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Behaviour/development

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19mo behaviour - feel like I'm going very wrong somewhere

6 replies

potteringon · 20/04/2010 11:17

  • DS tantrums constantly over the slightest thing and will not be distracted
  • hits people / pulls hair
  • deliberately throws things at people (the other day we had to leave my sister's house because he was throwing wooden building blocks at DN's head)
  • throws his food on the floor every meal time even when he's hungry and I've cooked something I know he enjoys
  • smiles and giggles when I or DH say 'no' or tell him off (which we do consistently)
  • if I remove him from the situation, goes back and carries on where he left off as soon as he gets the chance, even if it's an hour or two later - he never forgets and is very single-minded.

Nothing I do seems to have any impact on his behaviour . He's such a lovely little boy when he wants to be but it feels like every day is a battle, and it's one that I'm losing at the moment.

Please tell me I can improve things and it won't last forever!

OP posts:
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DrivenToDistraction · 20/04/2010 11:41

This too SHALL pass. Honestly!

It's all about finding him finding the boundaries of acceptable behavior and it's very, very tiring indeed in. Pick your battles.

Go for one issue at a time and go to the root of the thing. Ignore what you can and be totally consistent. He needs to know that hurting people is wrong. He may well not yet understand that the things he does hurt people in the same way as he feels pain himself IYSWIM. With DD (when she was going through this phase) I made a point of talking to her about the most recent incident when she'd hurt herself, 'oh, my love that really hurt didn't it you poor thing (sooth, sooth). It hurt mummy / daddy / DN like that when you bit / scratched / hit them this morning. Hurting is horrible isn't it?'. When your intervening in a situation where he's hurting you or someone else, do be sure to make it very clear that it hurts, pretend to cry if you have to.

Some stuff doesn't matter and is fundamentally his own responsibility. So, he throws his food on the floor. It's HIS problem, say 'oh darling you've thrown your food on the floor, that's a shame, now you've got nothing to eat.' Keep on eating and ignore him, if he doesn't eat, he doesn't eat. It wont kill him.

I know it's easy to say and almost impossible to do, but try not to let him wind you up. Toddlers smell panic and doubt like sharks smell blood!

You're doing a great job and this phase really wont last forever.

averagemum · 20/04/2010 12:34

Just a thought, potteringon, but might he be teething? I had a really tough week or two with my ds a couple of months ago and it turned out he was so uncooperative because he was in a bit of pain. Once I'd noticed the teeth pushing and started giving calpol he improved dramatically... Clearly teething isn't a reason / excuse for everything and anything but could be one factor in the mix?

DrivenToDistraction · 20/04/2010 12:53

y y, teething will make everything it worse.

BertieBotts · 20/04/2010 12:58

Sounds within the range of normal for a 19 month old to me!

It's a difficult age, because they are starting to do things you know you need to nip in the bud, but often they just don't understand when you try. DS is 18 months old and we have similar issues. I will quickly go through what I do.

  • Tantrums
I tend to just ignore, but carry on with what I was doing. For example he lay down in the street the other day screaming because he didn't want to hold hands, so I picked him up instead and carried him (horizontally! ) to the park where we were going. I could have cancelled the park trip, but I thought that at that time, he was frustrated because he wanted to run around, so the park was probably the best place for him to be. And they don't tend to connect events, like "If I have a tantrum we will go home" yet anyway.
  • Violence
Usually I just move away from him or move him away from the person. If he has hurt someone then I say sorry to them "for" him (he can't say sorry yet) and hopefully as he gets older he will apologise himself. If he is hitting I can usually grab his hand before he makes contact and just say "Too rough!" and show him a nice way to stroke someone (or whatever) then when he is gentle, I say "That's right, gentle, good boy" and after a while, once I was sure he knew what gentle meant I started telling him to be gentle when he was being rough. You have to make sure they know what you mean though, otherwise you say "be gentle" every time they hit and they start to think that "gentle" means hitting! I also tend to overreact if he hurts me - especially with hair pulling, which sometimes makes him laugh and sometimes makes him look a bit worried, and he will give me a cuddle.
  • Throwing things
I say "No throwing toys, that is too rough. You can throw this ball." and find something soft that he can throw, away from people. This works surprisingly well! To the extent that I will say "No", and he will throw the forbidden thing to the floor, then himself, but then get up and throw the ball around quite happily. It took a few attempts and lots of confiscated toys to get to this point, but if he throws/hits more than once then I automatically take the toy away.

Once he had a particularly memorable, very overtired tantrum and threw everything I gave him, I was getting frustrated and wanting to throw things myself, so I strapped him into his pushchair (so I could get out of the way!) and gave him a toy and said "Show me how angry you are!" and he threw it as hard as he could across the room. I said "Wow, you are so angry!" and gave it back, he repeated this a couple of times, and then he laughed, started throwing it less hard, and eventually calmed down and accepted a cup of water. He was only about 16 months at this time and had no words, so I didn't expect him to understand at all but it really seemed to help. It's just about teaching them to manage their anger in a controlled, safe way.

  • Food on the floor
I still can't give DS a whole meal in one go, I tend to give him very small portions, or he gets overwhelmed. So I will offer him a forkful each of 2-3 things from his plate, whatever he eats I will then give him more of, if he doesn't eat, then I just move on, either give him a fromage frais if I need him to eat now, or just give up on eating for the moment and try again in about an hour or so. He has never eaten very much so I think I have stopped stressing about it so much!
  • Telling off/going straight back to things
I think this is just part of this age group - it's just something you have to ride out, I am afraid. When he keeps going back to things, I find it easier to restrict access to the things in the first place, e.g. there is a vent on the wall where the fireplace originally was in my house, he pulls at it, so I have hidden it with a large box for now, which doesn't look great, but I am hoping to get a chair or something to go there instead. He also tries to turn the cooker knobs, so I don't let him in the kitchen unsupervised, which is a pain but necessary until he is older and can understand more.

HTH

potteringon · 20/04/2010 18:25

Wow, thanks for your replies. They've helped me feel a bit better and less hopeless . I agree, averagemum, he is teething so this might be a factor at the moment; although his behaviour has been steadily getting worse for the last couple of months.

I must have been naive - I didn't think I'd need to worry about this sort of thing for a good few months before he hit the 'terrible twos'!

OP posts:
2catsand1rabbit · 20/04/2010 19:22

I would just add that you and your dh must not smile at any of his bad behaviour. And you and your dh MUST back each other up.

Good luck! x

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