Oh God, how can I ever stop screaming at my children?

[ellawithaspecialnose]

My 3yo drives me insane. He hits, punches and kicks when his older siblings never did - not once. He hurt 9yo this morning and I saw red. I wanted to scare him, I wanted to hurt him. I screamed in his face and lifted him roughly onto a chair. I have never hit any of my kids but I know this is just as bad. I know. But in the moment, the red mist descends and I don't care. How, how can I stop myself? I have read books on anger managementand know the theory but am powerless to put it into practice.

I spend too much time apologising to my kids for being a crap mum. When they're older they will remember me shouting and screaming and they will keep their distance from me. I want to go back to when they were born and start all over again. Never shouting. Every time it happens I feel so shit and worthless that I am sure it will never happen again ...but it does. How do I stop?
And then I take them to school and smile and laugh with all the other mums and am perfectly ok outwardly. It should be the other way round. My kids should be the ones I protect from my awful behaviour not grown women who mean nothing to me.

If I get any replies I won't be able to respond till tonight, sorry. I think people may say I'm depressed but how can I be depressed from 8-9am, then again from 3-6pm (another shit time, before DH comes home). Is a pathetic excuse for me being a worthless shit mother.

8 - 9 and 3 - 6 are stressful times when certain things must happen and it's difficult to make them happen when children are playing up. Use the naughty step - it gets him in a set place and allows you to retreat to the kitchen and count slowly to 30. You can warn him and then put him there so he starts to see that his actions have consequences for him.

Look back at this morning and write down at what point your trigger went. If you know that, for example, you saw red when your more difficult child hit your easier child, and it might be difficult to admit that, you can work on it. Can you maybe spend more 1:1 time with the 3 year old - is he doing this for attention or just because he's 3 and they all do that sometimes?

If it's any consolation, my DS is 4 and when I made the mistake of taking his to church a few weeks ago, he bit my hand until he drew blood and kicked me in the head. We haven't been back (actually because of the right wing focus of the minister) and he didn't get any TV for the rest of the day because of how he'd behaved - he had crayons, quiet toys to play with on the floor, books to read, but he decided to bite mummy. Sometimes they do this, and you do want to throttle them. The being a parent bit is learning to be calm, grown up and walking away so you don't!

Have these on me.

". I want to go back to when they were born and start all over again."

This almost made me well up..

It's good that you realise shouting is horrible, and you want to change. When I trip up I beat myself up about it, but just say to myself: I can start being a calm mum from now on, I can make it better.

Some practical tips:
-1,2,3 magic (have a google)

• smile when you are with your kids. When you get angry just give them a big smile. It's a way of showing your teeth but you calm down
• generally lower your voice when talking to your kids do you won't reach fever pitch because you started so calmly
• be firm and consistent
• let them know when you are about to explode and say you need a quick break then gather yourself in another room
• leave as many time buffers I your schedule as possible so you don't rush and stress
• have some family rules and write them down so you and the kids know when you will start the 1, 2, 3

Take a deep breath, you can do it!

For what it's worth, the fact you recognise these behaviours is great, some people are naturally short tempered but being self aware about that is the first step to being able to manage it. I'm pregnant with my first and grew up with a dad who screamed at us 24/7. More with my brothers than me but we all have a very strained relationship with him now; I often have awful flashbacks to my childhood and worry whether I have inherited some of his temper (albeit I'm pretty calm and patient, just not used to kids) but......he wasn't a particularly loving dad otherwise either so sadly I don't have any other childhood memories of him other than his temper. I think you have to remove yourself from the situation, if you see red, walk away, go into the bathroom, count to 10, breathe......

My mum was a screamer and I have tried so hard not to be like her, but when they were younger it was so hard.

I hope it will reassure you that now they are 16, 14 and 8 I rarely raise my voice. Telling the eldest she is an utter minger to clear her sanitary towels from the bathroom and whinging the bins arent out are as bad as it gets these days X X

Thanks for your replies, I really do appreciate them. I think, though, that I haven't quite explained myself properly - and maybe even posted this in the wrong topic.

I'm not really looking for ways to change DS's behaviour. He's just being a 3yo, albeit a far more 'extreme' one than my other two. I believe that modelling the right behaviour, explaining firmly and gently to him why hitting etc is wrong, removing him from the situation etc will pay off in the end. It's what I did with my other two and they're fab. I do try to do it still, for the most part - but sometimes, too often, I snap and scream instead. I think having 3 children was just too much . What a thing to say. But it's me that I'm trying to change - my response to his behaviour, and my inability to control my temper. I never lost my temper at all, till I was probably 25 or something! I was an only child and had a calm and serene upbringing, so Heatherbell, though I totally understand what you mean about your fear of inheriting your DF's temper, that's not the case with me, and I have no idea where mine came from . So what should I do - have counselling to try and pinpoint why I do this now? It feels like the only option, as willpower and being decisive that this is the last time this will ever happen certainly isn't bloody working. I've lost my temper for the 'last', 'final' time dozens and dozens of times, probably.

Longines, I like a lot of that list, thanks. Especially the time buffers one. It all goes back (you asked about the trigger this morning, PeterParker) to the fact that I don't make enough time in the morning to get everything done, and the moment he punched my9yo today was more or less the second we had to leave the house (DC were ready but I was still brushing my teeth and faffing). Well, I had the time from when the alarm went off, but I just ... surrender to the internet. Sit down and stare at FB/MN when I should be making packed lunches and brushing hair. So the incident this morning was all my fault, as usual. 3yo wouldn't have punched 9yo if I'd been around. Of course, I know damn well that I should just keep it switched off. But it's how. I just don't. So how do I? I'm in despair at my ability to change.

Can you reduce the amount you have to do in the morning - keep a toothbrush at work for emergency use / brush your teeth when you get home, for example? I have a shower at night so it's one less thing to do in the morning. I can tell when I don't do it, mornings become chaos ans i'm trying to fit more stuff into the time available.

You could have been me a few months ago. My son was coming up to 9/10 months old and I decided I needed to do something about my temper because I was screaming at him during nappy changes on an almost daily basis - I was suffering from depression and had very painful tendonitus in my wrists so him wriggling and crying through explosive nappy changes had inevitable results. You are already one step ahead of me because at the time I wanted to find a solution to why HE was being so difficult and 'making' me lose it.
With the help of a brilliant parenting course, I looked at things from his point of view - if I was a baby and was sometimes scared by my mummy screaming at me when I was at my most vulnerable I'd probably get upset at every nappy change because I'd learned that it can be a really horrible scary time (god that's hard to write).

For me, the most helpful thing was to anticipate a potentially stressful situation and prepare for it so the stress could be avoided - counting to 10/leaving the room etc just didn't work because that was all too late: sometimes I wouldn't know I was going to lose it until the second half of the sentence. What I did instead was sing to my son the whole way through the nappy change so my brain didn't have a chance to concentrate on getting stressed in the first place. Slowly but surely he got calmer and learned to trust me again.
That probably sounds really simplistic - there were many other situations where I lost it with him and for each one I was able to step back, see it from his point of view, change the way I approached the situation, and then improve its outcome. For you, it might be really analysing what situations lead to your son hitting out and working out why he might be doing it then setting up strategies to avoid/change it (like you say it's not about changing his behaviour because he's bad, it's about him changing it himself because he doesn't feel the need to respond in that way therefore you won't feel yourself getting angry).
Ask your health visitor/outreach worker if you can be referred to a parenting course in your area (mine was called the Solihull Approach course), or counselling as you have suggested. I also was determined it would be the "last time" every time, but without re-educating my brain it was never really likely to be.
Good luck.
x

Sorry, forgot to say the reason I found the course invaluable was because it made me realise that my stress had engulfed me so I was very unobservant - I'd ask the other parents why my son was doing something seemingly bizarre and they would say "well of course, its because you are doing abc, so why dont you see if xyz works instead" - it always would and afterwards I would be amazed that I hadnt seen it myself.

I can totally sympathise. I do think you are being extremely harsh on yourself though. You are clearly not a crap mum. You care. You feel guilty when you feel like you've done a shit job. Genuinely shit parents don't care.

I totally get the depressed between certain times of the day. I have 2 little boys. DS1 is 6, DS2 is 2. I find the most stressful, depressing time of day is from 3pm- 5:30pm because this is when DS1 is home from school until DH gets in from work and we have dinner around 5:30. I am struggling to juggle both their needs which are hugely different and trying to prepare a remotely healthy meal for tea. They will be winding each other up. DS1 gets extremely stroppy over things not going his way or DS2 taking his toys (understandable but it is wearing!). Everything is a battle at this time of the day and yes sometimes I shout (A LOT). I hate it. It make me feel crap and I don't want them to remember their whole childhood of me being snappy and stressy.

Just wanted you to know you're not alone! The only thing that works to stop me from shouting is to separate things before it gets too excitable or too physical etc but I spend my life on high alert waiting for them to kick off. It is stressful to say the least.

Marking place as I want to come back later to this thread.

On a "raising boys" course (not based on the book) one of the suggestions was to think like a cbeebies presenter to diffuse situations. So as the tension climbs you grin inanely and just jazz hand through it! I've a wicked temper that I've not lost for years as it terrifies me. There are days when I snap at my 4.5 year old and I can feel it bubbling under the surface. So I name the emotion, just like I do for him. So I'll think "right I'm feeling cross because he's whinging. Why is he whinging? Because he's hungry. Right, you're feeding him in 10 minutes then he'll stop. Ask him to stop now. Here's a taste of dinner. Breathe." Etc. like a pp said basically distracting my brain. And allowing myself to feel cross but not acting out the cross if you see what I mean?

Please, please, please read www.amazon.co.uk/10-Mindful-Minutes-ourselves-healthier/dp/0749957662
It's all about stress management through taking deep breathes, and it's really, really works and you WILL feel more in control. You will feel your whole body change after doing it and you will feel calmer. Also agree with poster above who said leave as little to do as possible in the morning. That alone will make a huge difference if you are not rushing around. But please, read that book.

I can also recommend this book to help with your son:
www.amazon.co.uk/Playful-Parenting-Lawrence-J-Cohen/dp/0345442865/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1400864122&sr=1-1&keywords=playful+parenting it really does help with co-operation.

ellawithaspecialnose I wonder if you are exhausted? It's so much harder to be patient with trying behaviour if you are just worn out. I've realised myself very recently how important it is to admit if you're running on empty because your own needs have been bottom of the list for years. If this sounds like you, talk to a nice GP about it - it may help just to have someone to listen and also to check for physical factors like iron deficiency.