My children are badly behaved and I don’t know what to do

[magpiemagpuy]

DH and I have two children. Boys aged 6 & 8 and I feel I finally have to admit their behaviour feels beyond my parenting skills.

We’ve done our best but it seems we’ve missed a step somewhere and now they’re very difficult at times. I’m not sure if that’s parenting in general or just our children.

Individually they’re reasonably behaved (most of the time) but together it feels like we’re verging on them being feral.

I feel bad for them and myself if I’m being really honest because they’re actually living kind little boys but I can see why other parents may not see that.

They can be extremely boisterous. This morning they were hitting each other at home and name calling, this continued in the school playground with my youngest kicking my eldest.

At pickup they were being rough with another child whose parent looked understandably unimpressed. Pushing and shoving and because there are two of them they look like bullies.

They come home and eldest just doesn’t listen. Needs to be told numerous times to do anything and backchats/calls names and youngest slapped his brother so hard he left a handprint in his back.

Im at the end of my tether. Their behaviour is on their terms and we give time out and remove screen time as a punishment and make them apologise to people when they’re unkind but it doesn’t sink in. They just do not care.

Hoping not to be roasted for my offspring and could really do with some advice on how I can turn this around.

I think it’s really brave of you to acknowledge it’s hard. You can self refer to a Family Support Worker in our local area. If you can’t in yours, then speak to the school and ask them to refer you. They can signpost to parenting course if you feel you need advice on different techniques. Good luck with it xx

SupermarketMum
sorry that wasn’t supposed to be in your comment i actually agree with you ..

I would watch some old episodes of super nanny - she was very good with boisterous boys - good luck x

@magpiemagpuy I feel you. I am in a similar position with my 6 and 4 year old boys. Oldest on pathway for adhd also. Youngest gets very aggressive when he is hungry, excited or needs the toilet. So I am reading Dr Beckys book Good Inside and trying to focus on connection and understanding the function behind the behavior. For both mine there seems to be a sensory aspect. Both love rough housing , turning upside down, soft play, generally throwing themselves around. I am trying to notice when they are getting rough before it escalates and either ask them for help with a job like lifting something heavy, or something grown up like turning the dishwasher on. Or I get them to do press ups or star jumps etc. It seems to be helping. I am also prioritizing connection with them as much as possible.
It's important to hold firm boundaries like hands aren't for hitting in this family and I also have banned any cartoons with fighting in. If you are out and about and they aren't listening then herd them up and leave. If they are not listening at home get them to do a job or seperate them and explain it's for keeping them safe because they aren't being gentle.

Are they getting enough sleep, OP?
I haven't RTFT so am sure someone else already asked this. Lack of sleep can come out as behavioural issues.

My girls are like this too though 😅

Wow, so judgemental!
There are some things about modern day parenting that are probably worse than past times, but there is alot that is a whole lots better.
I don't disagree that there is probably an overdiagnosis of ND going on, however it is important to remember that the rise in 'ND kids' is also about better awareness of symptoms and better understanding of the presentation of the conditions, especially in females.

I think the world is tougher and harder to cope with in many ways for ND children nowadays. Schools are too sterile and not enough sensory input. Expectations are higher and life is more stressful. There is less space. And in many cases, children diagnosed ND would have been considered "odd" in the past without knowing why.

I found my autistic DS very, very hard to parent when he was smaller. At age 6 he only had the speech/vocabulary/understanding of an 18-month-old so trying to reason or ‘set firm boundaries’ was difficult to say the least! But strangers would just see this six-year-old boy screaming at us, sometimes hitting or biting us, because he didn’t want to leave the park. They probably judged quite harshly, when in reality I don’t believe they would have done any better a job than we were.

Have you tried flipping this on its head and positively reinforcing good behaviours? My eldest is ADHD and he just used to spiral with constant telling off and supervision. Rewarding good behaviour, however small, seemed to get him out of his downward trend and lift him. He responded much better to praise and although it’s hard if they don’t do much to praise you can usually find something good to say. I have 2 boys similar in age gap (older now) and the fighting is not unusual. I used to sit mine down and ask why they were being so mean and seperate them as needed. I never used to leave them unsupervised so they didn’t get as much chance to start fighting and when they did it got stopped very quickly. Set them a target - something they both really want but keep it simple to achieve but impose real consequences if they fail. Don’t be afraid to ask for help but a positive is if they are doing well and behaving at school then they can’t be that bad. My eldest was an angel at home and a terror at school which was so hard to deal with.

It sounds like during the week they need activity to really wear them out.

Eg week night swimming club? Week night football or rugby? Don't forget activities even that young which intellectually wear them out?

Board games as a family activity? Teaches them that order and not chaos can be fun too.

I was a teacher for 15 years and I dealt with poor behaviour on a daily basis. Staffroom discussions among the older teachers (those nearing retirement who had been in the job before I was even born) confirmed that the behaviour of children, and the way parents behaved when school need to get them involved, had deteriorated dreadfully. Something has gone horribly wrong and it’s not a coincidence that ‘softer’ parenting approaches are, at least partly, to blame.

Teachers are leaving the profession in their droves and schools are struggling to employ teachers so kids are ending up with non-skilled teachers teaching core subjects. The main reason for this is that teachers can no longer teach the subjects they love because they spend the majority of lesson time dealing with the atrocious behaviour of our young people. So I’m sorry, I’ll be as judgemental as I want. I have seen a small number of well-parented, good kids having their education ruined by others. That used to infuriate me.

Yes, things weren’t perfect ‘back in the day’, things rarely ever are. But modern day parenting is a mess. It’s the constant excuses as to why something won’t work, not following things through because they can’t deal with the fallout, not having a united front when it comes to both parents being on the same page (you see this so often on here)… the list is endless.

Is it perfect parents though? Thought was pretty par for the course to only have screens ( well iPad type) as an occasional thing at weekends

Although my girls could fight argue and misbehave and they didn't have screens at all as young kids ( not really a thing) so it may not have much to do with it

Because I have an ND child diagnosed - I recognised this pretty quickly in your post. Because it's a trigger on here for posters, I thought I would leave it this time.

Because you've highlighted it, I'm now posting and hope too many aren't going to get unnecessarily upset by it.

When parents are clearly trying, coming on MN for help, fully aware that something is not right and nothing they do seems to work, that's the signal for me. Our stories are all common. Nothing seems to work and you try everything. Firstly, it's not you OP. It is not your failings.

You'll have endless posts telling you what's wrong with your parenting and even pointless suggestions you attend a parenting class run by a numbskull with no comprehension of neurodivergence.

My advice to you is to only focus as a priority on securing the assessments. It's highly heritable, runs in families so both kids. I would look at the website ADDitude. It's brilliant. I'd look at all resources regarding parenting ND children.Traditional parenting approaches don't work.

I feel for you. I have a now 9 yo DS and was at the end of my rope this time last year with him just being so aggressive and disobedient. We even saw a psych but i couldn't physically get him to join the sessions and she said not to force him.

Sharing in brief what worked for us:

• more sports. Joining a club where he played 4 x a week
• yellow cards and red cards for bad behaviour. Yellow is the warning, red is no screen for 24 hours (painful for us of course!). No red cards for a week and he gets some cash.
• 1:1 time with each of us, extra affection.

Part of the issue was also a vile teacher at school which of course we could do little about.

All the best

I feel for you. I have a now 9 yo DS and was at the end of my rope this time last year with him just being so aggressive and disobedient. We even saw a psych but i couldn't physically get him to join the sessions and she said not to force him.

Sharing in brief what worked for us:

• more sports. Joining a club where he played 4 x a week
• yellow cards and red cards for bad behaviour. Yellow is the warning, red is no screen for 24 hours (painful for us of course!). No red cards for a week and he gets some cash.
• 1:1 time with each of us, extra affection.

Part of the issue was also a vile teacher at school which of course we could do little about.

All the best

I don’t know about anyone else but if two children were being rough and boisterous with one of mine, and their mother told them off, made them apologise and told them no iPad when they got home I’d think she’d dealt with it totally appropriately and think no more of it 🤷‍♀️

This. Plus they’re really young for screens especially the 6 year old. Do they do anything else other than screens? Children that age should know how to behave with others, so you’re right to be concerned at the behaviour.

You need to teach them to share; about empathy and other people. Do they do any sports or clubs? Spend more time with them and ensure it’s quality time. Feral children is usually a consequence of weak, poor quality input from their primary carers. Improve on that.

They are very young to be having what sounds like quite a bit of regular screen time - do they automatically get the iPads every day (if Thames haven’t had it taken away for bad behaviour)? I don’t think my boys even knew what an iPad was at those ages. They are now 13 & 11 and still don’t have iPads, although now both are at secondary school, they do both have phones. Those are very limited though, WhatsApp individual messages with friends, no group chats, no social media at all, no YouTube, no internet access. The younger one has asked to watch YouTube and is allowed half an hour on the tv to watch it sometimes - I really don’t like the YouTube shorts though as I feel they are not good for children’s attention spans at all. 6 & 8 sounds too young to be having screen time at all other than maybe a small amount of television (something nice like the Pete the Cat cartoons, or something to catch their attention like the Steve backshall stuff).

Also, we place a high value on being outdoors - mine are very sporty naturally so they choose to do an awful lot of sports training, but even just playing at home is great for kids, especially boys with their extra bursts of energy that they seem to get. Boys in particular (and some girls) need to be moving and require a lot more ‘running about’ time than you’d think. A walk in the park every day would not have tired my boys out at all at 6 & 8. Go for a run or a bike ride, get them into a swim club training multiple times a week, whatever they enjoy.

I think if you do those two things you will see a marked improvement. I have a zero tolerance on hitting / physical violence - my boys do still hit each other very occasionally (never anyone else), but it’s dealt with quickly. They wrestle for fun, but I let that go as they are respectful of not hurting each other and both enjoy rough housing. They are very close, but do bicker as well. Even now at their ages I det our expectations before we go somewhere - defining what ‘good behaviour’ actually means for that setting really helped them - in a restaurant: sitting quietly, not getting up, talking politely and clearly to the waiter, playing a quiet game (cards etc) or colouring is allowed, but being noisy or boisterous isn’t. I’m sure your boys will grow out of it, as long as you take action now.

The kicking each other and name calling should have been dealt with when it first started. Now you’ll have to undo what is becoming second nature. I would start with zero hours of screen time which can be built up with good behaviour. This way they have to be good to earn screen tome, and it should start to become more normal. Lots of praise when they are being good with extra treats. Check with the teacher how they behave in school. I’m sure you’re lovely parents and will get this right because you care.

This is the perfect way, children will 'shut out' being told off if it's what they hear all the time, encouraging positive behaviour is far more effective than trying to stop bad behaviour when it happens, behaviour charts, or token jars are a great way to get children to stop and think before they do the wrong thing.

Might work with the younger one but if the older one has ADHD he's unlikely to have the executive function to manage it. And that will cause more discord between the brothers.

Prevention is a lot better than that kind of approach, with impulsive kids this age.

I've got a girl with ADHD and she's just now at 12 becoming able to save up for things/put things off - after YEARS of effort and training.

Mum of 3 here .
i have read your posts on here and you sound completely reasonable plus they seem to get enough exercise to run off excess energy .
It seems like they’re winding each other up which is a complete PITA and I’ve experienced that many times .
Others who have mentioned stepping in immediately, separating them , and helping them to earn their treats / screen time sounds good plus praising good behaviour .
It will be exhausting. I know .
Also both you and their dad need to be on the same page , you need support with this

Yes that's fair enough but what I was pointing out that kids did fight and argyle long before screens.

I sent my 2 to different schools, they went to what was called doit4real holiday camps, made sure they were hundreds of miles apart etc.

iPads weren't invented then so the ,," screen time" wasn't affecting their behaviour