Any ideas on how to handle this behavioral issue? DS is 3.5, his little sister is 4.5 months old. DS has always been an attention seeker, but it's taken a bad turn in the last few weeks. He'll make a bad choice when we're distracted in order to get attention. Some examples:
-when my mom came to pick him up last week, her and I were talking and he walked up and bit her on the hand. -yesterday my mom and I took the kids grocery shopping. I was getting DD out and mom had unbuckled DS and was standing in the open van door talking to me. DS walked to the front of the van and pushed the auto-close button, closing the door ON my mother. -DH and I were having drinks on the deck while DS played outside, and he threw a ball right at us and knocked over our drinks.
When I ask him why he does these things, he says "because I want you to pay attention to me." We give the appropriate disciplinary action, like a TO for the biting or a sit-down talk about safety for closing the door on my mom. But the attention-seeking behavior is getting more frequent. He gets a TON of 1-on-1 positive attention from DH and I. We do lots of fun things just for him without DD. I know this is normal behavior for adjusting to a sibling or just being 3.5 in general. Is there anything more I should be doing?
Kids do stuff for attention. As long as you are giving attention, then I think you just have to continue to punish etc. The big thing I try to avoid is harping on something. So closed Gma in the door. Time out/ loss of candy/ spanking - do the punishment. But then move on. Don't keep asking 'why did you do that?' First - it keeps giving attention for so long afterwards and second - it's over.
Also, I don't know what you are like at home but yesterday you said 'I LOVE MY DAUGHter so much....' In all caps. I don't know if you give that vibe off at home but be careful not to say that to people if he can overhear. Unless you also go on about him being so good. And be careful not to say 'DD is such an easy baby. DS was the worst'. Except here. That's fine. We get it.
DD2 is also an attention seeker. She's almost 4 and DD3 is 16 mo and we still have negative attention seeking with the baby. When she does something bad in an effort to get attention, we will often ask her, DD2 do you need some attention? The answer is always yes, so often we will shift our focus to her for a bit. A few minutes of focused attention and she can usually re ground. She's also old enough to understand that it is not DD2 time all the time she wants it to be. Sometime we will tell her ok but right now mom and dad are Doing X. It can be DD2 time in 5 minutes. Right now both my older kids love the timer on our phones. So she'll ask for the timer, well set it for however long we need to finish up what were doing and then give her a few minutes of attention. It's not perfect but does work a lot of the time.
@hannymaren I very frequently praise DS for good behavior, and I never speak ill of him in front of him, or compare him to DD. I have a younger sister too, I know how damaging it is to compare siblings to each other. Saying "I love my daughter" in all-caps is just what I was thinking at the time. I started the Friday night Randoms thread with a positive anecdote about DS, FWIW.
I just need some tips on teaching a 3.5yo to be patient, and to understand that we can't pay attention SOLELY to him 24/7.
@hannymaren I very frequently praise DS for good behavior, and I never speak ill of him in front of him, or compare him to DD. I have a younger sister too, I know how damaging it is to compare siblings to each other. Saying "I love my daughter" in all-caps is just what I was thinking at the time. I started the Friday night Randoms thread with a positive anecdote about DS, FWIW.
I just need some tips on teaching a 3.5yo to be patient, and to understand that we can't pay attention SOLELY to him 24/7.
I can't read tone on the internet and neither can you. So to clarify I wasn't criticizing so I hope you aren't hurt. I was just mentioning something that could help. But if you are already evenly loving the kids - then you are all set.
When he bites etc do you also say "I see that you are feeling ignored! But we don't bite. Instead please say excuse me grandma..." I think kids need that repetitive coaching on what they should do and also they want someone to acknowledge their feelings.
DD did this for a bit. I sort of had to stop it before it started, so to speak. I would say, "We are we getting out the car, Mommy is going to put the groceries away and talk to Grandma for a bit. When we are done, I'll do X with you for a bit."
or in the case of the ball "We know we can't throw balls at people. That's a TO. However, when you are finished with your TO, Daddy and I would be happy to throw the ball with you if you can ask nicely."
I also started preparing her during the day for when her fun activity time with a parent is coming. "After breakfast, Mommy will play outside with you. Then we're going shopping with Grandma and you need to be a really good listener. If you are we'll go get ice cream with Grandma. While I make dinner you can play toys and then we'll read bedtime stories."
Blah blah blah blah. I felt like I talked ALL day there for awhile about events but it did help.
Also, when she acted out, I gave her the words. Most 3 year olds have a decent vocabulary but they can't vocalize feelings. So I'd say, "Are you feeling frustrated you have to play all alone? I understand that but if you want my attention we do X and not Y. After your TO we can practice that!"
We do a lot of "it's DS's turn right now" or "it's DD's turn right now." Obviously DS doesn't know WTF I'm talking about since he's only 2 months old, but it helps DD to hear me tell him that it's her turn sometimes. This helps DD with the idea that sometimes she has to wait, but she often does get pretty upset when her turn is over. It's getting a little better as she gets used to it, though.
We also give her a chance to talk about how she feels about being a big sister and reassure her that it's okay to not always like being a big sister or to not like it when DS cries, etc. We try not to lead her to that conversation too much, but we talk about our days before bed, and on particularly difficult days, she usually brings up stuff that made her sad that day.
And we religiously watch the Daniel Tiger episode with the "there's time for you and baby, too" song in it...
@hannymaren I very frequently praise DS for good behavior, and I never speak ill of him in front of him, or compare him to DD. I have a younger sister too, I know how damaging it is to compare siblings to each other. Saying "I love my daughter" in all-caps is just what I was thinking at the time. I started the Friday night Randoms thread with a positive anecdote about DS, FWIW.
I just need some tips on teaching a 3.5yo to be patient, and to understand that we can't pay attention SOLELY to him 24/7.
My daughter is 5 1/2 now but this started becoming a problem for us about a year ago, especially when I had a friend over or family was visiting. We taught her to come over to us and give our hand a little squeeze to let us know she wants our attention. Then when we are ready to listen, she tells us - I'm feeling left out.
It has been like magic! My husband in particular isn't the best at predicting behavior or seeing when she is getting herself into trouble so giving her a polite way to let him know that she needs some attention has made such a difference.
One thing I will do with dd1, is say I need to help dd2 and then it will be your turn. There are times we will be with dd1 and dd2 may need something and we may say dd2 it is dd1's turn. That way dd1 knows she is just as important. We are also big on praising dd1 for positive behavior,or thanking dd1 for waiting and being a big girl.
My kids are also 3 years apart in age and my oldest acted out a lot when the youngest was born. I think the thing that worked for us was spending one on one time with him. Each weekend either myself or my DH would take home somewhere by himself. My DH would take him to the Home Depot building clinics, bounce houses and other special activities. I was breastfeeding and couldn't be gone for more than 2 hours because my youngest was a bottle refuser so I would take DS to the park down the street and then we would go get frozen yogurt. I did't take my phone so that my attention was 100% focused on him. This made a big difference for us.
ABA had us 'punish' by giving the opposite result. So if he bites for attention he gets told 'no' nothing more and escorted to his room with no reaction or conversation. Shut the door and walk away for 3 minutes. Pair this with as much positive attention/parenting as you can. Such as if he is playing nicely comment on it and if/when you can join him and play it up. 'Mommy is so proud of how nicely you are playing! I want to play too!' Link getting more attention to proper behavior and reinforce it as much as you can.
When he bites etc do you also say "I see that you are feeling ignored! But we don't bite. Instead please say excuse me grandma..." I think kids need that repetitive coaching on what they should do and also they want someone to acknowledge their feelings.
My child is about younger, but he likes to feel like he has control over participating.
So I'll ask him "Would you like mommy or grandma to get you out of your car seat?" My mom really can only do DS1, but who cares if I have to walk around to DS2, takes an extra second.
For the interrupting, I say "mom and X Are having a conversation, please wait a minute and say 'excuse me". Then I finish my sentence and say "dS1 would you like to say something" and he will say excuse me abc whatever it is. It works for us and we make sure to demonstrate the same for him too.