What do you do if your 4 yr old won't stay in timeout?

[halia]

DS has huge temper tantrums - and when he is angry he hits and yells (both timeout offences anyway) and can be incredibly destructive.
He likes attention so the logical thing is timeout but he won't stay put. I can't hold him in place (he is too strong - of course i could force him to stay still but the amount he kicks, struggles and bites it would end up wth me hurting him)
If I leave him in a room he will destroy things (and there is no room thats safe to leave him in unattended.
If I stay in the room with him he will destroy things or kick me.

help!

Maybe worth trying a different way of disciplining.

Make sure he gets most attention when behaving well - can you just walk away when he's having a tantrum so no one is watching?

Maybe star/reward chart? Or removing favourite toys if he's naughty.

For my 7 year old, I still find that telling him he'll not be having pudding is the best threat/incentive - followed closely by no telly!

It takes time but you have to keep on putting them back again and again. Try the step, he'll go crazy and it'll take ages but eventually he'll realise you aren't giving in. Could take days but it works in the end and it means a calmer life for you. consistensy is the key. They can see if you're weak so you need to keep on putting him back and back and back and keeping quiet.

its 4 mins on the 'time out step' (or corner etc)
put him on step, say '4 mins blah blah blah' then soon as he gets up, sit him back and sit him back, back, back
when he gives in and stays there, time 4 mins from then.

could take a couple of hours the first time, seriously, but once you crack it it will work!

Sorry if this sounds negative - I do appreciate the input but honestly I have tried continually putting him back. when I say wont' stay I mean he WILL NOT even allow you to put him back on the step. He actually broke off one of the bannister spindles by hanging onto it screaming and kicking me in the stomach when I tried to carry him back to the step.

Our record so far is 3 hrs - and he didn't actually stay in place at the end of it but he had stopped screaming and kicking.

It usually lasts between 45 minutes and 2 hrs and I'm often physically bruised by end of it all.

I certianly couldn't walk away from him - last time I did that he smashed a glass on top of the TV.

He can be absolutly bloody brilliant when he is in a good mood and we reward good behaviuor (or at least I think we do - claps, cheers, smiles, well done, mummy loves you lots, mummy likes it when you.... etc etc)
but his temper actually scares me.

I agree with bosch

Ok how about cranial osteopathy? Worked wonders on ds2. He was unreal, had me in tears loads at the school waiting for ds1 to come out. After 3 goes at CO he was so calm...even his playgroup commented at the miracle

I can understand you must be at the end of your tether it's so hard

try something totally different. This sort of discipline clearly doesn't suit your child's personality.

My recommendations would be Unconditional Parenting or Taking Children Seriously but I am somewhat left field.

'his temper actually scares me'

That's what you should be dealing with then, not the punishment for having the temper - iyswim.

I'm with ommmward - this timeout isn't working for his personality and is serving only to escalate the tantrum further.

It is a battle of wills- and he seems to be quite good at battles!

Even if it did work after continued effort, it would most likely be because he is cowed or exhausted. Either way it wouldn't address his underlying anger.

What is he so angry at?

Why?

You need a disarming counter attack!

You say hitting and yelling are 'time out' offences anyway.

Do you use time out a lot?

Not helpful, sorry, but just trying to explore other ways of thinking for your DS.

It sounds exhausting for both of you.

It sounds as though you have got into a negative cycle.
Try 'why are you hitting,punching etc' say use your words you are not a baby.
Do not give him what he wants following a tantrum, walk away.
Bucket of water (luke warm) tip on his head to shock/calm down if he doesn't do time out. I dare say he will the next time.
He has no respect and sees you as a pushover. FGS he is 4yo not 14! Scared??? Sit him on your lap facing away arms by his sides, tell him you will let go once he tells you the problem. Say that you can't deal with problems if he doesn't tell you what it is.

SUPERGLUE works everytime!!!

Agree with what ommmward and upward said. My dd sounds very similar to your dd and there is now way I could imagine using this type of discipline with her. I am another Alfie Kohnist too in my parenting outlook.

Am currently reading 'The Explosive Child' by Dr Greene, would recommend so far.

dillydaydreamer - yes it scares me. He is out of control and either will not or can not respond to any verbal reasoning. Maybe I am not describing well;

If I try to sit with him on my lap and hold him until he calms down this it what happens.

Take a 35lb dog, pull them onto your lap when they are struggling, hold all their limbs/paws/teeth/head in place with your legs and arms without getting bitten/kicked or hurting the dog itself.
As dog struggles manicly past the point of reason remember that they will ahve no fear of hurting you in the present state but you have got fear of hurting them.

Asking him to tell me what the problem is - sorry but he isn't verbal at this point. We're not tlaking about some cheeky monkey sneaking of the step and then pouting a bit, he will hurt himself rather than sit quietly/go with you.

And I CANNOT WALK AWAY. i know its the obviuos thing to suggest but he is DANGEROUS if I leave him - how often must I say this? there is nowehere in this house I could possibly leave him unattended, unless I barricade him into the small space by the front door.

I really try not to use timeout alot - but I need something I can do when he does dangerous things. Timeout in our house is for violence or deliberate destruction of objects. ie smashing something or hitting someone.

Happy to try something else but need pointers on what would be possible.

If you are going to carry on with time out you will need to consider a safe place for him to be in time out. somewhere he can;t hurt any one or destroy your treasured possessions.
Could his bedroom be made boring enough ?

We have currently stopped putting our son in "time out" in his bedroom for hitting us, we realised that he wanted to go to bed because he was knackered and didn't know how to ask to do so. BUT he knew that if he hit me he would be put on his bed.....
Now he loses a toy car... its been effective so far. 2 weeks in and he's been hitting me less and the threat of losing a car is VERY BAD in his eyes. I didn't think the tempory loss of a matchbox car to a high shelf would be such a big deal, but it seems to be working .

my lad is strong 3 yr old. We started removing him to his (boring) bedroom to deal with aggressive behaviour because he would not stay on a step or facing a wall if he was in full strop mode.

It sounds like that before he can move on to using words to express his anger, he needs to find a safe physical way.

Have you tried saying something like 'you're angry, here's a cushion to punch and stamp on' or some paper to rip or scribble on etc. If he likes drawing, he might like to draw how cross he is.

Personally, I don't think he should be punished for yelling if he is angry. DS who is 6 finds it helpful to go 'GRRRR' like an angry lion. When he is older you can work on him expressing his anger a calmer way which is more acceptable for society.

If you would like to try something other than time out, try not to see him getting violent as an offence to be punished but him trying to tell you something. Use the occasion as a chance to teach him something. And think about what you are teaching him at the moment by struggling with him physically to get him to stay in time out.

What do you think is making him feel so angry? That can sometimes be a good way to approach the problem, before you start to deal with the outbursts.
Is it hunger, tiredness, frustration at not being able to do things well enough, too much going on in his day, desire for more attention than he's getting?
You are quite right that it's unacceptable for him to behave like this, but sometimes you can try and forestall a lot of tantrums by very careful management of an "explosive child". Lots of soothing and so called pandering can actually work wonders, especially when you stop being frightened of your child and start thinking how they feel when they are having the outburst.
I speak from personal experience of this sort of child.
I think timeout is a good reminder when you have sort of unscrambled the code, but useless as a starting point. What we see on supernanny -naughty steps etc is just an edited version of how she actually deals with children, namely lots of structure, involvement, general destressing.

have you tired the marbles in the jar, 2 marbles go in the jar when he is good, one goes out when he hits etc
when the jar is full he gets a treat?
or a sticker/reward chart?
does he get loads of exercise, at this age there a bit liek dogs, need a good run in the fresh air twice a day imo

When I say pandering I DON'T mean give them sweets, buy them everything they want, take them to funfair because they see it from the bus that minute. I mean try and work out what your child is capable of doing and not capable of doing. Whatever you are arguing over, try and find a framework that stops it becoming an issue. Lay down boundaries that are agreeable to you both, but don't set impossible targets for his behaviour.

Ok, time out is not working with your DS, so first thing you need to do is scrap it. Don't use it, just stop.

Then, address why he is getting so angry, what causes it, what are the triggers?

How about a different tactic (sorry if you've already tried this and it didn't work), but how about just hugging him and saying soothing things to him when he's having a temper tantrum, lowering your voice completely, and just shispering in his ear "it's all right" over and over while hugging him and rubbing his back. This could calm him down, it's the only thing that works with my DS.

Oh I am sorry halia, I just read your post describing what happens if you just hug him.

Do you have a garden where you could put him?

thanks swanriver, I am trying to work out what his particular boundaries and capabilities are.
Tiredness is one big trigger, frustration and not liking to change activity are others.

I'm not exactly frightened of HIM more of how violent his temper seems - IFSWIM, I worry that it might actually be scaring him because it seems out of control.

Now the weather is getting better I've thought of a new strategy for yelling/kicking. I take him and me out the front door with a ball and initiate a throwing ball at wall session. If we have to get ready to go somewhere it will have to be 5 big bounces each but hopefully it will give him a safe outlet for anger and a distraction from whatever set things off.

We do have something for tiredness he still has occasional bottles of milk. I know he's far far far too old for it at 4 but he NEEDS something which calms him down and it works so well, he will get a bottle, lie on the sofa with a blanket and you can see the tension drain out of his body. It doesn't work if he just lies down - he has to have something to occupy him and switch his restlessness off.

The other thing that seems to work with him is me getting things deliberatly wrong and then laughing and saying "silly mummy" and asking him what I should do - so getting his PJ top out instead of his school jumper. Offering him play food instead of his toast.

DH thinks this is pandering to him but it works alot of the time cos it switches him into laughing rather than being cross and lets him be in control a bit.

He's very bad at choices most of the time- that piece of parenting wisdom just makes him worse as he can't decide and gets in a right state.

I'm going away to read explosive child and other similar bookson ODD, he definitly is somewhere in that area. He can easily scream and kick for 3 hrs rather than do something simple like pick up a piece of paper.

I need to talk to DH as well, he thinks that DS is being illogical and that "you only act out a behaviuor because it is useful to you" (bloody cod psychology, he has done SOME study and thinks he knows it all) I have tried to point out that that assumes a level of rational thought which most children (and many adults) aren't capable of all the time.

Halia - I am just over half through that book. It seems to make a lot of sense and I have found that the tactics Dr Greene prescribes are really what I've intstinctively attempted to employ.

Definitely worth a read.

Ball sounds good. We sometimes do star jumps when we are getting worked up!

Making him laugh is a great technique.

LOL at your DH thinking 4 yr olds are logical creatures!

Hal- did/ does your lad have a dummy at night? my lad still finds a dummy usefull as a self soother- he isn't a thumb sucker. when he has got him self worked right up into (aw)full tantrum mode putting a dummy in his reach does seem to help him get himself under control and calm down. then he gives it back.
Maybe not a pretty solution, but IMO its starting to give our boy some self calming tactics.

Triggers for tantrums ... all sorts, transitions from out side to indoors is a common one. You are not alone.

Ds is exactly the same...we no longer use time outs...for everyone involved they were soul destroying.
(Interestingly enough our cm still uses them and she has no control over ds at all, whist school (nursery) and I are getting on much better.

Instead we use:...

We have a calm down box for ds which has about 4/5 tactile items in (i.e., squeezy ball, snake braclete thing that twists, large threading beads, blu tack) all of which focus all of ds attentions internally down to his hands..and really works to calm him down.

The other thing which can help to stop a tantrum is looking at his special book (a scrapbook with ds photos, leaflets, tickets of special days out, artwork etc)...he loves to look at photos of himself and it distracts him from the tantrum.

Hope these help.