When ignoring doesnt work?

[yummymummy345]

I have posted on here before about 3 yo ds and thought bad behaviour had subsided,now few days later back again. Basically he spends all day refusing/ shouting/ hitting/snatching/throwing it isnt just pockets of tantrums throughout the day.

/I have tried naughty step, count to 5 (only thing which works sometimes), going to bedroom, not reacting to situation, taking item away , saying will not go and see friends (which he loves) following through with consequences and being consistant and nothing seems to work

What do you do if you have sent him to bed as last resort and hes stil coming downthrowing things down the stairs?

Have 10 week old, no sleep and finding it difficult to stay positive about things to say the least.

I suspect that he badly needs more 1-to-1 time.
I know it's tough, btdt. Do you have a partner on the scene at all?

It can even occur when playing with him.

Try to concentrate on the positive and tell him how good he is being- really try to catch him being good-even if it is something simple. Try not to react to the other stuff. When he realises that he can get your attention without being naughty, he should stop doing it.

Although my 3 year old DSS is not naughty all the time, we do have times when he has his off days where he wont listen or seems overly aggressive. We do naughty step and counting to 5, taking things off him if he cant play nicely with it etc. Often DP doesn't always follow through with naughty step after lots of warnings, but we recently had a chat about discipline and we made two charts - one with a big smile on and one with a big frown on. I drew lots of little pictures on card of different behaviours (i.e. listening/not listening, doing what Daddy/Woozlemum say, throwing toys, biting, hitting, eating lunch nicely etc etc) and we stuck sticky pads on the back of them and stuck the charts on the kitchen cupboard doors.

We then got him to tell us what each card was - like the listening one was a picture of an ear and the not listening was the same picture but with a big red cross through it. We then asked him to tell us whether it was good or bad behaviour and then getting him to run up and stick it on the relevant chart while we cheered and gave lots of praise and encouragement.

Rather than lecturing (like we had done before) it helped to know what he understood about good and bad and if we come across new things we put them on the chart with him (like the other day - spitting his drink).

We have methods about what are naughty step offences and how many warnings to have within a set period of time.

We also have a reward chart where he gets stickers for eating lunch/dinner nicely, using the toilet (rather than the potty which has been mastered pretty well) and playing nicely and any other really good stuff - like doing well with tracing letters or the other day we did some alphabet flash cards and he did really well so we did a sticker for that. He gets really boosted by the positive praise and we rarely get the tantrums.

I think you just need to pick a way of dealing with things and stick to it. After a while he'll start to see that he feels better when he has done something good rather than the bad stuff.

We've talked to DSS about naughty kids at his pre-school and how it must not feel nice to be so naughty and not get nice things and not have so many friends.

Just persevere!!!

brilliant idea Woozlemum I will try that, think the chart would really help, simple pictures he can understand are naughty and good and to add to the chart as creates more unacceptable behaviours (or good:))

Its a good way to get some discussion between you and the child to understand what they understand about good and bad behaviour, to ask them why they think things are good and bad and what happens if they do those things.

Way better than lecturing, helps them get involved and feel a bit more grown up!

Best of luck!

Try reading Playful Parenting by Lawrence Cohen.

Lots of positive ways to deal with the undealable. My friend (9yo DSD) swears by it and bought me a copy! My DS is only 11mo but hopefully starting some of the stuff now might prevent stuff later on.

I live in hope!