how could I have handled this better

[Babytalkobsession]

Posting for others perspectives. Feeling like I'm terrible at parenting my highly strung just turned 5 year old.

This is a recent situation. He shouts that he's awake and I go in and give him a big cuddle. His little bro is still asleep so I ask him to play quietly while I have my shower. He makes a mountain of teddies under his duvet.

After my shower he shows me what he's built. I praise him for playing nicely and then say we need to wake ds2 up. Ds1 cuddles into DS2 and I say 'ah that's nice. You two snuggle while I finish getting ready'.

Then I hear crying from dc2. I go in and he's still half asleep but in the middle of the floor. I ask what happened and ds1 tells me, with a smirk, that he dragged him out of bed. DS2 is only 2.

I have no idea why ds1 would do this. It seems so cruel. I bent down and firmly spoke to him and told him to say sorry to his brother.

Ds1 then proceed to shout in my face for me to take his wet pull-up off. I say not while you're talking to me like that and he says 'fine I'll do it myself and put in in your face with wee all over it!!'

I am cross now and say 'right, because of your treatment of your brother and your rude attitude to me, you can't play with your teddies. I went into his room and dismantled the teddy mountain he'd made and put all the soft toy back in the basket.

Que him screaming, crying, hitting & kicking out. He screamed that he hates me and it's my fault. He was hysterical for a good 15 mins. I had to leave for work (feeling awful) and just couldn't help him to calm down.

Dh said he calmed down pretty quickly after I left and got got ready for school ok.

So where does all this come from? Why would a 5 year old aggressively drag his 2 year old brother out of bed while he was still sleeping? Why was there no remorse - just more aggression? I'm really concerned about these outbursts.

I'm sorry it's so long but would appreciate any insight.

Little bump as having another challenging day (toy throwing, spiteful destruction of anything dc2 does, defiance)

He's just swiped everything off the coffee table and looked at me as if to say 'what are you going to do about it'

How do I manage this?? Any experience?

I think 5 year old are not always the most rational, they can be mean sometimes to pets, siblings etc we have to teach them what's ok and what isn't. It sounds like he is testing you to see what he can get away with and know his boundaries, so make them really clear.

If my DS cleared everything off the coffee table he would sit on the bottom step for 5 minutes, then when the time is up I would explain why I was disappointed, ask him to apologise, quick cuddle then he would clean up everything he knocked off on his own.

But we also have a sticker chart for good behaviour, and praise good behaviour a lot, to help shape their choices.

What discipline system do you use in your house? Do you use the thinking step and do you and your DH parent together as a united front?

My thoughts are: don’t make it into something bigger than it is- you sound really worried about it. When do they get breakfast? It’s possible he needs to eat something but can’t verbalise it, I wouldn’t expect my two to snuggle in bed without supervision- it just wouldn’t end well in this house! Jealousy of younger brother? He sounds like maybe he is trying to get your attention? He can’t get it in a good way so he is trying anything?

These are just my thoughts- take or leave. Could you try some 1:1 time with your 5 year old? Love bombing? Just something fun just the two of you?

It sounds like it escalated quickly, are you stressed in yourself? Last thought is, highly strung kids sometimes need you to lean in for connection rather than lean out with crossness and punishment.

Good luck OP.

Can you see how this escalated?

He diverted the situation by mentioning the nappy and you bit -

Keep on the track of the problem - ignore his counter offer and stay calm

I'm not happy you've hurt DS2 so X will happen - but this must be consistent - he needs to know that doing x will result in Y

Then he chooses as he understands consequence

Dh said he calmed down pretty quickly after I left and got got ready for school ok

Just wondering why this was all your responsibility when DH was there as well. You were obviously getting ready for work ....dealing with all this ......going to work. And DH was still there , at least until DS1 went to school. Can't DH manage the children when you are getting ready for work ?

Tbh I think this escalated pretty quickly. I would aim for a quick firm 'we don't do that' then remove him from the situation to find something positive he can do that you can then praise him for.

Do you need to get in the shower as soon as he wakes? I think a better idea would be to make him some breakfast and sit him down with that rather than leaving him in his room/with dc2 while you get sorted. While he is occupied with the breakfast you could then go to get ready. It sounds like he has done it out of boredom.

I think all your attention should have gone on DS1 after he’d been pulled on to the floor.

He’s getting lots of attention through negative attention presently.

Do you do anything positive together just the two of you?

Tumble, we’ve done rewards charts but stickers have always been meaningless to him, and it became more about what he would get out of it. We tend to give him a warning and if behaviour continues he goes to his room to calm down / think / play quietly. I admit I feel like we’re not consistent and a bit lost.

Flower, I am worried about it because this is just an example of how his behaviour blows up. He doesn’t play or potter much at all, can’t watch tv or a movie - it’s all loud aggressive behaviour, or mad jumping, climbing, turning everything out like a whirlwind. I’m worried that he may be anxious or something else, this behaviour has gotten worse since he started school in September. He doesn’t need any provocation from his little brother, he’ll just hit him for no reason.

I am very stressed myself and don’t cope well with constantly being demanded of by the children. DH is hands on and very good at playing with them, but I do all the thinking, and they say ‘mummy’ about 7 billion times a day. They’ll walk past DH to ask me for a drink. They interrupt me talking to anyone. They shout for me only, and it often results in tantrums if DH gets them in the morning. I feel like I quickly escalate to ‘fight’ mode as I feel very overwhelmed and stressed out, all the good parenting strategies I read about go out the window.

Birdie, DH was full of cold in bed. He usually gets youngest ds ready and I take him to nursery at 7:30 on my way to work. DH then gets oldest ready and takes to school.

You’re all right about DS1 getting all the attention, albeit negative.

I need to learn some strategies to keep myself cool (I find this hard - it’s learnt behaviour and kind of all I know. My mum was shouty and short fused) but don’t know where to start.

We spend a lot of positive time together too.

Thank you for taking time to respond. I am down about it and worried about him.

You’re doing a good job. Remember that. Little kids can be assholes, but they’re still learning how the world works. I would only give attention to positive behaviour. When he hurts his brother, his brother gets the attention. Follow through on discipline for example when he knocks things to the ground, Take a deep breath and don’t react. Pick him up and put him on time out, come back when it’s time to get him, explain calmly why he’s on time out, that he’s going to come back in and pick up the toys and leave it at that. The more you feed into it the worse it becomes