Myself and my husband our at our wits end with our son, he recently turned 5 and it seems since then he's just been a totally different child. Constantly talking back,huffing and puffing when we ask him to do the simplest task like go to the toilet before we go out or put his shoes in his room when we come back home etc. He's been having lots of timeouts at school and has been the same with his teacher and the assistants. We've tried timeouts and they work for the time when he's sitting quietly but once he rejoins the family he's back to being feral again. He's grinning and sometimes laughing when I tell him off. We've introduced a sticker chart but that really doesn't seem to be much of an incentive....I'm just wondering ifs his is just an age thing or a behavioral issue we need to look into?! Thanks IMs xxx
2 Replies
Sounds like an age thing and that he is enjoying the negative attention! He has decided that it's great to see you all frustrated and annoyed etc. positive reinforcement works great but it's got to be in the child's currency. So if your child doesn't care about stickers it isn't going to work (use what your child is excited about). Also there have got to be 7 woohoo your an awesome kid to every time out. That can seem impossible to do when they are being revolting but you can always find something (trust me I work with kids with massive behavioural problems, and you can always find something). Also decide what is important. If the kid puts his shoes away (but huffs as he does it) let it go. If he doesn't put his shoes away then that's an issue. Once to start to get things more positive the you can start to set some more expectations (and explain it's ok to be annoyed at mum and dad but keep it to yourself lol). While you keep reacting to everything though your playing right into his hands!
Yeah that makes sense, he loved his 1 hour iPad time but now the screens broken so I can't take that away anymore anyway but that working, and also our backyard is being dug up and transformed so it's hard when he's got a bit of cabin fever too. Thank you I'll keep going with identifying the positives :)