change...

Ah, right, not used to that meaning of the word ... but then I don't describe my kids (or their behaviour) as naughty, it's just such a loaded word ...

I would stay calm, say calmly that I could help him in a moment, and remember to give him positive attention when other things are going on. Well, that's what I'd like to think I'd do, I'd probably really get a bit snappy about it, like anyone else.

but nqc what word do u use ? are simple plain old fashioned words not acceptable?

and i ask that question genuinely not sarcastically as maybe intrepretated online in a forum.
but do u say to someone in RL oh i use this instead of that with regards to describing their behaviour good or bad

'Naughty' just implies (at least to me) that they mean to be bad, and they generally don't.

For this sort of behaviour, I would probably say 'demanding'? Or 'difficult'? Or talk specifically about what they're doing wrong, ask them to be patient.

I do find it's better to focus on the good things I want them to do, rather than the bad things I don't want them to do.

(My refusal to use 'naughty' isn't just something I made up - at the nursery that DS2 goes to, they deffo don't use that word.)

The other point I'd make about 'naughty' is, even if you're describing the behaviour as naughty, and not the child, I think it's easy for the child to get the message that they are naughty, which only encourages them to behave worse.

In terms of what do I do with any success with my son, not much. I say to him over and over, 'I'm just speaking to x now, I'll be with you in a minute.' He fully understands that, and he just isn't prepared to share my attention! I do eventually snap at him, or else I have to sort of ignore him and carry on speaking over him. Eventually he will wait - I can see him go 'Mum...oh,' and just sit. At that point I only say the rest of my sentence and then I say, 'Yes, thank you for waiting and being so polite, what did you want?' Then I try to maybe interest him in a toy or something that he can do without me, or I play with him for a bit so that he is getting a bit of attention and feels more secure, or I get the other adult to engage with him too (for a bit!)...some grown ups are very bad at speaking to children properly and sort of ignore them, so that can take some work.

I say to him that interrupting is rude or not polite, because that is how I would describe an adult who interrupted (someone like me, come to think of it, I always do it, it is awful!). I kind of think they can't help it, but that they need to know I am allowed to have conversations... Eventually they figure it out, I hope.