what do you do when you child does this:

[seamama11]

1. Gets mad at hits you or his sister. He is strong, 4 years old, and it hurts. We have used the whole, hands are not for hitting, use your words for 3 years now.

2. You son yells at you and says things like I HATE YOU YOU ARE STUPID

3. Your child uses potty talk

4. When you put him in his room he screams and kicks the door

This happens not all day at all, but at various times. I am looking for specific actions you take. We talk to him about his feelings, tried to get him to pick a cool down spot, try to make sure he is fed, rested, and outside for many hours each day.
He is also very sweet, curious, smart, and fun to be around. It is almost as if he is trying to play the mean role, push the boundaries, challenge the boundaries.
we never have used any form of timeout, but have started putting him in his room when he is screaming, hitting, ...out of control. It doesn't him calm down after he flips out for a minute, and we are right there with him, but I don't see a real change in day to day behavior

[One_Girl]

My dd only hit me twice and I freaked out both times and made her take the only time-outs I have ever had her take. I told her I was too mad to talk and she just needed to sit and be quiet. I don't know that this would work if it is an ongoing thing, but if you haven't expressed your outrage at being hit, with words not deeds, then letting your child know how fed up you are may be a good thing for both of you. I think it is okay to let our feelings show sometimes, even the extreme ones that come from frustration.

My dd went through an extreme tantruming and angry phase when she was four and I kept the focus on empathizing with angry words. I also started to tell dd she needed to find a place to calm down and that I wouldn't talk to her until she was ready to find a compromise. When I first started doing this I had to catch her at the beginning of her anger and remind her to compromise. I also had to be easy to compromise with to encourage dd to talk things out because we were in a cycle of me making too many decisions without taking her desires into account so she didn't see me as someone who would compromise. I had to show her that I would compromise and things slowly improved. It was a hard process for both of us because I wasn't raised in a talking, negotiating family but it got easier with time and is second nature for us now and I don't have to make an easy compromise all the time now. I can say no now and she can accept it without a fit. If she does fall into negativity a lot when I tell her to do something or refuse to let her do something it is almost always because I am in a cycle of being too controlling.

I ignore potty talk and always have, unless we are at home then I laugh with my dd if I feel like it and tell her I am not in the mood if I don't. I remember how hilarious potty talk was for me and my brother as a child and I don't really want to make a battle out of something that is common and only mildly annoying when I am in an irritable mood. We have talked about only using it at home because it makes other people uncomfortable and it has mostly been used only at home, except a few minor slip ups that were easily stopped by ignoring or reminding dd that other people are uncomfortable with potty talk.

[Minxie]

Originally Posted by seamama11

1. Gets mad at hits you or his sister. He is strong, 4 years old, and it hurts. We have used the whole, hands are not for hitting, use your words for 3 years now.

2. You son yells at you and says things like I HATE YOU YOU ARE STUPID

3. Your child uses potty talk

4. When you put him in his room he screams and kicks the door

This happens not all day at all, but at various times. I am looking for specific actions you take. We talk to him about his feelings, tried to get him to pick a cool down spot, try to make sure he is fed, rested, and outside for many hours each day.
He is also very sweet, curious, smart, and fun to be around. It is almost as if he is trying to play the mean role, push the boundaries, challenge the boundaries.
we never have used any form of timeout, but have started putting him in his room when he is screaming, hitting, ...out of control. It doesn't him calm down after he flips out for a minute, and we are right there with him, but I don't see a real change in day to day behavior

1) We used drums; "Drums are for hitting, NOT people." I sat down with a drum and so did he; we banged and yelled until we started to feel better. Drums have a satisfying sound and feel that seems more effective to me.

2) "Wow...well, thank you for that information. I love you, my son; enjoy your nap."
Sometimes when he says these things, he really just needs some extra love. It depends on him and his attitude at the time. In that case, "Do you need some extra love? How about a snuggle?"

If I'm REALLY out of patience, "Go get your green flower blanket."

"No, Mom, I don't want a burrito wrap!" <brings me his blanket>

I wrap him in his blanket, set him on my lap and snuggle him while singing to him. He usually needs some time to calm himself and this helps him to calm down.

Note: It looks like I am not listening to his words when I write this but IRL, I am listening to his body language and tone.

3) "Bathroom talk belongs in the bathroom." Sometimes he likes to go into the bathroom and say bathroom words but it really isn't fun without an audience. Sometimes we'll go in there together and I provide the audience (I have little patience for this and we went through this phase pretty quickly.)

4) We had a problem with him slamming the door.
"I will be glad to remove the door if you cannot control your body."


Other things I do to keep my patience:

I remind myself that boys get a surge of testosterone around age 4-5; I saw this in a post here and it has stuck with me as my boy became very aggressive overnight this summer. It was a...challenging time for us.

I send him outside to play in the yard and work out some of that energy.

I wrestle with him and tickle him.

I become the Queen Dragon and chase him through the house.


Most importantly, we brainstorm solutions together. We both offer solutions and I write them down; then we go over them together and determine which will work best for us. He often comes up with very good ideas that we are able to put into place. This method helped us to resolve him being bullied at school and also his not listening to the teacher (his idea was for the teacher to whisper in his ear rather than raise her voice at him which he did not like.)

[kcparker]

Originally Posted by seamama11

1. Gets mad at hits you or his sister. He is strong, 4 years old, and it hurts. We have used the whole, hands are not for hitting, use your words for 3 years now.

If he's sitting/laying on me, I just hold his hands and tell him, "That hurts, and I don't like it." If I am standing, I move away, saying the same thing. I also tell him, "I know you are frustrated/angry/disappointed about fill-in-blank, but hitting people isn't okay."

2. You son yells at you and says things like I HATE YOU YOU ARE STUPID

Depending on the underlying cause, I might say, "Well, I love you. I know that you are upset about X right now. Do you want a hug?" I might say, "Well, I'm sorry you feel that way right now, " ignore it, or do something dramatic like put my hands to my face and say, "Booo hoooo hoooooo! Boodali-boodali-hoodali!", something so ridiculous that it would make him start laughing. I don't know, it's just words, and he might not have better ones to express his emotions, or he might not understand where the emotions are coming from to identify "I am very disappointed that you are not reading me a book and jealous that you ARE helping my sister with her bath."

3. Your child uses potty talk

It's all Poop! all the time around here these days. Our dinner table conversation consisted in part of DS1 telling a very elaborate story about a poop who lived in a cave in the middle of an extinct shield volcano, but his feet stuck out of the side of the mountain. It's okay, it's just talk, and we do talk about how even though we make up rhymes about poop at home, it's not very polite to do this outside the house, just the same as it's okay to fart at home, but not so polite to let 'er rip at the library or a restaurant.

4. When you put him in his room he screams and kicks the door

Usually, my DS needs connection at that point, not being alone. I don't tend to put him in the bedroom (that's a DH tactic), so I haven't had to deal with this one.