Post by rubber pants on Jul 30, 2015 8:17:56 GMT -5
How are you guys handling these big balls of emotion?
I cant deal!!! The whining. The hitting. The rebellion. The blantant disregard of anything I say. The crying. The meltdowns.
MOOKS, when does it end?? Is 4 better? I need some sort of light at the end of this hellish tunnel. How do you guys handle situations like this? Counting sometimes works but I literally have to get to almost 3 before she moves and then its a snails pace, if that. Limit testing is at its worst.
Post by Faevantastic on Jul 30, 2015 8:27:00 GMT -5
At home, I just leave the room and go to a different area. I tell him when he's done he could find me. It doesn't stop the meltdown but I find that he gets over it quicker than if I was there.
As far as the listening, we do a lot of threats of taking toys away. But I still have to repeat it a lot because he pretty much never listens the first time.
Well generally it depends on my tolerance level that day. For anything violent like hitting it is an automatic time out, no warnings. I put her in time out the other night because of sassy behavior, she dropped something and told me to pick it up in a very bossy tone. When I told her she cannot talk to me like that she leaned in and made a raspberry noise at me. Automatic time out.
We remove her from situations (taking out of a store if she isn't listening, take her off the back of the couch she is climbing), take away a toy, deny a specific treat. I do really try to still pick my battles with her.
Some days she is a little angel. Some days she is not.
Post by sunshineluv on Jul 30, 2015 8:32:10 GMT -5
Time outs.
Also, if he gets into a fit, we tell him he needs to "take a minute" and put him on the guest bed and let him cry there. He tends to get past it more quickly if we leave him alone to deal.
I will say, Caleb learned quite a lesson last week. He'd started hitting Abby and even bit her a couple of times, and finally, when we were about to get in the car to drive up to see my grandmother, I told Caleb if he did it again he lost his toys for 10 minutes. Lo and behold, he bit Abby, so when we were in the car, he had to wait 10 minutes before he got a toy. The first several minutes involved him screaming for a toy, but I kept reminding him of why he couldn't have one and how much longer he had.
I try to consider what's behind it. Is he screaming because he's struggling to adjust to an unexpected (and likely unpleasant) change? Is he just mad? Is he acting out because his sister is encouraging it? Is he just being a pain? I try to temper my responses to the situation.
Well generally it depends on my tolerance level that day. For anything violent like hitting it is an automatic time out, no warnings. I put her in time out the other night because of sassy behavior, she dropped something and told me to pick it up in a very bossy tone. When I told her she cannot talk to me like that she leaned in and made a raspberry noise at me. Automatic time out.
We remove her from situations (taking out of a store if she isn't listening, take her off the back of the couch she is climbing), take away a toy, deny a specific treat. I do really try to still pick my battles with her.
Some days she is a little angel. Some days she is not.
All of this.
And it definitely depends on my current level of patience, but time out and removing seems to work. That and threatening (and following through) to take away something, like the iPad or TV time.
Timeouts. Automatic for violence, most other things we count to 3 first. For stalling and general dinking around I've found that turning off the lights and walking out of the room gets him moving. Although sometimes it backfires and he runs after me to hit me and yell at me to wait for him and is subsequently sent to timeout. I'm having a hard time. I have a short fuse and he knows how to push my buttons. I've had to shut myself in the bathroom or walk away and let my H deal with him for a 5 minute breather a lot recently..
Time outs are a game to him so I have to take things away. Like if he hits his sister I say "if you hit her again I'm takin away guppies (TV)" then if he does no tv until after a nap. He screams and cried then apologizes to V and begs for the t.v, but I try to explain that saying sorry is nice but won't bring the TV back. Sometimes I will give it back if I see him share or show kindness.
Post by TrudyCampbell on Jul 30, 2015 9:13:35 GMT -5
I have no set plan which is driving me nuts, so I don't really know what to do. My husband is very anti time outs so we don't do them. I don't know what to do when she pushes Ruby or something really bad like that, I mainly just talk to her about how sad and disappointed I am. Basically I need the advice of this thread lol.
Time outs. They still work really well for him, so I'm not going to rock the boat.
This. Plus counting down and taking a deep breath (thanks Daniel tiger), which I know you also do with Andrew.
We take a deep breath and count to four a million times a day. I don't consider that discipline, though. I use that when he's being three - when he gets too worked up and needs to calm down, or when he's not thinking about his actions. If he needs to cool down for a minute, we count. When he's actually being bad - purposely misbehaving when he knows better, automatic time out.
This. Plus counting down and taking a deep breath (thanks Daniel tiger), which I know you also do with Andrew.
We take a deep breath and count to four a million times a day. I don't consider that discipline, though. I use that when he's being three - when he gets too worked up and needs to calm down, or when he's not thinking about his actions. If he needs to cool down for a minute, we count. When he's actually being bad - purposely misbehaving when he knows better, automatic time out.
Yeah. That's how we use it too. But I figured since Ittybitty was asking in general how to deal with all the threenager emotions, I'd throw it in there. For us, calming down can avoid a time out situation, if that makes sense. Haha.
I've also started to threaten less and actually follow through. Instead of warning them 4 hundred times, its 2 warnings and then toy is away.
I've backed away from time outs because they were a joke and instead I tell them they have to go in their room so they can calm down (if tantruming) or go to their room until they decide to stop throwing toys/smashing stuff/whatever bad behavior they are doing.
I also walk away and ignore a lot of stuff. Otherwise I would go insane and be constantly disciplining.
Time out people, what do you do when you are out though in a public place? I do the whisper yell, currently. haha it only works half the time.
If she is running away, not listening, won't stay in the cart AND has received warnings about not doing it again but will not stop then we leave. If there are 2 of us it's a lot easier. If it's just me I do my best to distract her to get to do what I want or just cut the trip short. I mean, I will try anything to get her to behave so I can finish shopping. It's hard and infuriating when they are not listening when out in public.
I try to get her calmed down and talk about her emotions and better choices. Like this morning she tried to take my phone but I said she couldn't play with it right now. She started screaming and crying. I said "I know you're really frustrated and you want my phone. I like to read while I drink my coffee and that's a time you can't play on my phone. You can either watch Daniel tiger or my little ponies. Which would you like?" She picked ponies, then when she's calm again I will say something like "when you want my phone it's not okay to grab it from me. I want you to say mommy can I use your phone? If I say not now, you can ask if you can have it later but you can't scream." Then I make her practice doing it. Physical violence gets an automatic timeout but I save timeouts for really serious stuff bc they lose effectiveness otherwise and I'm not a big fan of time outs in general but I do feel I need them sometimes.
Time out people, what do you do when you are out though in a public place? I do the whisper yell, currently. haha it only works half the time.
We tell her we will leave if she continues to misbehave. If we end up requiring timeout we will walk outside and put her in time out. This has only had to be done twice. If we are somewhere outdoors, we just find the nearest wall and stick her in time out. We also use the count to 3 technique. So we have to go through threatening to leave and counting to 3 before a timeout occurs. She usually straightens up before then.
Post by onehitwonder on Jul 30, 2015 9:52:45 GMT -5
Automatic time-outs for anything violent, count downs for not listening, disobeying, etc, and loss of toy for continuing to disobey. We do spend a lot of time talking to him and explaining why he's being asked to do something, why he's not supposed to do something and why he's being punished. I can tell when his behavior is escalating to unpleasant levels and try to curtail it by reminding him that it's okay to be silly, even a lot silly, but super silly is not okay. I avoid public melt downs at all costs, including bribery, but if they still happen, I either leave or find a quiet area until it passes. This all involves a lot of deep breathing and wine on my part!
It takes a lot to rock my patience. So, most of the time I can make it into a game or something fun. Don't want to help clean up? Well, let's have a race. Who can pick up the fastest? Don't want to pee before bed and then call for me five minutes later? Race. How fast can you go? Don't want to put shoes on before leaving the house? That's fine, I'll carry them and you can put them on when we get there. Hitting gets a warning and then time out. Usually it ends in a warning.
Our problem is tantruming when I say no to something. She screams and cries for a few minutes and then comes to me to help calm her down. I've taught her through modeling that she should take deep breaths, in the nose, out the mouth, until she can calmly talk to me. Then we talk about why she's so upset. I'm pretty sure she just wants to feel heard. After I repeat back why she said she's upset, the crying stops and she wants a hug.
I try really hard not to lose my cool. If I'm struggling, I try to whisper to her because it keeps me calm and she must be quiet to hear me. There's days that dh comes home and I have to get away and he takes over.
Time outs, ignoring and distraction depending on the situation. The emotions are no joke. It seems to be getting a little better? Maybe? I'm probably jinxing myself.
I have no set plan which is driving me nuts, so I don't really know what to do. My husband is very anti time outs so we don't do them. I don't know what to do when she pushes Ruby or something really bad like that, I mainly just talk to her about how sad and disappointed I am. Basically I need the advice of this thread lol.
Why is he anti time out? What is his suggestion?
I'm sorry, but I feel like you are home all day with them, you should get more of a say in how you handle it (within reason obviously)
I have no set plan which is driving me nuts, so I don't really know what to do. My husband is very anti time outs so we don't do them. I don't know what to do when she pushes Ruby or something really bad like that, I mainly just talk to her about how sad and disappointed I am. Basically I need the advice of this thread lol.
Why is he anti time out? What is his suggestion?
I'm sorry, but I feel like you are home all day with them, you should get more of a say in how you handle it (within reason obviously)
He likes to just talk it out and explain everything gently. It's hard to do that in the moment though!
I'm sorry, but I feel like you are home all day with them, you should get more of a say in how you handle it (within reason obviously)
He likes to just talk it out and explain everything gently. It's hard to do that in the moment though!
I get it. I read the gentle parenting books that don't like time outs and I do get it and I do try it but sometimes (like hitting, major tantrums over nothing, super sassy attitude) I think they really do need a minute to themselves.
I do talk to her and through situations more than Ian, my mom, mil agree with though.... But I know sometimes I'm too soft
She goes in her calm down chair in her room when she's just being insane. She knows she can come out when she's done (so no set amount of time) and she now knows breathing exercises to do while in there. Most of the time now I can just ask her if she wants to calm down or go in her chair and she'll chill out right then, but sometimes she still needs to go. Jameson either sits on his bed for certain amounts of time or loses privileges. I do try to motivate positively ("get your buckles on and you can pick music") but sometimes they are still punks.