DS1 (5y): I know its naughty mummy, I like to be naughty!!! Help!!!!

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Ds1 (5y) gets stuck into what I'd call a spiral of naughtiness. He will just move from one bit of trouble to the next - with occassional breaks in a quiet spot for a time out, 5 mins of better behaviour, then more trouble-seeking.

So what do you do when your child says they like to be naughty?

Unless it's something dangerous, I'd turn around and ignore him as it's probably an attention thing, then I'd give him alot of praise when he does the right thing. I'd comment that children who choose to be naughty also choose not to have treats, then just ignore him until he behaves the way you want him to.

He knows the things I can't ignore for example running the outside tap to flood the patio. I turn it off, he turns it on, repeatedly, until I give up and bring him in, then he goes on a rampage. When I ignore him he escalates until he is doing something dangerous, or he really hurts his brother because he gets so angry and looses it - I think he gets angry because I am ignoring him. Yesterday I ignored his silly noises in the back of the car, and eventually he leant over and bit down on his brothers arm. Later when I ignored him helping himself to the bubble mixture and carting it all over the garden he ended up pushing his brothers head into the patio.

As I write this I realise this is almost certainly related to his brother being ill again. Might see if there is a forum related to parents of ill kids - see if they suffer the same sibling rivalry.

Last night he asked me to fix his broken brain that makes him be naughty and I suggested when he gets his naughty feeling to come and see me and I'd sort it out - thinking of employing tickling, agressive colouring in, a bit of cooking, whatever it takes to distract and redirect him.

So really my question should've read:
Can anyone suggest techniques for redirecting a child having an attack of naughty-energy

Have you tried teaching him yoga and relaxation techniques?

He's just not found his off button yet, he'll get there. Boys need lots and lots of sport, now's a good time to send him to a football/rugby club so he can learn to play in a team and will benefit from the discipline. Have you tried a star chart? A star for each nice thing, when he gets a certain amount he gets a treat?

Agree it is probably his way of expressing his anger about his brother. Try to encourage him to talk about it as much as you can, I think...

With the ignoring, agree you should ignore the bad behaviour BUT that doesn't mean you ignore HIM. So with the silly noises/bubbles etc, don't tell him off about them but DO engage him in something else... He is only 5, there's nothing wrong in needing a bit more help in keeping focused.

Your naughty-feeling idea sounds like a good one for him to identify his feelings, but don't necessarily distract first. I wonder whether his naughty feeling is his way of telling you he is cross and annoyed and frustrated about what is going on. I'd suggest a cuddle and perhaps doing something 'allowed but feels-a-bit-naughty' (tear up some cardboard from recycling, or throw some cushions all on the floor).

sO NOT redirecting, but acknowledging in a safe way iykwim...

Belle - def need some advice on relaxation techniques - know where i can find more info?

Adair - I love your idea about doing something allowed naughty - just picturing dh's face as he goes to put the rubbish out and finds the recycling shredded into a million pieces - def gonna try that one. Now need to think of some more ideas.

You say "I don't care whether or not you like to be naughty, if you are naughty again I'll punish you."

I read a book (can't remember what it's called though) that I used with ds.
You get them to close their eyes, then take some deep breaths, then they listen to the sounds around them (birds, planes etc), then they concentrate on how it feels to sit down, the pressure in their bum, what their clothes feel like against their skin. Then they open their eyes and look around.

I have been having huge dificulties with my DS due to his father not being around anymore. Hreis very angry and thus lots of attention seeking behaviour ensues. He is a nightmare with his brother.

I tried to do the reflecting back thing - emapthising and encouraging him to open up but it had limited effect. So, I gave him a big blanket and said "this is your dad, what would you like to say?" and he started talking. He looked at me quite suspiciously and then eventually REALLY got going and ended up stamping all over the blanket and saying all kinds of stuff about his dad never seeing his good work certificates, etc. (DS is 6 btw.)

Anyway, my point is maybe if your DS feels cross or hurt and angry about the attention divide because of the natural drain on resources that an ill sibling can be, then maybe he'd benefit from permission to say it all out loud to an inanimate object? I really think it helped to encourage my son to voice some of the really bad stuff that otherwise he would have known was too angry and rude to express in the normal channels of interraction between actual people. He even said 'Dad, you are a B-word.' He said b-word because he knows that we don't use swear words as a rule but he meant something thoroughly offensive and I let him.

Bit American maybe, maybe wrong but it has really massively helped for us. I used to say to clients to get their angry kids to whack cushions or scribble madly if they wanted to let their anger out. I now feel that this isn't always sufficient and in somem ways makes the child feel like they are getting rif of 'their problem' (the anger in them) rather than being allowed sometimes to address that anger abstractly.

I like the idea of him telling you when he is feeling naughty, you both doing something really raucous (spraying the garden with water, jumping up and down on cardboard boxes, hitting boxes with sticks) to get the feelings out there and moving from angry / upset to having fun.

It sounds like he wants to explore the feelings with you and work through them. The books "Siblings without rivalry" and "unconditional parenting" might have some good ideas if you want to go down this route.

Re relaxation: Yoga bugs a good. I've also looked into []www.relaxkids.com/ relaxkids]] before, TBH, I found the CD a bit slow but there is a forum on their website and you can listen to the CD's on line to see if you think it might work.

Colditz, I think that is great for normal 5 year old naughtiness but not necessarily in this circumstance. Maybe you didn't read the next post but it seems the OP's son is struggling with quite a lot on his plate.

I think if she just sweeps it under the carpet with a 'well, we punished him' it might tackle each individual incident, but won't do anything long term. Far more effective to tackle the root cause and try and prevent the bad behaviour in the first place (whilst of course punishing nasty behaviour when it happens).

Do agree that there needs to come a point when you can say 'ds, do NOT do that. If you do x, y will happen' with a stern look and he will stop.

No I didn't read the second message, sorry.

I do think though that discipline has a strong place in a little boy's security. I truly believe that to have their behavior noticed and acted upon (even to their 'detriment' in their eyes) reassures them that the world is as it always was.

Yes, agree, boundaries make children secure.

But I think in this case perhaps there is a pattern of waiting til things escalate then having to react massively, ie a habit that needs to be broken. If you do something that is nasty/completely unacceptable, there do need to be consequences. But if the child has an opportunity to come and find you BEFORE doing something horrid, or can be engaged first, then that is surely better.

Adair - that is it - he knows he is going to do it before he does it. He knows he will be punished. Yesterday he took himself to his room, put his pjs on and got into bed - he knew that playtime was over and it was straight to bed. sometimes he will say 'take my leapster' - the punishment is worth it because of the buzz he gets from doing it.

Going to mum's later as I am only fit for sitting on the sofa and coughing today - so she can look after ds2 while I have a snuggle and general chat with ds1 - time for some bridge building today.

Ohh bless him.
Yes, yes, enjoy your snuggle and bonding time with ds1 .

He had a couple of horror moments at mum's- he's picked up a delightful new word at school beginning with f - which has been dutifully ignored. But we had some snuggles, he rode his scooter to mum's beautifully, waited at the edge of the road etc, played tea parties with me, ate his dinner, and even set up a train set for his brother. Hopefully we're turning a corner - if only he would stop calling every one a 'focker' - yes that's how he pronounces it, and answering every question with 'pooooooo'

I have used Bach Flower remedies with my children and found them really useful when there are emotional and behavioural issues. A consultation would probably be best but I found this link about Holly, which might be worth a try.
Holly

PS: DS knew what the drops were for and in addition to the impact of the flowers, there is a psychological impact - "my naughty drops will stop me feeling naughty".

Is it possible to talk to him about trigger points? Ds (5) went through a phase of school of being very badly behaved (kicking, biting etc). Basically certain things would happen a red mist would descend on him and he would get very very angry and uncontrollable.

I spent time talking to him to work out what happened before each episode and what mechanisms he could learn to help ensure his anger didn't overwhelm him. We came up with a number of different coping strategies which we implemented. Every day we would discuss whether there were any trigger points and what ds had done to ensure the anger didn't develop. Took a while but I think it helped ds to know that there were alternatives to simply lashing out when he felt out of control/angry but couldn't always articulate it.

It might help to personalise the impact it has on you for him.

Instead of an action being called naughty describe how it makes you feel when he does it. "when you do X it makes me feel very sad inside", When you broke that X you made me feel very hurt".

Also make sure to tell him how his good moments feel for you so he can see the contrast and is rewarded by your happiness, pride, etc.