How to stop being a shouty mum?

[WherestheDuctTape]

DS3.5 and DD1.5. DS is proving a bit of a handful, told general boundary pushing boisterous behaviour! Wont listen wont do as told..nothing new i hear you say.

He is always up to something. Whereever we go i am constantly berating him for something. I always wanted everyone to love DS and want to be with him but now i really feel like they dont want to be with the shouty moany old mother!!

Any advise on how to start again, stop shouting and just manage day to day. We already have house rules, reward chart going nowhere. Had Sticker charts. He constantly looses privaledges or toys or stories and putting him in the corner isnt workin. DD throws major wobblies whenever she doesnt get her own way and i just dont know what to do anymore.

What I do with my DC's who are 6 and 4 is choose my battles. I allow a certain level of 'naughtiness' to go as if I didn't I would be forever telling them not to do this that and the other. Only if they really overstep the mark do I say something. It seems to work in the sense that I am not constantly being cross with them over something and when I do get cross they know it's serious.

HTH

I agree with exotic choose your battles. My mum always says that to me and take a deep breath and think is this really a problem?

When I was going through a similar phase, a friend recommended this book and I have to say it really helped me to change the way that I went about parenting. It might be worth a try?

I was doing the same....ooh infact tonight I nearly shattered the glass in the windows to make DS, 2.10yrs pick up toys for the millionth time instead of ignoring me.

Had DD 13.5 weeks ago and exhaustion has made me very shouty.
His behaviour is terrible now and I know what you mean....I want everyone to like DS and he was such a lovely boy and now I see folk glaring at him in playgroups etc .

I noticed what was happening

naughty behaviour
shout, moan
naughtier behaviour
shout louder moan for longer
exorcist behaviour
exorcist mummy
explosion
tears - mine!

So one day I took a deep breath and for the whole day I was just nice, softly spoken and pretended not to see half the stuff he was doing and made the day as fun as possible.

He responded by being his old sweet self now and then and speaking nicely to me. He was in a much better mood because I was.

I try very hard not to moan/shout too much and it pays off.

Other times I go off on one like tonight and so does he!

thx Everyone. I am going to try all of those things.

Deep breath, no shouting choose battles.

Wish me luck x

Good Luck! Remember at all times that they are children and not adults and being 'naughty' and boisterous and energetic and cheeky is what children do. I only tend to step in when I see mine being mean/unfair/destructive which luckily is rare.

If they don't have it in your local library they will probably order it for a small fee (I think it is 50p at mine).

really i didnt know that helyg. Is it really spiritual?

It's not as dippy hippy as I thought it might be (no offence to any dippy hippies lol). But it does make you be more "mindful" of how you parent, and helped me to get out of "the kids play me up - I shout at them - they play up more - I shout more" spiral.

I don't know if this would help but when I was training to be a teacher I would shout a lot in class. I didn't like it but 'fell' into it, and it became a habit. So I put a cheap bracelet on my wrist. When I felt myself getting into shout mode I would touch the bracelet and it would remind me to lower my voice. No idea why it worked but it did!

cool helyg sounds good, i'm not very spiritual but i will read any book (much to DGP dismay) if i think it might help.

Hmm little bit of subconscious behaviour modification... think might try that one Shaz

I feel your pain. I have a 3 and a 4 y-o and DP works away during the week and some days I feel like I'm at the very end of my tether (yesterday being one, so have been thinking about this one a lot recently) with the comeheredon'ttouchthatstoppushinghimnohittingdon'ttouch gahhhhhhhhh. It is hard.

I second the Buddhism for Mothers book - I have a copy and quite often just read a bit at bedtime to calm me down .

Do you get any time to yourself? I'm freelance so am able to jiggle things around a bit so after a really BAD day yesterday, I was lucky to be able to bin work for the morning when the boys were at nursery and just mooch around for a couple of hours and felt much better for it. I really think that my stress instantly reflects itself in their behaviour so taking just a little time out can help.

I'm also wondering whether you might be better ditching the reward chart/rules stuff - is there a possibility it's actually focussing to much on the bad behaviour when in fact a distraction might work better? I find that taking them outside often works wonders, and also just moving the focus off whatever the cause of conflict is with a different activity.

Finally, my latest wheeze for getting rid of some of the excess energy (so far untried, but bear with me) is that I am thinking of getting my two a carpentry set, but with REAL tools like hammers and doing some basic stuff like banging nails into bits of wood, screwdrivering (is that a verb?) - obv, I'd start the nails off and supervise constantly to avoid driller-killer scenario .

And if all else fails, repeat the mantra: This Too Shall Pass.

(or turn on the telly)

I'm currently trying this too. Have been a very shouty mother for a few months, to the point where my neighbour came round to complain and check I was ok.

The last 3 days have been hard. My voice has raised but I havent shouted. The boys (3.5 and 2) have played up as much as any other day but I have put 100% effort into not shouting. I am exhausted and been in bed by 9.30pm the last 3 nights because of it, but its starting to feel better - even my mum has noticed the difference in me.

For me it took a shock to realise how much I was shouting, and I now have to pay 100% to my parenting - I was only paying half attention and shouting I think. This way is exhausting, but I really hope it works. Just take deep breaths, do everything slower and walk away if you need to.

I went ot a conference on Behaviour management yesterday it was AMAZING.

The speaker gave us loads of 'mantras' one of which was 'Fight fire with WATER'eg don't rile up whe your child is riled up, stay calm,. Easier said than done I know.

But he expanded it with- if a child is behaving badly, don't show your feelings. Show your feelings when your child is behaving beautifully.

He said that if he could turn back the clock wih his children and change one thing that would have been it- reacting more when they were good and less when they were bad.

i agree, get a brew and a book, leave them to it,

when their drama isn't getting attention - when creaming isn't, when shouting isn't, why wrying isn't, they come round to thinking that there must be another approach.

also the shouty-in-public thing - if you shout and tell your kids to 'stop touching the biscuits. Leave it ALONE. I said LEAVE IT!', everyone thinks 'oooh, naughty kids', but if you smile indulgently and say 'aw, sorry darling, we don't need any biscuits today' while picking them up and tickling them/taking them away, everyone thinks 'bless'.

Same as midnightexpress says, try and focus on the GOOD behaviour and enjoying them as kids rather than stressing over what they are doing wrong.

I empathise though, dd (nearly 4) says 'calm DOWN mummy' which makes me instantly stop my scary-mummy-rage and remember to give her a little kiss and cuddle. And then we have a bundle with the little boy too. And she tells me to say sorry for shouting at her tiny baby brother .

Hiya midnightexpress.

Love the mantra 'this too shal pass' ill add that to my deep breath

I work part time and they only go to nursery when i'm working so no change of free time for me. But i do manage 2 nights at the gym which does me the world of good. DP has own business so is at work most of time too.

Think you are right ditch reward charts. The sticker one might work better as i rewarded evey single time he was good/gothimselfdressed/waskindtosistertidiedup/etc etc etc It used to work to remind me that he is not as bad as i feel sometimes. It was good for highlighting the positive behaviour!!

thx

ps. i will let you try out the nails and hammers first!

midnight express -

midnight - any links to carpentry sets? Ds is mad for tools - and the elc plastic stuff just doesnt cut it (pardon the pun) anymore.

He had a wee screwdriver last week, and managed to take apart a desktop fan (((proud mummy))))

Adair completely agree - and more than other people thinking that, I think it affects my own thoughts about them if I have a baseline assumption that they are lovely, rather than oh wtf are they up to NOW little buggers

Hi Geordie. Yes, hang on a minute....

here's one - I think they do a smaller one too. They do say age 8+, but I'm obviously talking about seriously supervised activity rather than 'Here's the chisel, now off you pop and make me a coffee table darling. '

Am somewhat anxious at the thought of DS2 anywhere near a saw, but hey. Who needs 10 fingers anyway?

Though obviously may be unable to report back on the success/failure of my venture if have nail through head. Apologies in advance.

I think I just let out a bit of wee I laughed so much when I opened your link....

I wouldnt have a house or cat left if I gave that to C

No, but you'd be able to put the house back together again, at least