[blparent] behavior problems with our 4 year old

Sat Mar 26 18:19:23 UTC 2016

First, I wish I could give you a hug.  Being a parent is the hardest thing
ever!  It is clear that you love your daughter, and the amount of stress you
are experiencing is radiating through your message.  I'm sorry.  

While reading your message a few questions were coming to mind.  How long
has this been going on?  Was it a gradual increase of defiance?  From most
of what I have read time outs don't work.  How much positive attention is
your daughter receiving?  Could this be a cry for attention?  The only other
thing I would add is that maybe consider reaching out to a child
psychologist.  Your daughter may not be able to express what is going on,
but it really seems there is a bigger issue causing this.  

Best of luck, and please let us know how things progress.  

Cheering you on!  
Jessica Reed

-----Original Message-----
From: BlParent [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jennifer
Bose via BlParent
Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2016 11:56 AM
To: Blind Parents Mailing List
Cc: Jennifer Bose
Subject: Re: [blparent] behavior problems with our 4 year old

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
>
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