Please tell me how do you discipline your child

[goldenochre]

Hi,

Today morning DS(3.9) didnt want to go to nursery, wont brush his teeth then he wanted to but wont brush his teeth and so on. I tried talking to him, helping him dress distracting him he just ignored me played and danced around. I lost it and shouted at him i helped him get dressed and felt incredibly guilty apologised to him kissed him.. all forgot and gone.

I feel guilty for shouting, flying off the handle all things i find unnecessary and cones out me just losing it. I know this and therefore i feel guilty. DH thinks all the apologising is not needed he'll think he can get away with anything and he is a happy reasonable child he'll get over it. I however feel this is what he'll remember me for

So please (please) tell me what works for you?? Anything is better than my cycle of shouting and feeling guilty

When my ds1 was little he was hard work! I was recommended the book 'calmer easier happier parenting' and was very impressed.

It is very much about setting out expectations before hand, praising steps towards the behaviour you want, telling a child to do something when you are in a position to follow through, having clear consequences (that are appropriate to age of child), ensuring you are at the child's level and have their attention before asking them to do something, and lots of other strategies.

It can be hard work as it is unrelentingly positive but did help.

OP I sympathise I feel very similar and my DS was/is like this. He's a year older than yours now, but at the age of 3-4 I found the book How To Talk So Little Kids Will Listen really useful. It does get bloody tiresome, everything has to be fun/creative and sometimes you do want to just shout "brush your teeth!". But I think it does help and maybe will make those little tasks less of a battle.

As my DS is now older (he's 5 next month) I tell him it's time to brush his teeth, if he argues I just say fine I won't, do it yourself and act as if I'm going but completely unbothered, he is a wind up merchant so the breezy approach works best!

Thank you both! I'll get them for my kindle read oh its such a hard work and I have a 10m old DD so DS is extra naughty when shes awake aargh..

I have been soft spoken all my life the complain people have about me is I dont speak out loud and now I am done with my own voice! At some point i lost my voice and telling DS off sounds squeaky so he laughs 😑 its weird when people who normally dont talk loudly shouts it comes out bit weird

The ignoring part works most of the time but then the day is only 24 hrs I wont get anything done lol

I always used the naughty step/corner as a time out at that age and it worked really well for us. I'd always start off with a warning and if they didn't listen, to time out they'd go. A minute for every year of their age and if they got up and walked away i'd place them back and the clock would reset. They wouldn't come out of time out without telling me why they're there and apologising then it'd be hugs and kisses. I'm pretty sure i got it from supernanny but it worked!

Gosh if you have a 10 month as well that is extra tough. I think ds1s behaviour got worse as ds2 got to the age when he was crawling/walking/interfering. Nightmare. I found myself getting more and more cross with DS1 then someone recommended 'love bombing'. I tried really hard to give ds1 lots of positive 1:1 time and that helped as well. Looking back it was a really tricky time for me but I got through it!

In this house we do '123 magic' which is a book. If you want them to stop doing something, you give them a count. 1. If they don't stop, they get a 2. Then a 3. A 3 gets a time out, 1 minute per age. There's no argument, no debate, as a parent the less you say the better. Dd is just turned 6 and will often stop if I just say the word 1. Ds is 3.5 and has had a few time outs this week. The time outs are billed as calm down time. If they kick off, the time doesn't start until the are calmer. The other side of this coin is lots of incentives and fun to encourage good behaviours. So getting dressed can be a race, for example. Or you could put socks on your hands. Or be robots. It does work!

The thing is when you shout often children grow used to it and so they won’t hear or listen to you until you do it. At that age instilling a bit of fear around hygiene is probably a good thing - so if he doesn’t brush his teeth they’ll rot and then he’ll need to get them taken out. If he doesn’t wash his hands then he could get poorly etc.

We do have naughty corner but he tets distracted there and not really stay still! So now hes supposed to sit at the end of a sofa, hands folded.

So many ideas! Love bombing, 1-2-3 magic! I'll try them thank you

@GrumpyHoonMain i think you are right! He kind of anticipates my reaction.

Thanks all your replies are really helpful x