Did someone already suggest
Raising Your Spirited Child? Excellent book.
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Originally Posted by Dolphin  I think I'm confused about the setting boundaries thing. When you don't have a child who will respect your wishes about certain boundaries, how on earth do you enforce that without punishment if a natural consequence doesn't just happen?
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Originally Posted by Dolphin I don't know how to **enforce** boundaries at this point without really starting punishments, etc. because he doesn't just do what I say.
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I have an extremely challenging child who is now 8, and a regular old spirited child who is about to turn 4 (and a very mellow middle child). I do find that boundaries are important, and that we don't have to punish to have boundaries-in fact my kids are more likely to accept/respect my boundaries when I'm willing to listen and work
with them. Here are my thoughts on boundaries.
I think it really helps, when thinking about and setting boundaries, what your
concern is vs. what your idea of a solution is. Taking the grocery shopping example: Just saying that the boundary is that "he needs to ride in the cart if he comes with me" is a
solution, and it's one that IME is going to lead to power struggles. I'm guessing that your concern about him in the grocery store is more along the lines of "I'm concerned that if he doesn't stay close to me/wanders off he won't be safe" or "I'm concerned that if he starts pulling lots of things off the shelf he might break something or make a big mess-and it takes more time to shop if I keep putting back the 8 million things he pulls off the shelves." Your concern could be something else, too, these are things that come to mind because these are concerns I've had about grocery shopping. IME, getting to what my actual concern is, rather than clinging to a particular solution, opens the door to some alternative solutions that might work better for both me and my child. If a solution satisfactorily addresses my concern, I'm setting a boundary.
Also, IME as part of setting boundaries it helps to get at what your child's concern is. Taking the grocery store example, maybe for your child (as a pp suggested) autonomy in the grocery store (or in other areas of life) is his really big concern right now and this is why he doesn't want to ride in the cart. Maybe he likes the freedom of walking,
and wants to help--wants to contribute and belong. Combine that with the impulse control skills of a 4 year old (which still means "not much"), and that makes shopping a hard thing for him to do while behaving appropriately the entire time.
I find that once I'm clear about what my concern is (not my solution), and I'm clear about what my child's concern is (or pretty clear, whether they've told me or I've guessed or figured it out by observing), then we have a lot more to work with. We (or just I) can find alternative (realistic) solutions that satisfactorily address my concerns (setting a boundary) and that address my child's concerns/abilities as well. In our case, with grocery shopping, our solution-which addressed my concerns that kids stay close and not run around wildly pulling all sorts of things of shelves, and their desires for autonomy, to help and to explore- included reminding my children to stay close (and explaining why), finding ways of having my child stay close (holding on to the cart, rather than my hand, is a popular one with my kids), giving my kids jobs to do so that they can help (for example, in each aisle I might give each child an item to be responsible for finding). We'd bring them to the store when they were well-rested and fed. When my little one was (she still kind of is) really touchy-feely with things in the store, it helped to plan for extra time so that we could go through the store slowly and she could touch (with supervision and help) and explore. She really needed that, she was so curious--and it was important to her to be able to decide sometimes to do that (rather than always being told 'no').
Another idea that may help is to take "practice runs" to the store-little trips here and there to grab a few items rather than one huge shopping trip. If that's doable for you. You can try various solutions on short trips, where there's (theoretically) less stress and pressure.
Keep in mind that this all will pass. It takes time and maturity, but it will pass. With this age, I find that it helps a lot to help kids have more autonomy in their lives overall, and to work
with them (to listen to them and work on solutions together with them-kids can often come up with some great ideas even at 3 and 4 years old, and if they can't you can come up with ideas and talk about them).
*When you are working on finding alternative solutions, it really helps to sit down and talk with your child when things are
calm rather than when you're already in the middle of a problem (or about to be in the middle of one-about to go to the store, for example). It's easier to find solutions when you're calm than it is in the heat of the moment. And sometimes the first solution you try doesn't work out, that doesn't mean you have some huge problem on your hands it just means that solution wasn't right for you all. You can try again.
eta This is what works for us. YMMV.
maybe he is trying to assert independence, 4 might be too big to ride in the trolley (especially with another baby around). He wants to push his own cart because he wants to have control over something, also the whole collecting groceries thing. Instead of saying, no you can't have that, put it to the side and say, "now can you get me the toothpaste, remember our brand? Do you see it?" Involve him more, so he feel more grown up.
