Why do Babies,Toddlers,Children behave so differently and so naughty to years ago....

[Louise1970]

My mum asked me this this yesterday. What are all your thoughts....

HCT
Blimey if i didn't feel like shit already. thanks for that.
This time last months i did do the food thing again. It went straight on the floor for 4 days. for 5 days i put him to bed at 7pm as normal and he screamed and threw up for 3 1/2 hours each night, and woke all through the night every 15 mins. Do you want to come to my house and give it ago.....

at 5 months i dont think this is relevant to your child.

Sympathy Louise, if we are all being honest we will all agree that we have 'been there'. I know that I have and it was bloody grim at times.

Not sure if this helps at all , but it did get better. Dd was queen of the 2-3 hour tantrums and ds projectile vomited avery night for months. They are now both playing in the living room and I have regained some degree of sanity. But you do have my sympathy.

I think it is possibly the parenting styles that have changed over the years. I was brought up to respect other people- whatever their age. I was also taught the value of money - which I think alot of children and teens lack, as we now live in the age of credit. Alot of children these days are spoilt with objects and not spoilt with love.

I think the real question is why are adults so much ruder and agressive than they were 40 years ago.

Adult behaviour today like getting drunk, brawling in the steet, use of bad language would not have been tolerted then at all.

As solcial restrictions on adults have relaxed then so has our attitude to bad behaiour in children.

The church being at the heart of the community many years ago was also a heavy influence, it made people want to conform for fear of being socailly outcast. Nowadays being conformist is almost looked upon as a negative aspect!

I think its hardly surprising that behaviour has changed in our littlies given how little respect we show each other as adults - I've lost count of the times I have been confronted with out and out rudeness from other adults - from shop assistants to other drivers!

That's part of why it is so annoying when kids take holidays during term time. It speaks volumes to the kids about what their parents think about school.

Part of the declining standerds is due to a lack of 'shame'. I have don't things that were wrong and when found out I was ashamed of myself. And that helped me not to do it again!

Nowerdays people are jsut unfazed but the most awful behaviour in themselves and others.

If my brother had told an adult to f off my mother would have been ashamed of his behaviour and would have made her displeasure 8QUITE* CLEAR TO HIM!

happymerryberries, I am making a generalization, because I am not aware of Louise's child being ASD. Therefore what I am saying is not taking this into account.

Sure I'll be slaughtered but lots of kids who have behaviour issues come from backgrounds where dad is not around or is ineffective.

meant to put "seem' to. Of course it's not as clear cut and as simple as any of these reasons.

Louie, it was/is not my intention to make you feel like shit, so my apologies if I did.

You say that this time last month you did the food thing again, which by implication means that you then gave up and went back to "the easy life". All that this does is confirm to your son that if he complains enough he will get his own way. Surely not the lesson you wish him to learn.

You don't say how old yor son is, but obviously he also needs to learn that throwing his food on the floor is unacceptable. How about you sit with him, and when he decides to throw it on the floor you stop him. Then encourage him to eat it. He will come round if he knows that he will not win.

Does he sleep a lot through the day? Does he sleep late in the afternoon? If so then try cutting back on sleep at that time of the day. Then make sure that when he goes to bed it is time to sleep. He must not be rewarded for inappropriate behaviour. No cuddles, no games, just back to bed if he gets out, and make it clear it is sleep time.

Let me know when you want me there to try and I'll check my diary...

Sorry Louise, it would appear my "s" wasn't working earlier

Hercules

I think it is unfair to simply say that some children with behavioural problems come from familes where dad is not around, or not effective.

If you want to look for a simplistic answer then I feel that it would be fairer to say that they come from families where the "parenting" is ineffective.

I believe that far too often people are far more concerned with not upsetting their children, and being their childs friend, than in good parenting. Setting boundaries, teaching rules, consistency and generally educating their children in life. That is what parents should be doing, but that is not really a fashionable view today.

I did say I realised it is not that simple but it is a part of the problem I believe.

The trouble is as you've pointed out it's frowned upon to say the problem of some kids stems from broken homes where dad isnt around or as I said ineffective.
Lots of far more experienced people where I work say this as well.
Perhaps the disintegration of the family unit does have a part to play in kids behaviour.

I think it began in the Thatcher years and the self-centred policies of the time.

Also, the proliferation of car use which enables us to move from box to box without ever coming across each other, has made us less sociable.
Our kids no longer walk to school. Pedestrians are the most marginalised of travellers with cars and bus lanes whizzing by on both sides of the pavement.

Technology feeds our wish to be in a world of our own (PCs, iPods etc) and the constant flow of information means we're desensitised to the needs of others.

Our kids no longer walk to school. They watch telly.

As you can probably tell, I'm sad about this. The world of Milly Molly Mandy is well and truly gone.

I get really peeed off with how selfish people are these days and particularly since their children will inherit this.

In our playground, at pick up time, there are always big bottle necks at stairways and through gates, because of people standing chatting.
If I want to chat I make sure there's space around me.

Also, why should I, my 4 kids, and 40 other people, have to wait while some 5-year old struggles down with his scooter blocking the stairway. Come on mum. Pick up the scooter and take it down for him. If he needs to practise scooter skills he can do it at home where he's not holding up others.

Oooh! That felt good.

spidermama, you are talking my language! What I call the "me now" generation. They seem to have taken to heart the speech by Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, you know the one, "Greed is good!"

If you have money you are better than everyone else, and should be able to do just as you please, and woe betide anyone that gets in your way.

HCT
My ds is now 19 months and i have a dd of 5 months. My ds never slept from the moment he was born during the day until he was 1years old. We would rock him, put him in black out room, give him an extra feed, put him in the car. But all he would do was cry and scream or just lay awake for hours until he was unhappy and started screaming. From 1 he changed and would sleep for 2 hours in the morning only. We put him to bed at 7pm and he was up at 6am.

His eating was 0-6 months breest feed. 6-9 Organic baby rice, freshly prepared puree fresh food. Fruit and Veg. 9-12 months i tried him on more lumpy food with meat or just lumpier food. He did not like the texture and would spit it out and not eat. I was then told by HV and parentline to carry on pureeing, which i did. He then reached 1 and refussed the puree by spitting it out grabbung the bowl and throwing it to the floor. Each time we feed him. i tried all sorts of textured and flavoured foods (all cooked by me) various sauces etc. But he would not eat it just threw it on the floor. One day i was having a sandwich and he took it off my plate and started eating the bread and taking out the middle. SInce this day he has and will only eat bread. Surely by reading this email, even you can interpretate that maybe some children are more obstinate than others, and maybe what works for your children would not work for mine. It is very hard to sit and judge situations when you are not witnessing them. HV will not do home visits and especially not at lunch times. They are not concerned about him because he is putting on wieght. But you and i know that if you were to eat chips all day you would look nice and plump. Most people who write short message on this website do not have the time, patience and energy to write the whole story of their back ground as we have children to look after. I

Spidermama, I absolutely cannot see what not walking to school has to do with anti social behaviour! Maybe it's to do with a combination of things: lack of family support/societal support for parents, a diet of processed food, a lack of shame, no teaching of boundaries etc, but walking to school? Can't see that it's relevant tbh.

I am just speaking for myself here but I truly believe that the fact that we frowned upon for smacking our kids is really the basis for behaviour and respect of children of today. By that I don't mean beating our children up, god no, but a simple slap across the legs when you have told them not once but twice and the message still doesn't get across. Maybe I feel this way because this was the way I was brought up. I was from a one parent family and my Mum had to be the mother and father and she gave me and my sister a smack if we were very naughty and we had the utmost respect for her as we grew up because we knew the boundaries. My youngest sister however was treated so strictly, my Mum was older when she had my youngest sister and believed then that maybe she had been harsh with me and my middle sister and so was softer with her youngest. This resulted in my youngest sister being very disrespectful to my Mum when she was in her teens, very different to the way me and middle sister treated her.

I don't think its right to smack children without thinking but sometimes I believe they need to know who is in charge.

WWW I agree with you in a sense but I can also see what SM might have been trying to say. As someone who has just gone back to walking to school with my children having not been able to do it for 4 months (because we were too far from the school) I do appreciate the time it gives me to be with my children, talking to them.

I do feel that one thing that is worse these days is that families often don't have the time to talk to each other so values and so on don't get passed on so much.

kids burn off energy wlaking to school. dd1 school is about a mile away. she basically runs ahead the whole way. its good exercise.

Louise - Your ds sounds quite similar to my ds2 (although I'm not for a single second suggesting that your ds is autistic). Some children really do not eat/feed if the only thing on offer is something they will not tolerate. I believed the old chestnut about babies never starving themselves - right up until the moment that he was admitted to the SCBU to be tube-fed because he would not drink milk of any kind. As a newborn he certainly wasn't trying to manipulate anyone. Ds2 lives almost entirely on dry bread and smooth yoghurt (not at the same time though). He doesn't seem to feel hunger in the way that we do so would quite happily go without eating for days if nothing he could tolerate was on offer.

Arrggh! Meant to say that ds1 was tube-fed etc. The rest is ds2...