appropriate consequence help please??

[emamum]

ds (7) wrote on the walls (7 different places!!) i spoke to him about it, said i wasnt happy and that he knows he shouldnt write on walls.. we are renting so i explained that it doesnt belong to us and took away his brand new gel pens and his pencil case and said if he needed them he would have to ask me and he would use them in the living room


ive just gone upstairs and he found paint on the bathroom wall, glitter on the floor and crayon on his bedroom windowsill (first he said he didnt do it ) i asked him if he thought this was something it was ok to do and he said it was an accident... it cant have been an accident since the paint etc was in my room ...

obviously talking to him about it doesnt work, he knows that he shouldnt do it but did it any way...

i cant afford to fix it atm, im saving to pay for our first family holiday while on welfare so we are already cutting back or i probably would have said he doesnt get xyz until ive been able to fix it.. but he does have a monthly paid magasine subscription...

urgh i dont know what to do, im soooo angry!! and at the end of my tether (yesterday he sat on the baby because he was ignoring me and i couldnt get there quick enough, she is ok!!)

please help me mamas before my head explodes!!

[Ruthla]

I would take away EVERYTHING he could write or paint on walls with. This behavior would be appropriate for a 2 or 3 yo, but a 7yo really SHOULD know better. Chances are that he's doing it because he's angry and he WANTS to upset you.

There are two separate things you need to do here. First, you need to take away anything he can use to damage the walls, because he's shown that he's not currently capable of using them properly. Second (and most important), you need to get to the bottom of his feelings. What's making him so angry that he wants to ruin the house? Try to get him to express those feelings in more appropriate ways.

[MammaV]

Even at 7, DS has the ability to help clean the mess. A natural consequence would be to get out the cleaning products and scrub/clean up the mess. Sol U Mel by Melaleuca will take crayons and even sharpie off of stuff. I know there are other non-toxic cleaners that will clean up the messes too. My 7 yo is adept at sweeping, mopping, vaccuuming and dusting, so I know it can be done. She's also adept at making a huge mess...lol
I agree with pp that you need to get to the bottom of the "whys" to this type of outburst and attention seeking.

[JayJay]

I am with MammaV - have him clean it.

It's simply unfair not to do that - if you make a mess in the kitchen for example, you clean. If he makes a mess on the wall, he cleans. My 6yr old (then 5) decided it would be a WONDERFUL idea earlier this year to take my waterproof mascara (which I barely ever wear) and draw all over the bathroom with it

Needless to say, he was in there with a scrubby and a pail of soapy water to clean it up. Took him a while. He never did it again, and when he was done, that was that.

I told him at the same time that it made me sad when he took something of mine and used it to make something else dirty, because you don't take other people's things, and you don't make a mess. He understood

XXX