Ds is ruining for us all

[Ds8isruiningitforall]

A bit of a background. DS is 8 and is very bright, no issues at school. However at home has always been very hard work. The first week of all holidays are normally hell with him. Very disruptive behaviour. I know he doesn't do well with a lot of free time but there is only so much we can arrange
He is spoiling it for the rest of our family. Has 3 other ds.Currently is upstairs for squirting waterbin his brothers face at which his brother squirted him back twice then he started hitting so I sent him upstairs for 30 min but he is completely off the wall in rage and how unfair it is. I'm at a stage where I want to talk to someone about him and his behaviour. Not sure if school is the best place since he is fine there but they spotted that socially he needs to developed more. We think his dad has asperegers(undiagnosed). He can be this amazingly affectionate and understanding boy (sometimes even more so than his brothers) but when he is disciplined he is a nightmare. He has been in his room for about an hour as he will just not accept he is punished.
I know it doesn't sound terribly awful but it is constant with him and feel one adult permanently has to have an eye on him and what he does and warn that his behaviour is unacceptable so it's just driving us all. Any suggestions on useful books or where I could start looking into things

Did his brother get punished too? I think I'd have left it at a stern warning to behave and make him apologise for hitting his brother. Sounds like your punishments might be a bit over the top? Maybe that's why he is ok at school because he knows the boundaries and consequences and the punishments fit the crime? Just a thought.

He has been in his room for about an hour as he will just not accept he is punished

Why? Why escalate something for an action that is relatively minor. Why does he have to accept he's being punished ?

No, his brother didn't get punished. I think if you start the disruptive behaviour and you get it slightly worse as in 2 squirts rather then one. He is upstairs as he started hitting not because the squirting. It's interesting tho you mentioned that the punishment is too harsh. I had not thought about that. I always give him between 15-30 min in his room for things like, swearing, hitting, not listening etc

Because he hit someone and I have no tolerance for hitting...

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/sarahockwell-smith.com/2017/02/26/five-steps-to-effective-discipline/amp/

sarahockwell-smith.com/2017/02/20/why-common-discipline-methods-dont-work-and-what-to-do-instead/

Have a look at these articles. My children are still much younger than yours but I’ve read a lot about gentle parenting. Gentle parenting does not condone punishment like time outs. Your son sounds like he is upset and putting him in time out is not supporting him through whatever emotions he is struggling with. Have a read about time ins which focus on staying with your child, helping them understand their emotions and why their behaviour was not very nice.

I don't u understand what you mean by escalating it? You mean I should not have punished for hitting? Or shouldn't expect that he does his time in his room without screaming and running downstairs saying he won't do it!!
I have 3 boys and I can tell you that arguments get out of hands in no time so hitting and kicking get quite hard and not just a tap!

I think the issue here is about the fairness of the punishments. A) his brother should have been punished too. B) you sent him to his room for half an hour, but now he's still in there an hour later, which does seem unreasonable.

Contacting the school is a good idea, they often know about parenting classes that might be run locally which can help you out in some consistent rules and boundaries that the whole family can buy into.

Also, sounds like they were just bored to get in that situation in the first place? Any chance they could get out for a bit to blow off some steam?

Ther you go, op.You treat them (in this cse) differently. Ds 2 not only retaliates but escalates and gets away with it. Is treatment often unequal between siblings?

Thanks Twinmum will have a look X

Maybe you could look into 'restorative justice'? The idea is that the sanction fits the event. It is a conversation with the child where you try to guide them to an understanding of who they have affected and how they can fix it as much as possible. The chd is supposed to suggest the consequence. It sounds hard but does work and might stop the confrontation part of sanctions?

E.g. paint on the wall - pays for paint and helps to cover it/tries to clean it
Hurts someone - letter to apologise and understanding how that doesn't fix it so not to do it again.

The sending to their room may not be punishment. My kids loved their rooms and so it would not be punishment to them. We used to require them to go into a penalty box and tell them exactly why. So, in case of your situation, we would tell them, you are in the penalty box because you hit your brother. The water squirting was not ideal, but not why you are in penalty. Basically the penalty box is to sit at the kitchen table and think what they did wrong for 5mins. Then (at age 8), write an apology note to whoever they hurt. Have a chat about what they should have done, can do better next time. Then deliver apology to hurt party and then free to go, all is forgiven.

Have to be consistent though. You can’t do this sometimes and other times shout/send to room. You have to let kids know that if they misbehave, the consequence will always be the penalty box. When we were out, we’d just put them in penalty when we got home. We did give them warnings...like stop or it’s the penalty box when we get home this is your only warning. Younger children got up to three warnings. But by age 8, it was usually only one warning.

So your DS needs to know

We do time in rather than time out for our boy who was similar.
So no electronics, games or activities he has to do what ever me or is dad is doing for 5 minutes.
It has got to the point now after about 18 months in where when I can hear things escalating with his brothers i call him to me and we do the time in before he has even got overwhelmed and acted out.
Also we spend 10 minutes each evening planning out the next day in the holidays so he knows what to expect. It can be very detailed, what time is breakfast, walk the dogs, play monopoly for an hour, watch a movie, lunch, have visitors or go visiting ( and what he can do in that time, so listen to an audio book, play his Nintendo on the way and way back) etc etc etc till bed time. Again after awhile there are something a he doesn't need to discuss or plan but especially the Christmas holidays he needs more structure and to be prepared.

Did you read my initial post? He squirted him back which I would not have punished for the first place but then ds2 had proceeding to start hitting for getting squirted twice not once. So you start being silly but when someone else does it back, it's suddenly annoying?

Btw my last comment was for @OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow
sending to his room is very much a punishment for him! Will have a look at the different punishment types thanks.
Hitting is a big issue in our house!

The time in concept works if you have only one child. But in the case of multiple children where a child hits another child, you can’t do time ins because you have to comfort the child that was hit first and foremost. So that means the hitting child has to be sat in a time out situation for a few minutes while you do that.

If you ignore the hit child to do a time in with the hitting child, that creates psychological damage, the child then thinks that they don’t matter that their sibling can hit or kick them and then get all of mum/dads attention while they are ignored.

So we take care of the hit child first, and do the time in type stuff after the hitting child has sat and cooled down in the penalty box for 5mins.

I agree long time outs are counter productive.

Why were you letting them play with water inside?

I agree with the others

• both boys should have same punishment & I don't understand why just one was punished
• hour is too long
• squirting water is fairly typical boy behaviour (sorry to sound sexist but boys are often more physical) & it's annoying but kids can be annoying
• a stern word should suffice

Have you tried

• positive reward chart so he can work towards something good?
• praise him for good things he does & try to give him positive comments as often as possible
• giving him some 1-1 time & tell him he's special & you love him?
• give some structure to his day so he knows what to expect? It sounds like he needs the structure that school offers.

Good luck 👍

Why would you punish a child for squirting water at someone who just squirted them?? ds3 had his new water bottle next to him when ds2 decided to squirt it in his face!
Yes we tried all that. The problem we are facing now that ds2 is taking is away from the rest so much they actually get very little time with us. I spend lots of 1-1 with him. More than than with the others. Actually school pointed out too that he struggles socially when it comes to noticing others and accepting they have to have turns and be heard too

Some children have different needs though & you need to accept he needs more from you. My DD will happily hide in her room amusing herself whereas DS needs constant attention & wants us to watch what he's doing etc.

Yes I do think both needed punishing & most others do.

He's 8 and you seem to be blaming him for ruining family time. He has probably picked up on that vibe?

He needs to feel loved & valued - his behaviour will get worse if you don't punish the others too.

If you're a Facebook user join the Therapeutic Parenting Group and learn about it. You might find a more gentle inclusive way of dealing with him works better than exclusion. Also buy the A-Z book of Therapeutic Parenting by Sarah Naish and read why some kids behave the way they do

Why would you punish a child for squirting water at someone who just squirted them??

Never heard the saying "two wrongs don't make a right?"

your ds could have come down and told you he'd been squirted instead of choosing to escalate the situation.

If this is indicative of what goes on I'm not really surprised your ds is kicking off, sounds dreadfully unfair.

My 7 year old is similar. Ignore everyone moaning about punishing one but not the other, only one child hit, that’s the one who’s punished.

An hour is too long though, in this situation I send misbehaving child to room while I comfort the other one, doesn’t take very long so maybe 5 minutes later I’ll go up to bedroom to get the misbehaving one, discuss what they’ve done/why/what could have been done differently then they come down and apologise if they need to and it’s all done. Brothers hit each other, it happens, a half an hour time out stretched to an hour seems a bit much.

Yeah they both should be punished for squirting. He's probably feeling victimised. 30 minutes is too long. Have you tried love bombing him?

An hour is too long and it is over the top for the misdeed. . If you are going to do timeout, then it should be one minute for every year of their age and not held in a bedroom where they have toys etc to play with.

Hm. There isn't much to go on in terms of examples of what else happens. (At the time of writing I was the 3rd poster, but it's taken me an hour to get around to posting, so appreciate that you may have added more information since.)
However, in my experience as a primary school teacher, children often behave at school and wobble out at home. Not uncommon.
As far as discipline is concerned, I have learnt over the years to turn this on it's head, though not sure if this works for everyone. I regularly get placed with 'difficult' classes where there is challenging behaviour (furniture throwing, total defiance, violence, destroying school property etc) and have found that a sure-fire way of escalating undesirable or challenging behaviour is to have a rigid culture of sanctions and punishment. I usually dispense with the formal prescribed sanctions in favour of a programme of talking things through in the style of restorative justice, personal reflection and reasoned and clearly linked consequences. In my experience, this quickly leads to a dramatic transformation of individual behaviour and class culture.

He's an intelligent boy, as you say, and I am not surprised he rails against the idea of a punishment. So humiliating. Is one of you (either you or your DP) a stronger disciplinarian who is driving your in-house ethos of parenting? My DP was raised very strictly and would naturally have defaulted to emulating his mother's parenting style with our own DC had I not insisted, prior to having kids, that any children of ours would not be subject to punishments or sanctions. I'm not saying you shouldn't parent, just that the top down model may not suit your DS's temperament.
It's horrible to feel at the end of one's tether, and I hope things resolve for you and your family.