I need help. Ds is 5 yo, and he's actually violent. I hate to say that, but it's true. He hits, bites, kicks, head-butts, pulls my hair, pokes. And he yells crazily when he's angry, and has such an ugly scary face when he does that. We DO NOT hit/hurt him. But that hasn't stopped him. Here's the timeline, and some things that I think affected him. I would love advice that isn't "he won't learn to not hit unless you hit him back" (FIL's suggestion).
Ds would hit occasionally, but not often at all, and he could be easily distracted from it. It got worse as he got sicker last spring. He has diabetes, and last spring was the time when things were getting worse and worse leading up to diagnosis. So, his average blood sugar was 350, and he wasn't feeling well and had trouble expressing it. I have a feeling that that had a lot to do with the hitting. While he was in the hospital, he had a lot of trouble accepting that he needed painful injections (and to top it off, he had two IVs). He was, understandably, very angry about it all. He would kick me with every injection I gave. So dh said "Don't kick your Mama, kick me. It's OK to kick to get your frustration out." We thought it was a good idea at the time, but now I don't know. After that, it became a bigger and bigger problem. It didn't take long before he was outright trying to beat me up, regularly.
Now, in January (this year), we discovered he's gluten intolerant. Removing gluten really improved both his health and his attitude/behavior. And the longer he's off the gluten (and dairy, btw), the better things get, overall. But, he still thinks it's OK to beat on me. And he gets mad and says I'm hurting him when I try to defend myself (by holding him, not hitting back).
So, what we currently do to address this is to hold him and try to keep him from hurting us (he's old enough and big enough that yes, it hurts), and we also remove him to another room to be by himself. This isn't for punishment, but because that is the best way for him to be able to calm down (and we can't talk to him when he's all worked up). We have also talked to him about how it's OK to hit and kick THINGS but not people. And we talk to him about how it makes us feel to have him being so mean to us. We also have talked to him about how some of his friends are starting to be afraid of him (it's true, we're not exagerating). Most of his friends, in fact. Those that he hasn't hit, he's yelled at and tried to hit, and he has beat up on me in front of all of them. It depends on the mother (how she explains things and responds to the situation) how upset they are by the behavior. But even the girl (his best friend, btw) with the most understanding and laid-back mom is a little afraid of him now. It makes me so sad for him.
Things are definitely better now than they were before we removed gluten, but we still have a ways to go. He says he needs to hit and hurt people to "make them understand" something. Last night it was me and my foot being in the wrong place, and he pounded it. He didn't even ask me to move it before pounding it. I don't understand where this comes from. We don't do that to him. Last night we pointed out that when his foot is in the wrong place (like on the table) we don't pound it, we ask him to move it. We also explained that hurting someone in order to "make them understand" only teaches them that he is mean sometimes. I'm hoping that our talk last night will change things, but I don't know.
Oh, and we thank him when he addresses a problem calmly. We tell him that we really appreciate it and feel much better about things when he does that. And we point out that everyone (including him) is happier and the problem is resolved more quickly so that he can move on to what he wants to do.
I do know that it's more likely to happen when he's tired, when his blood sugar is high (or low, sometimes), and when he's excited about something. I am sometimes able to head it off knowing this, but really, sometimes I can't. Those are a lot of things to try to avoid!
Distracting does not work. He gets really, really into this behavior. It can go on for a long time. Reasoning also doesn't work. He's really focused, and he's already "in the moment". In order to reason with him at all, we have to remove him from the room and let him have time by himself to calm down. Then we can reason with him some. But he does his best to distract himself from listening to us. When he does that, we leave and come back in a few minutes and try again. This can just go on, and on, and on.... some days. With him hitting me when I'm talking to him (for which I also leave), distracting himself, talking over me.
Sometimes I'm just at my wit's end over this. And it makes me really worry about ttc. We've been (casually) ttc, and sometimes I wonder if it's just a really bad idea. What if he hurts the baby?? And what if his having to share the attention makes things worse?? He says he really wants a sibling (he's been asking for one since he was 2 1/2). But I know that he doesn't realize all that it means.
Please give me some ideas about how to help him learn better ways to express himself and to work through problems. For all of our sakes.
Christie
ETA: Thought I should make it clear, he really is a very sweet kid the rest of the time. Very intelligent, too (which might be contributing?). I feel like going gluten-free has mostly given us our boy back, but I'd like to stop this so that we can have the rest of him back.
Ds would hit occasionally, but not often at all, and he could be easily distracted from it. It got worse as he got sicker last spring. He has diabetes, and last spring was the time when things were getting worse and worse leading up to diagnosis. So, his average blood sugar was 350, and he wasn't feeling well and had trouble expressing it. I have a feeling that that had a lot to do with the hitting. While he was in the hospital, he had a lot of trouble accepting that he needed painful injections (and to top it off, he had two IVs). He was, understandably, very angry about it all. He would kick me with every injection I gave. So dh said "Don't kick your Mama, kick me. It's OK to kick to get your frustration out." We thought it was a good idea at the time, but now I don't know. After that, it became a bigger and bigger problem. It didn't take long before he was outright trying to beat me up, regularly.
Now, in January (this year), we discovered he's gluten intolerant. Removing gluten really improved both his health and his attitude/behavior. And the longer he's off the gluten (and dairy, btw), the better things get, overall. But, he still thinks it's OK to beat on me. And he gets mad and says I'm hurting him when I try to defend myself (by holding him, not hitting back).
So, what we currently do to address this is to hold him and try to keep him from hurting us (he's old enough and big enough that yes, it hurts), and we also remove him to another room to be by himself. This isn't for punishment, but because that is the best way for him to be able to calm down (and we can't talk to him when he's all worked up). We have also talked to him about how it's OK to hit and kick THINGS but not people. And we talk to him about how it makes us feel to have him being so mean to us. We also have talked to him about how some of his friends are starting to be afraid of him (it's true, we're not exagerating). Most of his friends, in fact. Those that he hasn't hit, he's yelled at and tried to hit, and he has beat up on me in front of all of them. It depends on the mother (how she explains things and responds to the situation) how upset they are by the behavior. But even the girl (his best friend, btw) with the most understanding and laid-back mom is a little afraid of him now. It makes me so sad for him.
Things are definitely better now than they were before we removed gluten, but we still have a ways to go. He says he needs to hit and hurt people to "make them understand" something. Last night it was me and my foot being in the wrong place, and he pounded it. He didn't even ask me to move it before pounding it. I don't understand where this comes from. We don't do that to him. Last night we pointed out that when his foot is in the wrong place (like on the table) we don't pound it, we ask him to move it. We also explained that hurting someone in order to "make them understand" only teaches them that he is mean sometimes. I'm hoping that our talk last night will change things, but I don't know.
Oh, and we thank him when he addresses a problem calmly. We tell him that we really appreciate it and feel much better about things when he does that. And we point out that everyone (including him) is happier and the problem is resolved more quickly so that he can move on to what he wants to do.
I do know that it's more likely to happen when he's tired, when his blood sugar is high (or low, sometimes), and when he's excited about something. I am sometimes able to head it off knowing this, but really, sometimes I can't. Those are a lot of things to try to avoid!
Distracting does not work. He gets really, really into this behavior. It can go on for a long time. Reasoning also doesn't work. He's really focused, and he's already "in the moment". In order to reason with him at all, we have to remove him from the room and let him have time by himself to calm down. Then we can reason with him some. But he does his best to distract himself from listening to us. When he does that, we leave and come back in a few minutes and try again. This can just go on, and on, and on.... some days. With him hitting me when I'm talking to him (for which I also leave), distracting himself, talking over me.
Sometimes I'm just at my wit's end over this. And it makes me really worry about ttc. We've been (casually) ttc, and sometimes I wonder if it's just a really bad idea. What if he hurts the baby?? And what if his having to share the attention makes things worse?? He says he really wants a sibling (he's been asking for one since he was 2 1/2). But I know that he doesn't realize all that it means.
Please give me some ideas about how to help him learn better ways to express himself and to work through problems. For all of our sakes.
Christie
ETA: Thought I should make it clear, he really is a very sweet kid the rest of the time. Very intelligent, too (which might be contributing?). I feel like going gluten-free has mostly given us our boy back, but I'd like to stop this so that we can have the rest of him back.
Mama, I admire you for keeping with non-violient ways in the face of this.This is a problem that is probably going to take a while to fix. You have already taken the right steps in looking at his diet. I think the next step is to find a psychiatrist that is gp friendly and have a pyschological work up done on him to make sure he is not suffering from something biological that is contributing to this behavior. Hang in there.
: ). But exposures are extremely limited.
