My sons' exuberance is affecting the way I feel about them

[colditz]

Tonight, all they have done is charge around. If I get them to sit down, by the time I have inwardly counted to five the have sprung back up again and are whirling round in circles, bouncing on the furniture, throwing topys, and generally making me feel quite, quite murderous.

How can I A) keep my temper and B) calm them down? All I can hear is the sound of their feet thudthudthudding around, shouting etc - I tried to watch a TV program earlier, which was an exercise in futility.

A) wear earplugs, put on soothing music and suggest a quiet game of hide and seek.

B) run a hot bath and hide in it.

I don't know how you get through it. I really don't. I had three close together and then another one after a modest gap, and they just did that thing you're describing non-stop for about 18 years. Well, they're all still alive and so am I, but I couldn't tell you how it came about. Stick it for another decade and you'll find... a whole new set of things they do to drive you crazy

colditz no answers(sadly)but lots of sympathy
as this is how most of us singlemums live..i'm told it gets better but really can't see that light in yonder tunnel
on a v basic level boys are boys and are mostly boisterous and non stop
girls are a diff kettle of fish i've found
but hard as it is(and i'm no role model here)it is imperative to keep calm as kids have a horrible 6th sense of knowing when mum's pissed off stressed and just push and push til you snap
so i can only say count to 10 and beyond or do as i usually do and lock myself in a room and crank the music up to deafen the screamsnoise
crap answer i know but kindof HTH{struggling to give answers emoticon}

You are going to totally alienate your sons if you carry on feeling resentment about their boisterousness. They're not girls, they dont sit quietly in the corner, reading a book or playing 'naicely'. My sons wrestle, play fight, roll around on the floor, play tag on a daily basis, it's just what they do, their way of bonding and having fun and they laugh like drains most of the time too. I feel sorry for friends who only have one son who do not get to play like that. I sometimes join in too, they love it although I did draw the line at being rugby tackled. I dont know why you would want them to sit quietly (apart from at mealtimes). Maybe you need to find more energetic things for them to do to get rid of their excess energy. My two play on average 8 hours of sport a week and yet they still feel the need to roll round on the floor together. Lines do have to be drawn though so maybe some ground rules need to be introduced to curb anything too rough but whilst recognising that that is how they play.

Agree it's not just boys. My dd is utterly unbearable unless she's had at least a couple of hours running around time. Hence we spent over an hour yesterday, in the pouring, freezing, berging on sleet rain, at the zoo, me and dd2 (in her pram) huddled under the awning by the reptile house, dd1 in full raincoat, wellies and rain trousers with me saying things like "I bet you can't run to the elephants and back before I count to 100" ...

Colditz you have just descibed my boys perfectly. You have my utmost sympathy but no useful advice as I haven't worked out how to cope with it myself yet

Mine are quite close in age (5 and 7) and some days spend nearly all of their time together 'play fighting' where inevitably one gets hurt every 2 minutes or playing star wars games which seem to involve charging around and screaming alot.

TBH most of the time I let them get on with it and try to tune out for the sake of my sanity.

Seperately my boys can both sit quietly and read or play nicely but they do favour boisterous games when they are together. I think ultimately you have to accept that boys need to expend their energy in that way and let them get on with it.

In many ways I think that mine behave this way at home because they are both very well behaved at school. They come home and let off steam big time. I have to remind myself sometimes I would rather they were boisterous at home than in school

Sport was invented to deal with this problem. Get them signed up to plenty of sporting activities ASAP.

I always loved the MN name "Boysarelikedogs". Now I have two of my own I can agree, that is truly the case. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Well, mostly.

Dogs? If only. We have gorillas in our household . Hence my strong feelings of being a zookeeper....

Or a ringmaster.....

Ringmaster suggests that they have actually been trained to adhere to discipline in public . Zookeeper reflects the reality more accurately - they laze around grazing and humphing, then get into a fight, then get herded back into their rooms cages until they have calmed down...

ok you win

Can you change your house around so one of the downstairs rooms is for running around active kids and the other is quieter?

I would be full of admiration for someone who did feel like a ringmaster to dogs ...

uriel it works in principal that idea but the reality is anything but

Whip and a chair.

Tis the only way.

BTW my DD is quite capable of joining in but it does seem to be families with more than on boy where it gets loudest.

I could have written your post yesterday, it was such a relief at bedtime.
My boys are 5 and 3, I had hoped they'd grow out of it, but this thread has knocked that idea on the head.
Exercise does help, DS1 does sport after school twice a week and then football and swimming at weekends, he is the worst offender. Never sits still.

I think yesterday was particularly bad here as it rained all day so they'd not been outside at school/preschool. Has been dry today though

You have to exhaust them before allowing them into the house. I get DS to run ahead of me and then back on the walk home from school (so he ends up doing twice as much distance as I do), then we go to the park for a bit, rain hail or shine and he runs/climbs/jumps/rolls in the mud.

Then he still charges around the house and jumps around.

It is how they are, personally I love it - you are just going to have to get used to it I think.

Tape your show and watch it after bedtime. If there is one advantage to my crazily energetic boy it is the fact that he has two speeds. GO GO GO GO! and SLEEP. Once he is in bed he is done for the day.

I think you have to learn to enter what I will call 'The Zone'. I can sort of space out so I can concentrate on MN or TV or newspaper and only be aware of about 10% of the noise. Just enough to be aware of screams that may be genuine pain or sudden slience which is equally omnious.

I have boy, girl, boy and have not found their sex has made a jot of difference.

I pity my neighbours but they do give the kids selection boxes at xmas so they can't be too pissed off.