Parents who don't smack - suggestions needed

[Kelly1978]

I was thinking about the aprents on the other thread who say they can effectivly discipline their children without smacking. I was wondering if any of you could help me with my ds. As I mentioned, ds has problems so I don't smack him very much at all - he simply doesn't understand what he is doing wrong.

my usual method would be 1 - tellign off + explanation, 2 - sending to room for time out, 3 - smack. now when ds misbehaves none of this would work. He can't understand explanations, or what he does comprehend goes in one ear and out the other. He doesn't care about time out, he would quite happily sit in the coner all day - normally I'm fighting to get him out of the corner. So how do I deal with his behavior?

How old is he Kelly?

(great swerve from the other thread by the way)

three. Acts like a two year old though. He has recently startign the most awful tantrums, jsut like the terrible twos.

when I say acts, I mean that he seems to have about the capability of a two year old.

You are supposed to bend down so that you are level with them, make sure that they are looking at you, and say in a very firm voice "stop that now!" If he doesn't then you have to take him out of the room (so if you have a hallway, sit him on the bottom step, or if not put him in a room where there is nothing for him to do, the toilet if needs be!) and tell him that he has to stay in this place for 3 minutes. After the three minutes you go to get him and you warn him that the same thing will happen if he causes trouble again.

He might be cocky and not care the first couple of times, but if you keep doing it, he'll soon get fed up of being carted off to another room. Be consistent.

But presumably there are things he enjoys? A particular toy/book/tv programme that could be stopped?

ds has been known to spend up to three hours in the toilet of his own choosing, when I haven't realised. It's hard to explain, he will quite happily spend hours sitting doing literally nothing, so time out doesn't work. I usually have to keep a eye on him to make sure he isn't sittign doing nothing. So, it jsut isn't any kind of punishment for him.

tv, bed and food are the only things that he really enjoys. Tv I'm trying to limit anyway, because he would happily sit in front of it all day. He asked for cbeebies this morn and I said no, so he stormed off to his room, threw things around a bit, then when he heard me creeping up the stairs, he shut the door and got in bed. He would also spend the day in bed if I let him.

But if he is being naughty, and you stop him from doing something, then he will get the message. Whilst he's in the toilet (make sure it's empty so there's nothing he can play with) you could put on a video, so that he can hear things going on that he'd like to be included in.

Also, if he is spending time alone, perhaps his naughtiness is his way of getting attention? Perhaps if you set aside some time every day to focus on him and play with him, then the naughtiness will stop? I know it's very tempting, when they are playing by themselves, to take advantage of the situation and do other things, but they need stimulation and attention too, so make sure that he's not missing out.

he does learn from being removed from the naughtiness, eventually. Or I jsut have to do soemthign to stop it and hope he forgets. Sometimes it's like dealing with a baby. He went through a phrase of headign out the front door with the wellies he got obssessd by. He isn't a naughty child, just confused. I had to lock the door and hide his wellies.

But how do I deal with the tantrums? I can't stop him from having a tantrum or sulking in bed by using time out, he is already there.

I deal with tantrums by giving them a great big bear hug and holding them like that until they calm down. The Little Demon now knows that this is the treatment he gets if he tants, so he tants have decreased. I'm also good at spotting when he is about to have one and using distraction techniques.

I find whipping is a viable alternative to smacking.

No, seriously, I have the Pasta Jar reward/punishment scheme. Each week they start with 5 pieces of green pasta = 50p pocket money. They can get extra green bits (+10p) or get red bits (-10p) through the week for good/bad behaviour. I used to take pieces away for "bad" behaviour but introduced the "minus pasta" because the scheme lost it's bite when they got down to their last piece!

DS2 had understood the basic idea from a little under 3 - you can tailor it to your child though.

That worked great with dd. Ds would have a fit if I hugged him though. He isn't into affection at all. Will give distration a go, going have to be imaginative tho. No, we aren't watchign cbeebies, how about we have a nice stand in the bog instead!

I can just see there being a Pasta Swapping Revolution in playgrounds now!

But that's the point Kelly! If he's not into hugs, all the more reason to hug him when he tants! He'll hate it and it'll make him stop and think before he throws another one!

sorry I'm not beign sarky. Ds is gettign to me a bt though.

Not a hope in hell of understanding the pasta jar. Ds doesn't understand money. Though, if he could eat the pasta he might find it mroe interesting. I wonder if it wuld work with sweets.

I get a lot of enjoyment from evilly hissing "pasta" in my children's ears when they are misbehaving.

lol @ the idea of malicious hugs. Reckon I'll be flamed for hugs with malice aforethought?!

Yes Kelly - you can tailor it by using Smarties or something. If his attention span isn't great, then you can empty the jar at the end of the day rather than weekly.

I think if he doesn't harm himself during a tantrum then it is best ignored

if he does try to self harm or is "literally beside himself" during a tantrum to the extent that he is out of control then I found sitting the child (in this case my dd1) facing away on my lapwith my arms wrapped around her body and firmly holding her arms, rocking and singing until she calmed down or talking in a very quiet voice quite monotonously she would eventually calm down. i had no choice at this time but to hold her as she was beyond communication and would have been a danger as she produced amazing strength and physical capability at this time eg she would hurtle round jumping into the bath (couln't normally get in or out herself) crashing into furniture and walls door frames etc
and as she also suffered from anoxic seizures i had to be careful a lesser tantrum i would ignore her until over.

Or, it is the season of chocolate money at the moment

Kelly - my nephew was exactly like this. He would sit on the bottom of the stairs quite happily for hours! I'll find out what did work; I've a feeling it was a star/treat chart.

One thing to note - at 3 boys 'suffer' from a testosterone surge which results in quite unpleasant behaviour changes - aggression etc etc. I have 2 friends (one a paediatrician) who have boys going through this. Apparently it's really impt that a male/father figure is around a lot from this age onwards, and that they participate in discipline.

Good luck - I have all this to come...........

he sounds bored

does he get enough exercise?

I would totally ignore any tantrums

Kelly - I think you need to completely re work your mindset away from punishing bad to rewarding good especially with a child who won't understand what he is being punished for.

So, as an example, today you would have not said 'no' to cbeebies, but said 'you can have 10mins of tv later, only if you do xxxxx now'.

Loads of small rewards, loads of small chuncks of good behviour which you gradually extend.

I don't think from what you describe he is able to understand 'good' behaviour and so you need to specifically describe for him what exactly he will be rewarded for. So not 'you'll get x if you are a good boy', but 'in 5 mins time we will do xyz together if you take your shoes off and put them on the shoe rack and go to the toilet now'.

Hope you work it out - punishing with out understanding why you've been punished must be soul destroying!

if you are trying to punish him for having a tantrum you are on to a losing wicket

Definitely try a more positive approach - the advice is usually to 'reward good behaviour, ignore bad behaviour' - the theory being that when a child behaves badly they are seeking attention, so by withdrawing attention they make the link that bad behaviour doesn't get what they want. It sounds like you might need to adapt this for your ds if he likes to be on his own anyway.

We have a sad book that we write ds' name in if he's naughty, and a happy book if he's particularly good. Also sticker charts. I found at age 3 that ds' behaviour was directly linked to how much tv he'd watched that or the previous day, so tried to limit that to after 5 o clock.

Boys all seem to have a bad year at age 3. They improve at 4!!! Seriously, all my friends with boys have been very smug at breezing through the 2s, only to be hit by appalling behaviour at age 3!

Tantrums, I take the line that they are a symptom of the child being out of control, so neither punish nor reward them. So if ds wanted something and I said no, he might have a tantrum, I would ignore the tantrum, but the tantrum would not change the outcome of the what I'd said no to. Similarly I wouldn't let a tantrum remove a treat, because I really don't think they can help them! Mixture of rage and frustration. Ds doesn't have them anymore (age 4), dd is just starting at age 2!