4 yo controlling other kids and hitting me

[feadie]

Hi

My DS is 4.5 and his father and I are separated. When he returns from a weekend at his Dads his behaviour for the next few days is hard to deal with. My first issue is that he attempts to control everything - other kids, me, the weather and of course it doesnt go his way and he becomes very upset and bursts into tears repeatedly, every day - its really difficult to see and I am sure very hard for him to deal with such frustrations. My only solution has been to avoid situations with other children and keep him out of the way of situations he cant control - so basically we stay home.

My second issue is that he is still bfeeding and when on several occasions he has gone into a rage and bitten and hit me when I have refused to nurse him (5am when he has been nursing all night). As it has been the middle of the night I havent been able to deal with it effectively and this time I left the bedroom and went into another room. This made him very upset and I am worried that it is playing on his existing anxieties around his father leaving him and me leaving him at his Dads every second weekend.

He also hits me when he gets frustrated and again I am concerned that my GD of talking to him, and telling him that I dont like it, is not providing him with clear enough boundary around what is permissable.

Any advice would be gratefully recieved. I am sure that it is the pressure that he is under that makes him behave in this way but I am worried that by not punishing him for hurting me that I am not showing enough leadership. I also have no idea what to do about his anxious/controlling behaviours.

[mom2grrls]

That's a tough situation, how is he at home when it's been a few days away from his visit with dad?

[feadie]

He seems to calm down and become more relaxed when he has been away from his Dad- he only hurts me when he has just returned. However the controlling behaviour towards other kids can still be happening a couple of days later. Another kid stole some of his crisps today and he went crazy and attacked him. I tried to talk to him about his feelings of anger but I also had to manage the hurt of the other child and tried to get him to apologise and realise that he can't hurt people even when he's feeling angry. But I think it was just too much to talk about in one go and am worried that nothing sunk in. Maybe I'll try tomorrow at breakfast. I just feel so sad for him that its really hard to be angry...

[NellieKatz]

It sounds like he feels that there is so LITTLE in his life that he can control (imagine how it must feel not to be able to control which parent he sees, and when...that's pretty big). Maybe by giving him lots of little things that he CAN control, and minimizing the number of things that you control for him....maybe that can help him feel more balanced?

And if he is hurting you, I doubt that punishing him for that will do anything other than make things worse. You could find a non-punitive way to set limits around that. In other words, show him what YOU will tolerate where your own safety is concerned (i.e. say he does it when you're playing a game, and he gets upset at losing, so he hits. You could say "I will not play with someone who hits me. We can play when it's safe for me."

This happened with us. I had to take a long, hard look at how aggressive our parenting was. I mean, we said we were GD and we didn't hit, but we were pretty much telling him what to do all day long, and putting him in time-outs for aggression, and meeting his aggression with loud voices and angry faces....it must have FELT terribly aggressive to our son, and it made things much worse. Things didn't change till I realized that, and changed mySELF. If punishing is your modus operandi for teaching, you might consider a different approach?

Best of luck.

[feadie]

Thanks - I loved your kind advice. I actually implemented the game playing one today - as he hit me when he lost (I havent actually dared to win so far in case he went crazy). It was all blown over in an instant and he wanted to play again so I felt it was a pretty positive outcome. I am glad that you dont think that punishment is appropriate.

Any further advice appreciated

x