Any ideas of how to handle this differently?

[oceanbaby]

Ds is 3.5yo, and has lately been into totally destroying the house. He walks in the living room and dumps out his Lincoln Logs, dumps out all 4 puzzles, pulls all his books on the shelf, and then goes into the other room to play trains.

We've been talking a lot about picking up the house, being respectful of our toys and our space, blah blah blah. Nothing works. If I make a game out of getting him to help clean up, he just wants to dump it out and do it again. If I ask him to help me, he just says "No, you do it."

So finally tonight, after he destroyed the living room that I had just picked up, I told him that since he was done playing with his puzzles, they needed to be picked up. (Offered to help, etc. etc.). He said no. I said that if he couldn't pick up the puzzle pieces when they were done, then the puzzles were going to have be put away for awhile. He said "Put away." So I did, grabbed a bag and threw them all in there, and he started screaming. We got through that by explaining that they would be back out tomorrow, and he can play with them, but if they don't get picked up, they go away.

Then we repeated this scene later on with his books (I can't tell you how hard it is for me to pack up books - just feels so wrong). Screamed and cried for a long time over this, me trying to talk with him, lots of hugging, empathy, explanation.

I just don't know how effective this really is. But I'm not going to just let him destroy the place every day. Any other ideas?

[NatureMama3]

You know, we've dealt with that exact issue for a couple years now. It wasn't until we realized the twins have ADHD and some food allergies (so far we've IDd watermelon and red food dye) that we've seen any improvement.

In fact we ID those 2 allergies because within hours of eating those they colored ALL over their room or elsewhere in the house.

ADHD and food allergies can seriously impair judgment and make for impulsive behavior that an otherwise logical child wouldn't participate in.


Food for thought, hopefully you'll find what the cause is and what to do to help it soon!