Monday, August 31, 2009
Testing....Testing...1....2....3....
Thomas has decided to test the limits. It's been coming slowly but surely, but today he outdid himself. I write this to remember. To tell him about later. And to gain sympathy as I'm exhausted and it's only 12:49 PM and I have 5 more hours until Dan gets home. :) The morning started off with both boys crying. I should have known then that it wasn't going to go as planned. We went to breakfast with grandpa, which amazingly went very well. The calm before the storm. After breakfast we always to go greatma's to play at her house and spend some quality time with her. The boys love this. They did well until the end. Thomas decided he didn't want to listen and leave. Put him in timeout, he gets out of the chair once....twice. I take him back to the back room to discuss it with him and he hits me. He receives a swat. He laughs in my face, yells "NO" and hits me again. I go to the fridge to find hot sauce....his nemisis. He quickly puts on shoes. We get to the car with very little problems. You'd think we would be done there, but no. He begins hitting and kicking Joshua very hard. I'm on the on-ramp with no possibility of pulling over. Luckily my threats hold out and he stops. Only to unbuckle Joshua's carseat. This wouldn't be as big of a deal if they could buckle themselves in, but they can't. I speed over to the shoulder, spank Thomas and rebuckle Joshua. This happens again not a mile down the road. Repeat procedure and call Dan for backup advice. Thomas calms down. At this point, Angie has called to see if we want to meet for lunch. She agrees to take Joshua to lunch so I can take Thomas home. This ends up doing the trick. Thomas is devastated and has since calmed down and we are at home with the girls while Josh is at lunch. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I am so frustrated. SO FRUSTRATED! I am not a spanker. I do not wish to spank. It is literally my last resort. While the kiddos know that, it does not seem to affect them when I do it. Here's hoping to a better afternoon!
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10 comments:
It's SO hard not to spank when they hit you, isn't it? It's like a reflex. Seems like the hotsauce option worked, huh?
Sorry, wish I had advice. :/
Oh wait! Maybe this will be helpful.
With Vanessa, I was getting tired of all the time-outs and negatives, so I'm now combining the time-outs with a star chart. For every day she has with NO time-outs, she gets a star. After 7 stars, she gets a quarter. At the end of the month (or when she has a month's equivalent of stars) we'll go to the dollar store with her 4 quarters. :) Has helped!
We've been doing charts with rewards/stars too. Harry gets a star and a quarter at the end of every day if he's made "good decisions." Love and Logic... I just got a book, you're welcome to borrow it if you'd like. He saves his quarters and then buys his own cars at Walmart, which in turn, is his bribe to behave for like 3 days "or we don't get to go to Walmart tomorrow/today/next Friday." I don't like the bribing, but at this point, I'm calling it 'rewarding' because it comes AFTER the behaviour and not before. This is coming on the tail end of the worst 3 weeks of bad behaviour I've had with him, but it seems to be helping.
My only concern is that if there is that there is no immediate reward/consequence after the behavior. I found at least with teaching that promptness was important. I'm not sure they'll get the reward system. We tried it with chocolate chips and it died pretty fast. I will definitely look more into it though! Thanks guys!
we are not big spankers here wither...I feel like how can I say no hitting but hit her/him?
I think the missing out on lunch with Angie was perfect, we do a lot of taking privilges away and that helps or saying if you do this again we will take favorite toy away for the day the key is to be consistent and actually take the toy away etc. but serioulsy Amber you do a great job I always get advice from you!
I have no advice for you either but deffinetly feel your pain. I no longer can resort to spanking Joe because all he does is folds his arms and screams, "Don't hit me!" which is even worse in public. I have yet to find something that does help - but remember that everyone goes through stages with their kids of loving them and then hating them. It makes sense, they are humans and we never go our whole lives loving someone so much that you ALWAYS want to spend time with them. We have arguments with our husbands and need time away from them. Children I do not believe are different. A few months back I told J if something didn't change Joe was going in daycare - I just couldn't handle him. I don't know what changed but I feel like I like him again. Good luck and don't get too discouraged - you are an amazing Mom.
Oh, one more comment . . . we take away morning cartoons as a consequence. And dessert.
We use 1-2-3 Magic (there are books and DVD's) at our school. It works very well and keeps the parent/teacher from losing control. It's hard to explain, but check it out. Good luck! It doesn't sound fun or easy.
I've tried all the stuff everyone has listed for you and it all worked for about a day and the it didn't make a difference to Claire - and most of the time Kyle. I often find that I am out of choices.
I will yell (especially in the car when I can't pull over), threaten, take toys away. We've even let Kyle do something she's really wanted to do. That works for about 2 hours, then she's back to testing. I've often said to Don "what do I do now?? There's nothing else to try!!"
Basically, I can't offer any suggestions, but I can say I know how you feel!
Thanks guys! We'll just keep plugging away! Nice to know we're not the only ones out there with kiddos testing the boundaries!
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