help with anti spanking stuff...

[happy1nluv]

I have 5, 3, 1 year old boys... but this post is about the 3 year old. He's always been an independent, opinionated, high spirited kind of kid. He NEEDS physical exercise every day, and while he CAN sit still and do something if he's interested in it, if he's not its a nightmare. He's just to the point where he will sit through a half hour tv show (he LOVES tv... but he can't usually sit still through a whole program...whereas my 5 year old will zone out to it and always has - different kids, etc.) Anyway, the problem is that he just WON'T listen. If I could design all of our days around what HE wants to do, we'd be great... but life just doesn't work that way, and I need him to listen.

A few examples:
We were at mil's. He grabbed a hummel statue (she puts away lots of stuff when we come, but its just not possible to totally baby proof her house. Said hummel was in a room he KNOWS he's not supposed to be in, but he ran in and grabbed statue anyway. I can't be on top of him 24/7 while there because there are 2 others... When I told him to let go/put down/etc. the statue he ran... When I caught up to him, he threw the statue on the ground, shattering it. We told him he know had to save all of his money to replace it. Not sure he "gets" it though... (although the $5.00 grandma gave him for halloween went right into the hummel envelope)

Went to my parents to carve pumpkins. My parents have a flat area of the driveway and then it goes up/downhill. Up to road, down to another part of the driveway. He KNOWS he has to stay on the flat part. If he goes where he's not supposed to (limits are different based on what we are doing but clearly defined before we go out ...) we go inside. He will run back out of the house, he will run uphill if he feels like it (to the point of running into the road -- he seriously does not get it when I yell stop, freeze, etc. He's great at red light/greenlight, freezedance, etc. - the games just don't translate)

I could go on and on and on... My parents, my il's ... basically EVERYONE we know is telling us that we need to spank him. Just a few good spanks to set limits and it will be easier on us AND make his life easier. Think what will happen in a few years when we don't have as much control as we do now...yadda yadda yadda. My husband, while totally on board way back when...sees it as a failure in the method and maybe we should try spanking since nothing else is working. I feel its wrong. REALLY wrong. But, I'm not good at articulating my point, and I'm starting to wonder if it might work (it won't... at least I'm pretty sure it won't... but there's a tiny part of me that is wondering if we're failing him).

I'm as consistent as 3 kids allows me to be (sometimes its a belated consistent which I'm not sure counts) ... and I try to relate the behavior I expect beforehand, but I'm just discouraged. I'm tired of hearing how out of control my son is, and feeling that I'm failing him. He has sooo many good qualities that no one points out -- he's the most loving thing ever -- doesn't hold a grudge and would share the shirt off his back (or half his cookie -- and i dont give him many so the ones he gets are special) ... but all I hear about is he has no boundaries, etc. etc. etc...

Anyone been there, done that? How'd it work out? What worked? How do you deal with family who want you to spank???

thanks! know i was long... any advice appreciated!!!

[healthy momma]

You are a much more experienced mom than I am but I have a couple of thoughts.

First, from what I know through research and personal experience with my own 2.5 year old DS, impulse control is only just now beginning to develop and will continue all the way through the teen years. Just because we think he "KNOWS" that he's supposed to stay in a designated area (often with no clear cut boundaries in their eyes) does not mean he thinks about that each time he feels like running far and fast or sees something he wants to investigate. He is not thinking, "Mom says I have to stay here but I really want to go down the hill. I think I'm going to disregard what she says and go anyway." It's more like "Whee, look at how fast my legs are going. Wow this is fun. Ooh. The downhill means I go faster. Yeah!"

Second, I worked in the field of domestic violence for a number of years. Violence is NEVER the answer. And spanking IS violence. It says "I am bigger than you, stronger than you, and I can physically hurt you." It may stop a behavior because the child is hurt or embarrased by the spanking but it is NOT teaching them the lesson you want them to learn. Keep being consistent, loving, and expecting developmentally and temperamentally appropriate behaviors from your child and he will learn.

[alegna]

That can be a really hard age. It's not easy, but what he really needs is closer supervision. If there are unsafe situations or breakables that he shouldn't have access too he really needs to be treated like the older toddler that he is and have CONSTANT supervision. If there are not enough adults to have one focusing on him, then he needs to be confined or blocked from the danger in some way.

good luck!

-Angela

[E.V. Lowi]

I thought these articles might be helpful to you-

http://www.livescience.com/culture/0...-spanking.html


http://www.naturalchild.org/naomi_aldort/tame.html

http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/tamara_parnay2.html

[NellieKatz]

In my opinion spanking can never "work." Because even if it stops the behavior, what it is TEACHING him is much more important (and damaging) and will last his whole life. It teaches him to do the very thing you probably don't want him to do: which is to be physical with others in order to get his way, that coercion is the way to deal with others, top-down, might-makes-right relationships....eek.

Anyway I will leave it to those who can be much more eloquent about the alternatives. There is so much inner work, so much introspection and questioning of our parental paradigms that has to occur. It's not easy. But no matter how frustrated I ever get with my son, I will never again spank him. (One day, several years ago, we started spanking--and stopped again on the same day, utterly horrified that we had done it). I will never ever do that. Our parenting has come full circle and I don't even think that way any more. That is not how I want our relationship to be, it is not what I want to teach him. And since my whole goal is to not only teach him but to teach him by example, and to maintain a loving and attached relationship throughout our whole lives, I won't damage that relationship by hurting him and removing the complete trust he has in me to love and protect him.

[ssh]

Your DS doesn't have enough impulse control yet to resist playing with forbidden things. Some kids are closer to 4 before they have much impulse control. He needs closer supervision. My DD is almost 5 and she plays in the fenced back yard and holds someone's hand if we are anywhere near a road. If your MILs house just can't be childproof maybe it's not an appropriate place for a 1 and a 3 year old.

The one time a friend suggested we spank DD I told him that small humans learn by example, so why would we want to teach her that it's ok to hit people.

[happy1nluv]

thanks for the replies... LOVE hearing this stuff and that im not creating a monster...

ev lowi = your first link didnt work for me...the second was awesome...

and... i agree that i maybe have too high expectations for him. hes always been super verbal -- literally he can argue/articulate better than his brother - and his brothers no slouch... so its easy to think hes older than he is...

about mil's... i need some creative ideas... mil doesnt really drive. we're an hour away, so we're outside her comfort zone. my fil is in a nursing home near mil (paralyzed) so we usually visit both at once. can't go see fil til afternoon (takes the staff that long to get him up in his chair, etc). we have no place to put mil if she came for an overnight - esp now since she's recovering from hip surgery... we cant not visit... any ideas? the only thing im coming up with is dh taking one kid at a time to visit...and making it JUST a visit, not a check out mil's house issues and a visit and have dh make an extra visit sometime by himself or maybe w/ the 5 yr old to do the house stuff...
we do have season passes for a childrens museum semi near mil's but i cant figure out how to use that to our advantage...

thanks again!!

[Petie1104]

OK, here are a few thoughts. I have 4 kids ranging from 13-4 so I have btdt. 2 were high energy.

At MIL's house, we do this with their uncle. If there is a room the kid's aren't allowed to touch things in, we go in there first thing, walk around see whats there, let them touch while supervised. When we walk out of the room, the door closes, no more going in that room. Their uncle is good about locking that room (they have all their really nice breakables in there).

For the hill, you said you told him to stop, but he plays red light, green light well, so maybe what we do will work. Anytime we are in a safe environment like the mall during the daytime when it's nearly empty, or on post walking on the sidewalk in a safe area, we play red light, green light in a different way. When we say "green light" they run as fast as they can, as soon as we say, "red light" they freeze. So it's a game we play regularly. This way, when we are faced with a dangerous situation and one starts running we yell, "RED LIGHT" and they are so used to the game that they freeze, sometimes that's all it takes to kind of reset their brain and then before they move you say, "OK come back down here as FAST as you can, I'll time you!!" It makes it a game, but a game that teaches them that there are limits to how far they can go. When playing in a safe environment (forgot to mention this earlier) like in the mall, if we say "red light" and they don't stop, they get a "speeding ticket" which means they have to hold my hand through the next (two to four depending on which age, so for 3 yrs. old it would be two)green lights. They think it is fun and of course people in the mall laugh and think we're nuts, but you should see how quickly my kids stop when they hear "red light".

Another one that translates into other scenarios. If we are in the store and I tell them "no touching" before we go in, if one of them touches, then that person gets "fined". Their fine is that they have to walk for the next (once again time depends on age) minute or so with their hands on their head. So now, if I say, "no touching" they know that to touch means walking with their hands on their head.

All these are done in fun with smiles and laughs, so that when they translate into real issues, they don't mind doing them. I remember one time, ds was stuck (he was 8 at the time) with his hands on his head, so then he used his foot to touch something on the bottom shelf and said, "hey mom, now what do I have to put on my head" so we joked and I said, "I guess you should hop on one foot, huh?" He hopped down that aisle on one foot. We had the entire store laughing and thinking how much fun we were having and the lady that checked us out said, "wow, where were these ideas when mine were little, good job mama". She could appreciate that even though we were having fun, the kids were learning the limits that they had to abide by.

It takes creative thinking, but think about how to make discipline as much fun as possible. They learn it quicker that way.

[nd_deadhead]

I agree with the others that his behavior sounds age-appropriate. We did thinkgs with our 4-yr-old twins that we wouldn't have imagined when they were 3.

I only have two children, so I was in a different boat than you, but I know what it's like to chase after two at a time - it's HARD! One is sticking his head in the toilet while the other is crawling into the stove - who do you rescue first?

Keep doing what you're doing, and eventually his impulse control will kick in. Work on phrasing your instructions as "do" statements instead of "dont"s - if you tell a toddler "don't run up the hill", even if he understands that he isn't supposed to run up the hill, he has "...run up the hill" stuck in his head, and can't think of an alternative. Training yourself to say things like "turn around", "Walk" (instead of don't run), etc might help. And keep working on red light, green light!

Good luck - it will get better, and you will be glad you got through this stage without violating his trust by spanking him.

[heartmama]

Many 3 year olds have poor impulse control. They only 'know' the rules in the sense they can repeat them back to you and remember the words. They don't 'know' the rules in the sense that they comprehend the what or why of a situation and are capable of making a choice in their behavior. Some children can make choices at three but many cannot. Children are more consistent in choice-making by age 4 and especially by age 5.

I heard an interesting fact in relation to a lawsuit in New York, which is that children under age 4 cannot be sued for liability based on their actions. In other words no matter what a 3 year old does they cannot be held accountable by law (unfortunately at age 4, they can! That was a point in the lawsuit).

The reason I point this out is to help you see that even our society at large recognizes the limited reasoning skills of a 3 year old. Your son is completely normal for needing extra supervision and help following rules right now. You should not feeling badly. Time will help him mature. For now, supervise as best you can and ignore the critics.

[puddle]

Hitting a kid to teach them mastery of impulse control makes as much sense as hitting a kid to teach them how to walk or to read. If they aren't there yet, then they aren't there yet.

It really is tough when everyone is judging you for your parenting.

Do you think you could handle visits with all 3 kids if your DH just didn't do the house stuff? Will your 5 year old be okay if one of you stays with the 1 yr old and one stays with the 3 yr old? Or is there another capable adult that could join you when you visit to help keep an eye on the kids so you won't be outnumbered?

[Ornery]

I have no further advice about how to handle your ds other than to agree with what was said about impulse control.

For me, living in a culture that promotes spanking for EVERYTHING, I simply state that spanking isn't an option in our family. Over and over. And then ask for other ideas. I don't explain. I don't justify. It just isn't ever an option for us.