[blparent] behavior problems with our 4 year old

[Jennifer Bose]

Hi, Chris.

Thanks for writing to the list. The behavior issues you describe are
probably faced by many parents, including many blind parents. I'm sure
they're frustrating, and I hear you about wanting the best for your
child and not wanting to resort to discipline methods you don't want
to use.

You mentioned that your child is bright and does well at HeadStart.
That's great. I wonder if you could find out more from her teachers,
or even from her, about where she's doing well. Maybe they have advice
and strategies that you can use at home to help her continue to behave
well and develop well. Another thing to look at is whether some other
factor is causing the behavior. Maybe there's a pattern to it. Maybe
it always happens at night when she's tired. Could she be misbehaving
because she's bored? Instead of putting her in a time-out or in her
room, could you redirect her to do something positive, or just talk to
her and ask why she dumped the food, or hid the phone. Maybe you can
rule out whether she's sad or anxious about something.

Some other thoughts: Besides talking to my family and looking into
community resources, and even consulting with people on this list,
I've learned a lot from the Internet. If you google "playful
parenting" or "positive parenting solutions", you'll come across
resources that can give you lots of other ideas about how to
discipline a child in ways that might work better and teach good
behavior. From all this, I learned not to make a child's room a place
of punishment and not to even use time-outs. One tool I love is Amy
McCready's "when, then" strategy, which I use with my girls. In your
situation with the hidden phone, I might say something like: "When
you've given me back my phone, then I'll give you back some toys."
Then, just try to find something else to do for a few minutes so she
can think this over.

Beyond that, if there are other activities you can do with her in your
community, or other kids she can play with, those are great ways to
teach her to be more socially appropriate and to let her get some of
that fun childish energy out. Of course, there could be some medical
reason why she's not behaving well, but my advice would be to try all
these other ideas first.

All the best to you,
Jen

On 3/26/16, Chris Reagan via BlParent <blparent at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Good morning all:
> We're having a serious behavior problem with our 4 year old child and
> we'd like to know if there's anything anyone can suggest on how to get
> this issue under control. We've tried just about everything we can
> think of to deal with this and It's almost like she doesn't care. I'll
> give some examples as to what she's done and what we've tried. She
> likes to take foodand dump it, we finally got the locks that will keep
> her out of the cabinets. She's taken the drawers out of her dresser. In
> response we've put locks on them which she got around. Here's something
> that I wrote for what happened this morning, and this is also a common
> occurrence.
> Okay, so our child does something wrong, we put her in timeout. She
> doesn't stay still in timeout, so she is sent to her room for an hour.
> Mind you, that because of her behavior, we've taken all her toys away
> so her room isn't a very enjoyible place right now. So she opens the
> window and starts talking to people in general which we don't want her
> to do because of housing rules regarding the windows being open when
> the temps are below 50 and because we don't know who she's talking too.
> So I go in and close the window and she decides to get out of her room,
> run in to the living room and run from us and hide in plain sight. I
> catch her and put her back in. in the attempt to keep her in there for
> the time that we've set, she takes my phone runs to her bed with it,
> and tosses it behind her bed, thank god for outerbox cases. I normally
> don't spank, but that deserved a spanking and that's what she got. Now
> she's a very bright kid, very smart, does well in head start. She loves
> to draw and help people and we're happy to have her in our lives!. But,
> her behavior is getting to the point where she's wearing us down. Now,
> spanking is something we don't like to do and we don't enjoy it at all.
> Plus, I believe that it only causes more problems. We've taken away tv
> privoleges and I've also resorted to taking away her toys as I
> previously stated including the stuffed animals that she likes to sleep
> and play with. When we want to go somewhere, we can't, because her
> grandparents won't baby sit anymore because of her behavior, plus when
> we take her places, we insist she hold mommy and daddy's hand, but does
> she, no and she knows how to remove the leashes. So if there's anything
> that we've missed or haven't done to curve her behavior, please don't
> hesitate to speak up. We love her dearly and we only want the best for
> her in the end.
> Take Care all:
> Chris
>
> _______________________________________________
> BlParent mailing list
> BlParent at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blparent_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> BlParent:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blparent_nfbnet.org/jen10514%40gmail.com
>


-- 
For a clear communication of your message, contact:
Jennifer Bose, voice talent.
Come on over for a listen at http://www.jenniferbose.com