Need a good consequence for 6 yo who hits and kicks in anger

[kindacrunchy]

I have a spirited, bright 6 yo who possibly has sensory issues that we are trying to get help with right now.
Quite honestly, I feel that my husband and I have been ineffective in the discipline department and I am trying to change that. I have been reading Elizabeth Pantley's "Kid Cooperation" and have decided that we need to have a "House Rules" chart in our house. The house rules being the absolute things that are NOT OK in my house. One issue I have with my oldest is his dealing with anger. Sometimes, he becomes so intense and focused on his anger (which can be lack of sleep or lack of food fueled which is a whole other issue) that he just goes OFF! I do believe that he needs to learn to be able to walk away and calm down. I've tried helping him find a place where he can cool off in calm moments, then in the heat of the moment it becomes an all out battle.
So, I made a computer rules chart and posted it next to the computer and have had to refer to it a couple of times and it seems to have some weight. I want to do the same with house rules. However, I am stumped with a logical consequence to the anger behavior and to what length do I enforce it. I mean, I want to be able to enforce it but when it turns out to be WWIII in my house to enforce it, I have either blown up myself or backed off. Which I feel has shown him that if he acts like a total maniac then he gets some pay off. Either me blowing up or me backing off.
I don't need CL suggestions. I would love to CL but honestly, I just don't think that can happen in my house. IN theory it sounds great but to total CL here won't happen.
Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated

[kindacrunchy]

bump

[BellinghamCrunchie]

Here's one idea (which may or may not work for your family):

First, beside each house rule, also post (or use pictures) to show what to do instead. Clearly identify the preferred behavior so that it becomes as ingrained as the rule. So, for example, when angry, you should walk away, count to ten, find another activity. Or whatever you think helps him deal with anger in the best way.

Second, I don't think there are going to be any consequences that he is going to happily comply with, so you might have to steel yourself to on-going aggression while the consequences are implemented until he sees for himself that the consequences are unshakable.

First is to cool off (time out). Sounds like that is going to be tough. You'll probably have to be there for him the entire time. But if he is already calm, then skip to the next step.

Alternatively you could just move everyone out of the way (if he's too hard to manage when upset).

Next is make restitution to the victim or the environment. He picks up what was thrown, repairs or throws away what was broken, offers the victim a toy or a (sincere) apology or something that acknowledges what he did was wrong and he wishes to make it right. Until restitution is made, nothing fun happens. No TV, no video games, no going outside, etc. If this is implementable. If not, you could do something more complicated like a rewards chart. Divide the day up into 4 (or more or less depending on the frequency of the behavior) segments, and he earns a token for each segment that he goes without displaying aggressive behavior.

If he becomes aggressive, he loses two tokens. If he makes restitution, he earns one token back.

You could allow him to redeem tokens for desired activities, toys, special snacks, or whatever either every evening or once a week. To start every evening is more powerful, then you could switch to every couple of days, then a week.

I think its preferable to start with a positive program, or a combination positive/negative, then just implement negative consequences.

[Magella]

With our dd, who was very explosive and aggressive, we found it most effective to take a multi-pronged approach to the hitting/kicking in anger.

First, anytime she hit/kicked/etc. or attempted to hit/kick/etc. we had her sit until she was calm. She sat in the same room we were in (separating to another part of the house, away from us, would throw fuel on the fire). At first, yes we had to stand close to her and bring her back to sit every time she got up. Fortunately, that did not last long--maybe the first two times. We said "you are not being safe, you need to sit and calm down. When you're calm we'll talk." And then we went into robot-parent mode, and stayed near, stayed calm, and did not interact with her other than to (very briefly!) remind her to sit and/or that we'll talk when she's calm. Once she was calm, we would talk about what happened and other ways she might handle that situation.

Along with the "you hit, you sit" we did have a points program. This we did at the suggestion of our therapist, and it did help since dd did have some control. For every period of time (I think it was like 2-3 hours) that she was *not* aggressive she got like 15 points. Every time she attempted to use words rather than aggression, she got like 5 points. We set it up so that no matter what kind of day it was, she was likely to be able to trade in those points at the end of the day if she wanted to. There were 3 tiers of rewards: one was a list of things that required few points and that she could trade in for at the end of any given day (stuff/activities already in the house regularly); one was a list of things that required more points (maybe she'd have to save for two days) and that required a little more planning or cost on our part but could easily be done with little notice (like a treat form the bakery across the street, or a night where she cooked a dinner of her choice); the third was very special stuff that required planning, time or more significant cost (stuff she saved many days or weeks for, like a trip ice skating or something). It was very positive, and put the focus on what she was doing right rather than on what was going wrong. It gave her a goal to work toward, which helped with her impulse control. We used it for a few months then phased it out.

Most importantly, we worked daily on her emotional regulation skills, her ability to identify and communicate her feelings, her problem-solving skills, her flexibility, her frustration tolerance. This took a lot of creativity, support and help from a therapist to figure out how dd would best learn these things and what she would be most receptive to, and time.

Some resources that might help you get started are: What To Do When Your Temper Flares: A Kid's Guide to Overcoming Problems With Anger by Dawn Huebner (an excellent anger-management program for kids), and Raising A Thinking Child or Raising A Thinking Preteen by Myrna Shure. Also, if you haven't read it already The Explosive Child by Ross Greene (neweset edition, 2005 I think) is an excellent resource.

[earthmama369]

Oh man. Taking notes now -- this is where we are now with our 3-year-old and I can totally see us still being here when he's older and bigger.

[octobermom]

at 6 were past the hitting stage but we do/did ect have a firm you hit you sit rule. Hitting to us told us space was needed hitting meant time away to calm down and feel better.

Deanna

[farmkids42morrow]

Originally Posted by Magella

For every period of time (I think it was like 2-3 hours) that she was *not* aggressive she got like 15 points. Every time she attempted to use words rather than aggression, she got like 5 points.

Something along this line is going to be your best bet. Remove attention to bad behavior and reward the good behavior. I have a child similar to yours and discipline after the fact just never seems to work with him. Being proactive, thanking him for good behavior "Thank you for not hitting your sister when she took your toy" - especially when you can see he wants to explode (or is on the verge of doing it) but hasn't yet - diffuses the situation and helps them to see that handling things without kicking/hitting makes themselves and others happy. It also reinforces what is the correct way to handle anger/frustration so that when these feelings pop up, they know what to do. We don't do the points thing, but I can see how that would work for people just starting with positive reinforcement to keep on track, both parents and kids, but after a while I would lay off of that type of reward system because no one hands out points in real life. Get them used to being satisfied with good behavior because it makes them feel happy, not because they get something out of it.

At first it seems kind of lame to be thanking your kid for not kicking or whatever, but it really does work and I've noticed that my son's self-esteem has gone up as he's learned that he can control his behavior without anyone needing to force him to do it. Sometimes having it be their "choice" to be well behaved makes them co-operate better.

[CJ's mommy]

There are some really good ideas here that I will be trying to put into effect in our house.

Erin

[mom2grrls]

I'm not sure what CL is in terms of discipline? Anyway why can't you continue to work with him on ways to calm himself when he gets angry without imposing consequences? It takes time and a bit more muturity to deal with anger calmly, I mean a lot of adults have that same problem. In imposing consequences it's like you're punishing him for feeling angry which is totally normal and that's probably what he would focus on even though you just want him to deal with his anger differently. A good book is Raising a Thinking Child by Myrna Shure for problem solving techniques. She also writes one for preteens(8-12).

[ann_of_loxley]

Yes - its good to teach them how to calm down, etc... But when they still have the feeling... then what?... Giving a 'concequence' for an action that is stemed from a feeling, imo - teaching a child that their feeling is not okay. (even though you think you are trying to just teach them their action is not okay).

Why not come up with a way he can express his anger instead? He seems to light to kick. How about getting him a punching bag. I know they make those plastic blow up ones. (like these)

The feeling with not go away. The need to 'release' will not go away. Even if you punish for the action or teach what to do after the fact. And how we all deal with our feelings is an individual thing.

You also might find reading 'The Explosive Child' a very insightful and rewarding book for your family!

[Evan&Anna's_Mom]

Whenever my kids start acting aggressively, I always find it helps to have a two-pronged approach. The first prong is to address the actual behavior -- which some of the PPs have already made suggestions on.

The second half of the equation though is to make sure you have set up the best environment for your child to succeed in. I have a mental checklist that I always walk though if we are having consistant issues:
1. Is everyone getting enough sleep (including yourself)?
2. Is everyone getting good food/enough food/frequent food (including yourself)?
3. Enough exercise? You too?
4. Enough outside playtime? You too?
5. Enough alone/chill/break time? You too?

Its almost inevitable that making these adjustments helps a lot. Especially increasing exercise/playtime and sleep.

[SunshineJ]

Originally Posted by Evan&Anna's_Mom

The second half of the equation though is to make sure you have set up the best environment for your child to succeed in. I have a mental checklist that I always walk though if we are having consistant issues:
1. Is everyone getting enough sleep (including yourself)?
2. Is everyone getting good food/enough food/frequent food (including yourself)?
3. Enough exercise? You too?
4. Enough outside playtime? You too?
5. Enough alone/chill/break time? You too?

Its almost inevitable that making these adjustments helps a lot. Especially increasing exercise/playtime and sleep.

I agree that these can have a huge impact on how frequent emotional outbursts are. However, that doesn't change the fact that even though a person may be overtired it's still not ok to engage in agressive behaviour. I don't see anyone suggesting a child be punished for being angry, but rather being punished for direct actions they took while angry. If DH does something to royally get me going I can throw a frying pan at his head or I can take a quick walk and cool off. Tossing a piece of metal is an inappropriate act no matter how mad I may be - that has nothing to do with the validity or invalidity of my anger, but rather the expression of my anger.

Our 5 yr old has in recent months begun kicking and punching her brother when he upsets her. We validate that she certainly has every right to be upset with him, offer her alternative ideas on how best to handle it next time, and since this has been going on for some time, we now send her to another part of the house (usually away from the activity she was engaging in) with the explaination that if we can't trust her to play nicely and not try to hurt her brother, then we can't trust her to be around other children until she calms down a spell. The same is true when her 7 yr old brother starts in the same way. Just recently it's finally begun to sink in. I think what had the most impact was when we cancelled their play time with a neighbor over it, but there was a lot of truth to it too. If they're that tired/unhappy/whatever that they're acting out, then I *don't* trust that they won't get upset with the neighbor and act out with her too! It's taken perserverence, but after 2 months we're seeing a LOT of improvement and a lot more of the kids reporting a problem to us instead of lashing out at the other one.

[Evan&Anna's_Mom]

Originally Posted by SunshineJ

I agree that these can have a huge impact on how frequent emotional outbursts are. However, that doesn't change the fact that even though a person may be overtired it's still not ok to engage in agressive behaviour.

I agree completely, but didn't want to pile on other advise. I did say that there needed to be two parts to the approach. I only addressed 1, I realize. Otherwise I write novels!

[MommytoB]

My boy is like that and he's almost 5 completely rude and totally unpolite. Start attacking me and people can see how mean he is so I want him to respect ladies no matter what his orientation may be .

So I developed a 'chart' it gains him smiley marks by marker or frowny faces by markers if he continues with 'the bad behavior' even if its the same one he will continue to get frowny faces . He will be like going mom no no no !!!!!!!! I will be like sorry brendan your not listening to me, your being mean to me ,your whining, etc so you get those.

I will also tell him when he listens to me he will end up with a smiley face in that area ,same with not being mean , same with no whining etc

It's been working better than all those other stuff I tried he still has a bit of rude streak but he's holding his act better .

[One_Girl]

I think that you should start by making sure he is set up for success by getting to bed at a regular time each night and by getting his meals at regular times and snacks when he needs them. This way the sleep and hunger triggers are not going to come up that frequently and he can focus on controlling himself. I find that my dd is also more angry and acts out more strongly in her anger if I have fallen into a controlling mode and she is not getting enough autonomy.

My dd yells when she is angry and shakes her fist at me, I don't know where she sees this done but it has been going on for a few months now. I start by pointing out that she seems to be very angry and then reminding her that I don't want anyone yelling at me and that I am willing to talk about a solution only when I am not being yelled at. She also tried hitting me a few times a couple months ago and the last time I made her take a time-out. It wasn't a solution that I loved, but I felt that I had been to accepting of it the other times she did it and I wanted her to know that I was not going to put up with her deciding that hitting was an acceptable thing to do. Since he has been hitting all along, I think you should maybe start with empathizing and not negotiating anything until he is ready to talk without hurting you.

[mom2grrls]

However, that doesn't change the fact that even though a person may be overtired it's still not ok to engage in agressive behaviour. I don't see anyone suggesting a child be punished for being angry, but rather being punished for direct actions they took while angry.>>>>>>>

But their anger and actions are intertwined at this age. As they muture those types of impulsive hitting/kicking goes away. I bet your 5 y/o hits more than your 7 y/o b/c it takes time to control those impulses. When you give them an outlet for that anger(to punch a punching bag or whatever) then you can work on different techniques b/c they will be calmer.

[ann_of_loxley]

Originally Posted by mom2grrls

However, that doesn't change the fact that even though a person may be overtired it's still not ok to engage in agressive behaviour. I don't see anyone suggesting a child be punished for being angry, but rather being punished for direct actions they took while angry.>>>>>>>

But their anger and actions are intertwined at this age. As they muture those types of impulsive hitting/kicking goes away. I bet your 5 y/o hits more than your 7 y/o b/c it takes time to control those impulses. When you give them an outlet for that anger(to punch a punching bag or whatever) then you can work on different techniques b/c they will be calmer.

Its also good to remember that 5 year old boys have a boost of testosterone. Its not an 'excuse' - its nature and its good to remember this I think - you know, so you can stay realistic with expectations.

So yeah - I don't honestly see the point in trying to come up with ways to 'manipulate' the feelings out of them (giving them 'rewards' for behaving a certain way) or punishing them for their actions stemed from feelings. They do not make the feelings go away! If anything, they teach your child to bottle them up and that their feelings are okay (even though you think you are just trying to 'teach' them that their actions are not okay). We need to teach our children that feelings are okay - even the 'ugly' ones - and that invovles more than just saying it to them. If angry outburts are the issue - no, its not okay to hit/kick other people/etc (I am not saying it is)...But the feeling isnt going to go away if we punish that or reward better behaviour - they still need an outlet for their feelings.

I think the best way to go is to help your child come up with outlets. This can only help your connection and trust - it can help your relationship flourish rather than hinder it.

[mamaduck]

Please be careful when you think in terms of "outlets" for anger. Research is showing that cathartic activies for releasing anger actual tends to increase it. The "angry" actions of hitting a pillow or punching bags act as "rehearsal" for violent actions, and they become the immediate response to strong feelings. On the other hand, exercise is an excellent way to manage anger. The endorphins that are released by running, bicycling, jumping, etc... over-ride the angry impulses. Deep breathing and relaxation exersizes are also helpful. There are some great CDs for kids that teach progressive muscle relaxation. It might be good for him to learn these in a calm moment so that he will know what to do in a stressful moment.

Beyond that --- I would teach problem solving skills in a very deliberate and concrete way. The best way to manage anger is to be skilled at resolving issues that frustrate you. You might even make a poster with him to hang some place prominant (if he is reading yet) that spells out the steps to take. 1) Name the problem. 2) Think of lots of different ways to solve the problem. 3) Evaluate the different ideas. 4) Pick the best one and try it. 4) If it doesn't work, try a different solution.

I love using the "turtle technique" with young children. Here is an article that talks about it: http://www.embracethefuture.org.au/r...nal_skills.htm I'm sure you can google other articles too.

Along with that, you can teach him to look at problems from different points of view, so that he learns to understand that there is more than one way to look at a problem, and that other people might feel differently than he does.

I just wrote all that out and then started to wonder if it is too CL for you. Sorry if it is not helpful...... I've done a fair amount of research on teaching anger management to young children, and most of it says that using consequences makes it worse, except of course, that it is appropriate and helpful to have him make restitution for anything or anyone he hurts or damages.

[kaos2me]

taking notes here. Thanks for all the great ideas.

[SunshineJ]

Originally Posted by mom2grrls

However, that doesn't change the fact that even though a person may be overtired it's still not ok to engage in agressive behaviour. I don't see anyone suggesting a child be punished for being angry, but rather being punished for direct actions they took while angry.>>>>>>>

But their anger and actions are intertwined at this age. As they muture those types of impulsive hitting/kicking goes away. I bet your 5 y/o hits more than your 7 y/o b/c it takes time to control those impulses. When you give them an outlet for that anger(to punch a punching bag or whatever) then you can work on different techniques b/c they will be calmer.

Actually it's a personality thing. My 7 yr old has rarely acted out physically when angry (moreso lately as he gets fed up with the 5 yr old). The 5 yr old has always been more physically agressive from the start. The 5 yr old also has the more spirited personality of the two, age has never impacted that.

Originally Posted by ann_of_loxley

Its also good to remember that 5 year old boys have a boost of testosterone. Its not an 'excuse' - its nature and its good to remember this I think - you know, so you can stay realistic with expectations.

Good point, however since my youngest is a girl I don't think that's as applicable

As I mentioned above a lot in our house seems to do with personality. Both children have been given tools to use to deal with anger, yet one hits and one does not. I guess the bottom line as in so many parenting issues is that one size doesn't fit all and the best option is to get as many ideas and opinions as possible and try to find what works best for your individual child.