[blparent] behavior problems with our 4 year old

[Judy Jones]

Thank you so much for writing in.  I am an older mom with grown girls.  I
could be wrong, but I am guessing that misbehaving may have started
happening long before now and that it has finally gotten to the point where
you are reaching out for help.

I know in this day and age and culture spanking is not popular, and some see
it as child abuse.  Certainly, if done in the wrong way, it can turn into
that.

I'm here to tell you, though, we did believe in spanking, only as a last
resort, and our daughters ages 29 and 25 can remember their spankings, and
now laugh about them, as I now laugh about the ones I remember getting, as
my mother also did hers as she recounted them.  Both daughters have also 
told us that spankings worked and that they plan to spank their kids when 
they have them.  My eldest is married to a state trooper, used to work in 
Voc Rehab, next to my office, and told the people over there that a lot 
fewer adults would have anxiety issues had they had clearer guidelines and 
probably been loved and spanked growing up, her opinion, of course.

The most important thing is
to let your daughter know you love her unconditionally, but you will not 
tollerate negative behaviors.  The idea is to love the person, but not 
always the behavior.  The first time we had an issue with our eldest, she 
was maybe 2, I was holding her in my arms, and there was something she 
wasn't liking at the moment.  She reached out with her tiny hand and hit my 
face.  I immediately popped her diapered bottom with my hand and firmly said 
"No!"  She got really still, probably out of surprise, then started to cry. 
So I hugged her close and told her I loved her but that she could not do 
that.

A great book that is on BARD is Dr. James Dobson's Dare To Discipline, check 
it out.

Above all, and this is hard to do, keep your voice down and calm, even in
the middle of a trying situation.  Let your actions speak for themselves, 
and  no raised
voice.  Think of yourself as the corrections officer that does not have to 
get angry, but does have to correct negative behavior.  I had an older lady 
tell me when my kids were young to save the
yelling or raised voice for life-threatening situations, such as running in
front of a car, a fire, etc.  Not saying that you're yelling at your girl, 
just some thoughts.

I also gather that she thinks she has the control since you can't see her.
and I'm guessing this started quite a while ago, too?

Many parents ask there kids to come to them, when the kid doesn't respond,
don't make a big deal about it or ask them to come to you.  Go find them,
and when you do, be very matter of fact about it, saying something like, 
"Oh! There you are!"  .  You are subconsciously
training them then that whether or not they hide, you do the finding
regardless.  Believe it or not, my husband and I were given this advice when
having guide dogs and wanting to train the dog to always come to us.  It
worked for the dogs, and it worked for the girls in the toddler stage.  They
never hid because there was no reason to, and that helped in the control.

You can say things like, "You may not do such and such," or "This behavior
is unacceptable."  While it is obvious to us, you are training your child.
Stay away from phrases like "you're being bad," or any negative phrase with 
the word "you"
in it.  You love your girl, but you don't love her behavior, very big
difference.

Spanking etiquette, if you want to call it that.  We wouldn't ever spank
for things like spilled milk, but would for any open rebellion or 
disobedience, and used as a last resort.  We also would give them a warning, 
and might say something like, if you do such and such again, you will get a 
swat, then very important to follow through.
We only spanked where we knew that they knew they were out and out 
disobeying, which was very
rare.

The first thing we would ask them is, "What did I tell you?"  They would
have to answer back.  Then you ask something like, "And what did you do?"
They have to answer that too.  Again without raised voices.  You have to do
this calmly and objectively.  Then we would send them to their room, saying
we would be up in a few minutes.  What that few minutes does is to help mom
and dad calm down, diffuses the situation, and gets kids really nervous,
according to my daughters, because they would know what is coming.  In about
5 or 10 minutes, one of us would go up to the room, give the swats on the
bottom only. Then we would have a cuddle time for a couple of minutes or
however long it would take for the child to cry, to reassure them we love
them, and that we want them to grow to be a loving adult.

Another thought.  When a daughter did something she shouldn't have done, or 
when older, got herself into a situation she wished she hadn't, in talking 
things out, we would try to look at the solution, get into problem-solving 
mode.  The phrase that starts this off is quote Next Time.  Example, "Next 
time, come to mom first."  "Next time, check with so and so."  When they are 
older and you're talking you can ask them something like, "How do you think 
you can avoid that, or what would help you next time?"

Your daughter sounds very smart and sociable, but all kids are going to test 
their parents, it's part of growing up, it's okay.  How we respond will set 
the tone for the future.  I know lots of people do time-out, but we never 
did.  Hope some of these thoughts are of help, and definitely let us know 
how things go.


Judy
-----Original Message----- 
From: Chris Reagan via BlParent
Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2016 9:24 AM
To: blparent at nfbnet.org
Cc: Chris Reagan
Subject: [blparent] behavior problems with our 4 year old

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/sonshines59%40gmail.com