Ds hurts his sister all day long...wwyd?? X-pstd in GD

[kdescalzi]

Mamas,

I am losing my mind. I cannot find a way to get ds to stop hurting his sister. It is a constant battle from morn to night. No matter what kind of consequences or warnings I use, he continues to do it. He pushes her over, kicks her, scratches her face etc. I cannot leave them alone for a second!! I know a lot of you will say this is normal behaviour and I know this. He is probably jealous of her and all the attention I have to give her (she is very high needs right now) BUT there has got to be a way to get it into his head that hurting his sister or anyone else is not acceptable. What can I do?? I am begging for some tips and or advice.

[LianneM]

I'm sorry I have been there - it is really hard to see your one child hurting your other. The mama bear instinct would come out for me and I was really upset with DS.

Not sure how old your kids are - that might help some.

I can tell you, though, no matter the age, that the answer is not in consequences and no amount of explaining will help if your son isn't getting enough connection with you. That was the answer for us, as hard as it was. I had to find a way to make my son feel connected with me and to feel that I had enough love for both of them, and that I loved him even when he was mean, accepted him for who he was and wanted him around.

It was really hard. We did a lot of different things to accomplish this. One was to let him be a baby as well, and I would even carry him sometimes and hold him like a baby. (My kids are 3.5 years apart so this was no small task) I also had to really work to not put him off - when he asked for something, I tried hard to do it quicker instead of asking him to wait. That helped a lot. I realized that I was putting him off really often, and asking him to do things on his own, and all of those things compounded with the fact that I was constantly holding and doing for the new baby really caused his behavior to escalate.

The key to remember is that the behavior isn't the thing to focus on, it's the child. Focus on what he needs, meet the needs, and the behaviors will resolve.

It's so hard to believe this especially when it seems like the child is intentionally trying to be hurtful. I know. I have so been there

It gets better. Hugs mama!

And keep the baby on you as much as you can to keep her safe. Again, not sure the ages, but yeah you really can't leave him alone with her. I found the easiest thing to do was to wear the baby and this got a lot easier when I got an Ergo and could wear her on my back.

[kdescalzi]

Thank you for your reply...I really needed to read "focus on the child, not the behaviour" My ds is 3 and dd is 9mo. She is really jealous of me and ds on a regular basis which must be hard on ds. She is very clingy lately and just getting over phnemonia so understandably she is being extra needy. I also agree with you about not making him wait so much...I do seem to ask a lot of him. I just find that if I focus more on him, then dd ends up fussing/crying and clinging to me legs. Poor ds gets so annoyed with her. I find this so hard right now

[LianneM]

Oh my goodness, that is a really hard time! Your kids are closer than mine so I imagine it's even more challenging, and I found the transition from 1 to 2 to be really hard. I think between 12-18 mo we finally had things going smoothly.

You might check out some of the info in my sig and also Pam Leo's website www.connectionparenting.com She has a great article about siblings on her site.

Ideally you find things to do with both of them, so they both feel like they're getting your attention and you are filling both of their cups at the same time with the same activity. Things like reading books and listening to music (and dancing/singing along) are great for us to do together.

[K1329]

Went through the same thing with dd and ds - and they're about the same age apart as your two. I don't have any specific advice, but, want to agree with Lianne, who seems to have really good advice... Don't leave the baby alone with your ds right now - why take the chance?

For us, it resolved itself slowly and ds also grew big enough to defend himself. Now, at 3 and 6, they play together peacefully for hours at a stretch and seem to have a healthy, close sibling relationship. For awhile, especially when dd was at her worst with ds, I thought we'd never get to this point!

Good luck!