OMG!!! JUST CAUGHT DS1 HURTING DS2.....WHAT TO DO??

[lonelymumof3]

I left ds2 (nearly 5) in the floor while ds1 was colouring. I heard ds2 (23 weeks) scream so i went in....ds1 obviously hadn't heard me come in....he was dragging his little brother round the floor by one leg. I shouted '*, NO!!!' and went over to get ds2 free.

I took ds1 into the hallway and said it was wrong to do that as it would seriously hurt his little brother.....he just laughed at me, so i made him stand by the stairs and left him for a few minutes while i went to check ds1, who thankfully apart from carpet burn on his head, seems ok.

When I went back I asked him if he knew why I had put him there. He said he didn't know, didn't care and wanted his daddy, and stomped off saying he hated me.

He has never done anything like this before. He has gradually got more and more boisterous and sly (ie lying) as the weeks have gone by, but has always been so loving and caring to his siblings.

I dont know how best to punish him for doing something like this. If he repeatedly does something when i tell him not to then he knows if i have to tell him a third time i will remove him from where he was playing til he can play nicely. Its not like you can give a warning first for this kind of behaviour is it?

What an end to a rubbish enough day!

I don't know what you can do lonelymum but when you find out, can you let me know please? Sending hugs and positive vibes your way - I know how you're feeling?!

So sorry to hear what has happened lonelymumof3. I only have one child so I dont have any experiences to draw from but I'm sure another mumsnetter will very soon.

Now that perhaps you've all calmed down can you ask him again if he knows why you were cross with him and see if he'll admit to deliberately hurting DS2? If it's the first time he has done this then I guess you need to be careful that you dont overreact in your response in case it's attention that he's looking for.

Sorry I cant be any help.

Really sorry LMo3, and did I read that you are having a horrible, horrible time? I do suspect that the answer to your little boys uncharacteristic behaviour lies in his 'I want daddy' response. He may well be reacting to upset, or making sure he gets attention from YOU (the parent who is there) non-stop, because to a small child even negative attention - being in trouble- is more re-assuring than not having attention.
If this rings at all true, I would talk to him about kindness and why he must not hurt his brother, and then talk about how you must all look after each other - and then concentrate on cuddles rather than punishinhg him.

Good luck.

What a shock lmo3
first of all let me say what a great job I think you are doing on the whole, I know you are under a lot of stress at the moment.

I wouldn't put too much emphasis on the 'until he can play nicely' goal. He can play nicely. He is doing this because he wants your undivided attention and he knows dragging little brother round is guaranteed to get it.

If you make warnings and then he laughs in your face, you are as you say then IME you need to scare him, by shutting down and doing the stony silence routine until he comes to you and asks you why you aren't happy/cross then you know you have his attention and you can explain to him.

Also, it is worthwhile (I know you are running the show singlehanded though) making some time for just him and you doing a grownup treat. Taking him to a cafe for a bun and a milkshake or letting him help you in a task or activity you have previously considered him too young for.

It seems to me that he wants to get closer to you on one hand and on the other to find out where the boundaries are and how far he can push you.

HTH and I don't mean to sound preachy.

i have tried ignoring him on other occasions he has been 'naughty', but he doesnt seem to care and wont approach me to ask why i am ignoring him......carries on like nothing has happened, except without speaking to me

not ignoring him, but you know what i mean??

and i didnt mean 'punish' in a nasty way either.....i worded that wrong....i just dont know what to do for the best with him

Hmmmmm..... he's good at keeping up a silence is he?

I know that bullying the little ones is maddening ( I have ds1 3yr and ds2 10 months) but I do have to say, when that happens I make half an hour for the big one just me and him and it does seem to break the cycle

hth

DS1 is back to pinching his brother a lot at the moment (this comes and goes). poor ds2 has been piched about 3 times a day over the last week. Each time I put ds1 out of the room- fairly quietly and without too much fuss (he just loves to see me rant and rave so I don't)- leave him there for about 30 seconds complaining then let him back in. It does work in that it will get rid of the behaviour (decreased today actually).

DS1 is non-verbal autistic so no chance of explanations but this behaviour management technique works well.

can you use a playpen for the time being until you feel more confident in ds1's behaviour? prevention better than cure and all that. then when you feel when the time is right you could encourage ds1 to be ds2's teacher. i'm finding this is helping my ds1 feel as if he is more involved. hope this makes sense, good luck x
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I'm so sorry you're going through all this crap lonelymumof3. I don't know how best to explain to your four year old. But I know this sort of thing happens often with siblings. One of my neighbours phoned me hysterical because she'd been putting out the washing and come back in to find her dd sitting on top of a bean bag which was over the baby trying to suffocate him.

I hope things get better very soon for all of you.

Could you involve DS1 morein the care of the baby? for example, helping you to bath him, telling him that he needs the protection of his older brother, probably if he participate more he won't feel so left out? But in the mean time, if he doesn't care about being ignored I would send him to his room until he apologised, after all behaviours like those can have very SERIOUS consequences.

Did you see what happened prior to the leg pulling incident?
Ds2 may have pulled something down or was reaching for something that ds1 knows is dangerous for him. He probably also had built up anger which will be focused on the weakest member of the family.
This is very normal behaviour. Don't leave ds1 to look out for ds2. Make sure that ds1 knows he is never allowed to punish ds2. Talk about his emotions (he has no idea why he feels so strongly).
Say 'Does it make you feel cross, upset when ds2 cries?'
'Do you want to play with mummy but ds2 cries and then I can't play with you?'
Then let him vent off steam or encourage him further by saying 'It is annoying when he cries isn't it? I wish I could play more with you but sometimes I can't'.
'Ds2 is so funny when he pulls that face' 'You can really make him giggle'.
'Can you say sorry and make up because ds2 was very hurt by what you just did. That was a very dangerous thing to do.'
O.k that is basically what we do with our ds1 who is 4 and a quarter and has a tendancy to have aggressive outbursts. This sequence validates his emotions, sympathises with him, finds an answer that helps him understand that this scenerio will crop up again (he will get angry again), then divert is attention to something positive about ds2 and also something that they can do happily together. As he is cheering up get him to understand how dangerous it was and how much it upset ds2. Then make sure that if ds1 is upset by ds2 (baby crying, baby pulls ds1's things down) that you also show that it isnt appropriate for ds2 to do either.
Most importantly if ds1 laughs in your face take him away from everyone and ignore him. Then discuss the situation as above with him once he is feeling adequetly sorry for himself.
If however this is all down to boredom then ensure that ds2 is with you and have lots of time to do things with ds1.
Finally (I can really go on) it will get better.
Try reading 'How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk'. Some great ideas in there that REALLY work even with very 'difficult' children.
Good luck!

Oh, Lonelymum, how frightening for you.
But just to reassure you, it's really really common for older siblings to behave badly to the baby sometimes ? your ds1 isn't unusual. My late grandmother often used to talk about my father trying to suffocate my uncle with a pillow; my mother tells me I tried to flush my sister down the loo. You do need to supervise older siblings around babies. Even if they are playing nicely a four-year old can't be expected to know what's OK and what might be too rough, or exactly how gentle you have to be with babies.
And there's all the stuff about the older child feeling displaced because they don't have 100 per cent of your attention any more...
Tigerlillie has some great ideas, hope they help. My mother tells me she encouraged me to see my new role as big sister as exciting, playing on how important I was as a big sister and referring to the baby as my little sister to the point where I got very possessive... you are probably doing this already so sorry if I'm stating the obvious.
HTH

I feel I ought to change my name for this as it makes me sound like a psychopath....but just to echo what Edam says....when I was about 3 I used to play with some older children (4?) in the street. One had a small baby brother, who he thought was a nuisance and said he was going to make him die. We all cheerfully helped him gather some grass which he put into his ice cream - and then when the Mum came out to see what was going on we all helpfully informed her that Edward was going to die....

I tend to go for the ignoring bad behaviour approach where possible, but I would make an exception for a violent outburst. It might not be very 'pc', but if my daughter was very agressive to her younger sibling (not just a pinch say, but as you describe, dragging him around by the leg and giving him carpet burns), I would yell at her loudly (something I rarely do), bung her in time out and confiscate toys. Very different from my usual softly softly approach to discipline, but then I think this type of behaviour warrants a very different approach to underline to the child just how unacceptable it is, and to clearly differentiate for the child that this sort of behaviour is in a different league to crayoning on the walls etc.

Hi LMo3 ...
My sympathies .... I have been having a few troubles with my 4 year old too ... and have been boring on and on and on about them on MN that I am sure people think 'Oh no, not her again!'
One of the problems is how he treats his little sister (6 months minus 1 week) but as yet I have not posted about them as I really think it is a stage.
He does hurt her now and again but I am pretty sure that it isn't with any intent to cause her pain .... I really believe that he doesn't understand that it hurts her to roll her roughly around the floor ... because it wouldn't hurt him IYSWIM .... I have caught him doing this a couple of times and he insists 'She likes it mummy!' ...
It probably never occurred to your DS1 that dragging a baby around by his leg is either painful or wrong ... as it wouldn't hurt him if someone did it to him, in fact it might be fun!
I know it is hard, and there have been times when I have got really upset at the thought that DS would willingly hurt his baby sister but I know that he doesn't really want to.
One thing that helps is to tell DS that DD loves him (she adores him and smiles at the sound of his voice) and how would he like it if someone he loved hurt him?