Name calling...getting REALLY old

[supermuma]

Does anyone have any advice?
My 4.5 year old son is CONSTANTLY calling me names.
Some of them don't even make sense....but they are along the lines of "stupid head", "doody head", "booba" and on and on...
I have tried telling him that we do not call people names in our family because it hurts feelings...he usually responds with "so". I have tried ignoring it...but still it continues (and is getting more and more frequent). I have tried telling him that I am confident that he can come up with better words and helped him think of some. I have tried something I read about on here somewhere...telling him my "secret name" ...he thought it was amusing, but it didn't catch on.
HELP!
I am really trying not to let it make me angry...and so far I have been successful...but it is getting REALLY old. I don't want to end up yelling at him (as I am sure that will not do any good at all). :

[dharmamama]

If it were me I would tell my child, "If you feel the need to speak to me in a way that you know hurts my feelings, you can go and do it in another room where I can't hear you." I would also tell my child that being spoken to rudely makes me feel not-very-friendly. I would follow that up with a "If you want my attention, ask for it, and I will be happy to give it to you."

Namaste!

[4evermom]

My same age ds has been calling me names, too, so maybe it is the age, Fortunately for me, his choices don't offend me. They include snagglepuss, packrat, and just now he came in and called me poo-poo in an affectionate tone of voice. In your situation, I would probably just take the silly approach and call him all sorts of crazy names in hopes that they will eventually replace his current repretoire.

ETA: ds just told dh "you're such a snoozer!" while playing video games

[gaialice]

sorry

[maya44]

When is he doing this? Is it when you are making a demand or setting a limit?

If it is, I would completely ignore him at the time, and only bring it up later

For example

You: DS please pick up your toys

DS: NO you're a doodyhead

YOu: I really need you to pick up your toys before Aunt jane comes over with the new baby, the baby is getting into everything and those little pieces could hurt her.

DS: You're a STUPIDHEAD

YOU: If you need help picking up the toys let me know, I'll me in the kitchen making some tea for Aunt Jane

Then later in the day...YOU: "DS today you used some very rude words to me. It is unkind to use those words and in our family we don't say them to other people. I expect you not to use them."

[meowmix]

My 4.5 yr old has called me names, told me he hates me and yelled at me when we can't reach a mutually agreeable compromise. Sometimes I can take it and will try to identify with him, etc. But when I can't and we are both angry at eachother I will back off from the situation and say how I feel. So I would say "Look, Trevor, when you yell at me like that it upsets me. I am going to leave the room until you can speak your needs in a normal tone of voice."

Since he doesn't like me to leave the room, he usually changes his tune pretty quickly. Or he stays angry and yells "I didn't want to talk to you anyway!" and stews for a few minutes before reconnecting.

If he calls me something affectionately (like hugging me and saying "I love you booty butt!") I would probably ignore the words and tell him I loved him, too. But if he is rudely calling me names, just the same as I would probably treat an adult, I leave the room.

[supermuma]

Thanks for all of the great advice

He usually calls the names when he is angry at me for something. Like if I say that it is time to stop playing and get ready for bed or that he needs to pick up a toy etc.
I wouldn't mind at all if it were silly names (and he does that too) at silly times, it is just the "butthead", "stupid head" etc that has finally started to annoy me! It also started becoming an almost constant stream of names in the past few weeks. I am sure he hears some of this from his peers at school and I am sure the age could have something to do with it as well!
I am going to try coming at it a bit differently. It really helps to hear what others would do in the situation!
Thanks all!

[gaialice]

The idea behind the playful parenting thing about name calling (the secret name thing) is that it recognizes name calling as an experiment with the power of words. The problem with other strategies I tried was that they confirmed in the mind of dd1 that she had found a very powerful word and that gave her ever more incentives to use it. Playful parenting allowed/allows her to use power through words, but in a way that does not hurt other people's feelings.
Now you can find different games, at different times of the day, so not necessarily when he is calling you names to let him experiment with words. In the playful parenting book there is this game that when dc calls you silly you act so silly you cannot tell him from the pillow and pretend to sit on his head. I never tried that but I do come up with a lot of other ideas for experimenting with words. Like we play a lot with "Jack said ..." (do you know that game?). We play with abracadabra. My advice is to try other games and find the most appropriate to his age/personality...
Maya44's tactic of plain ignoring the namecalling and address it later is also a good idea because it takes the power away from the namecalling but it somehow did not work well for us.

[supermuma]

Yes, I think that I am going to have to get that book! I have been meaning to actually..just keep forgetting. I admit that when I was using the secret name idea it was not fully researched so I am sure I wasn't doing it properly. Could be why it didn't work, it was one of my more half-way approaches as I became more and more frustrated. I really thought it would because he usually responds really well to a more playful approach.
I usually don't mind things like this, they went through a swearing phase (from their bio dad) as well but I ignored it and it went away quickly! Guess I just got too frustrated when this didn't go away the same way!

[gaialice]

The game is explained in this newspaper article
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/lifest...layful12.shtml
however because I have been lat time I posted about it I will
Seriously.... I think it would be a great idea for you to read the book... In fact this approach may seem manipulative and simplistic but when you read the book you will find it is very profound and creates real dialogue...

[angela&avery]

Originally Posted by 4evermom

My same age ds has been calling me names, too, so maybe it is the age, Fortunately for me, his choices don't offend me. They include snagglepuss, packrat, and just now he came in and called me poo-poo in an affectionate tone of voice. In your situation, I would probably just take the silly approach and call him all sorts of crazy names in hopes that they will eventually replace his current repretoire.

ETA: ds just told dh "you're such a snoozer!" while playing video games

we do the same thing. I kind of join in with silly things to say and it gets it out of his system...... i dont know why, but it works. If his tone of voice is very offensive and gets to be mean i might say "I dont like being spoken to like that" and walk away.