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My 3yo is a monster


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Not all the time. But often enough. If he's tired or bored or something doesn't go his way, he morphs into a bad place. He makes ugly faces. He talks in a different voice. He runs around looking for naughty things to do, quite literally. He tries to annoy me. He destroys things. He will not play with me or do anything productive that he usually enjoys. He hurts his little brother. He's just an all-around terror. He becomes very hardened so that nothing I do appears to affect him, positive or negative. He's been this way his whole life, my other two kids are totally sweet and nothing like this so it's not an age thing primarily.

 

Anyone have a kid like this? Any coping tips? I get so angry about his attitude that I yell and spank and say mean things. I can deal with naughty toddlers. I can't handle that he's naughty with malice!

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My first was so so hard. I also took it personally when his behavior was difficult like I was doing something wrong. I was so much harder on him than I should have been. My now 4 year is a lot like my oldest but it is so much easier now that I realize it's just the way 3 year olds are. It's frustrating and exhausting but it's just a phase you have to get through, not something you have to fix in them.

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Not all the time. But often enough. If he's tired or bored or something doesn't go his way, he morphs into a bad place. He makes ugly faces. He talks in a different voice. He runs around looking for naughty things to do, quite literally. He tries to annoy me. He destroys things. He will not play with me or do anything productive that he usually enjoys. He hurts his little brother. He's just an all-around terror. He becomes very hardened so that nothing I do appears to affect him, positive or negative. He's been this way his whole life, my other two kids are totally sweet and nothing like this so it's not an age thing primarily.

 

Anyone have a kid like this? Any coping tips? I get so angry about his attitude that I yell and spank and say mean things. I can deal with naughty toddlers. I can't handle that he's naughty with malice!

You are doing a lot of assigning of motives, and labeling, toward a child who is only three. Children may have issues and may need some intervention but they are not monsters. Nor can you be sure he has malicious intent. "Something wrong" doesn't mean "something evil."

 

I think you need some IRL help. Please consider asking your child's doctor for a referral for evaluations for him, support and education for yourself...maybe some of these professionals can help you get some answers and hopefully reconnect with your son.

 

Even if he's perfectly normal but you simply have a major personality clash, you might still gain some perspective and some parenting tips, if someone who knows what they're talking about can work with you both IRL. In the meantime, feeling this way toward him, you should not be spanking and yelling. Go with something counterintuitive and pull him closer. Attach more, if you can, when he seems the least lovable.

Edited by Tibbie Dunbar
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3 was way worse than 2 here. DS was lovely at 2, but 3 was a lot trickier. They're really learning what their boundaries are and how to push them effectively. Lots of outside time, playing and hugs when they start to melt down. And 4 was a lot easier!

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He sounds like a perfectly normal three year old. I really can't imagine at three there is any malice in his motives. He's feeling big and overwhelming three year old emotions, and this is his way of communicating.

 

I can't imagine that spanking and saying mean things to your overwhelmed and frustrated toddler is productive at all. I have a two year old who is frustrating and destroys everything if left alone for a second. He throws terrible temper tantrums and never sleeps. He's driving me crazy...but he's two, and that's his job. My job is to be the adult and help him manage all those big toddler feelings and desires.

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It is not normal behavior. I know other kids. I've talked to lots of moms. I am actually working with a child psychologist. She says that he's exceptionally difficult and on a road to developing a defiance disorder. It's not a phase, he has been this way since he learned to crawl, literally. Spanking is somewhat effective. Obviously I don't want to yell at him, I just get angry and lash out from time to time. I'm getting my own counseling about that too.

 

I just thought maybe someone else had an unusually defiant, difficult child and might have advice. "He's just normal" isn't true, per his pediatrician and psychologist, and it isn't helpful.

 

I've tried the whole love-it-out-of-him thing, so far to no avail. I have 3 under 4, which is certainly part of the problem. I cannot interact with him every waking moment. But if I leave him alone at all, this is what I get.

 

 

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 It's not a phase, he has been this way since he learned to crawl, literally. 

 

Well, do you think he was being malevolent when he was less than a year old? Of course not. Well, if it wasn't out of malice then, it most likely isn't out of malice now. If he truly isn't normal and has a problem, then punishing him for that seems pretty unfair, doesn't it? Not to mention, it obviously doesn't work or you wouldn't be posting about it. 

 

You need more answers, not more punishment. 

 

He sounds very like my son. We did resort to spankings, yelling, etc. Tried bribing too. Nothing worked. But it damaged our relationship, and made me feel horribly guilty when he was finally diagnosed. 

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We're only just getting to the point of recommendations. First we had 3 evaluation appointments, then one appointment devoted to a particular issue, and tomorrow we should be able to discuss this. She's busy and it's weeks between appointments.

 

 

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My oldest is diagnosed as on the autistic spectrum and has a lot of characteristics of oppositional defiant disorder. He was somewhat difficult at three, but truthfully he really did need my attention just about every waking moment. He still does need an incredible amount of interaction. In all fairness though, my current toddler is much more demanding and destructive than my oldest ever was.

 

I would seek an evaluation and perhaps intervention. I do wonder if some of it is a highly demanding personality combined with being in a family with lots of littles.

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I do think that as an infant he was trying to do things that I did not want him to do. Now he thinks, "what would make my mom most mad? What would cause the most trouble?" By malice, I mean purposely trying to cause harm, as opposed to my 2yo who does naughty things because they're fun, not because they're naughty. I don't mean that he's a wretched sinner.

 

 

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I do think that as an infant he was trying to do things that I did not want him to do. Now he thinks, "what would make my mom most mad? What would cause the most trouble?" By malice, I mean purposely trying to cause harm, as opposed to my 2yo who does naughty things because they're fun, not because they're naughty. I don't mean that he's a wretched sinner.

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He was being naughty for the sake of it, for sure. I don't really care whether you call that malicious or not.

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Does the child psychologist agree that your son tried to be bad and disobey you as an infant? And does he or she agree that spanking is an effective method?

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My kid wasn't like this but I had other concerns with him. Now at age 12, he is getting OT and I realized now that he could have used it many years ago. I was plenty frustrated at times by his behavior and I knew he didnt want to act that way. I just didn't know anything about these therapies and what they could help with. He's doing sensory/motor type stuff and retained reflexes. So if you're looking for suggestions, I would find an OT trained in that and get an eval done. As I said, I wish I had known. The brain/body/emotional relationship was not something I was aware of.

 

I do not think it sounds like normal 3 year old behavior (just my opinion for what it's worth). It sounds like he is looking for a reaction to help make himself feel better. (That's what mine told me when he was old enough). As you know, yelling doesn't help. That and the spankings do give him reactions though. Change the type of reactions he gets other times and when he is being good, go way overboard with positive attention. When he is acting out, try matching his intensity and do that active listening talk. 'You are mad! You are frustrated that you can't have that! I bet you wish ...!' Then you're giving words to what he is feeling and showing that you understand him. My friend was really good at that with her kids.

The OT has been worth for him; he feels the difference in how he feels and in his self control.

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This sounds really frustrating. (Thank you, Captain Obvious, right?). At first it sounded like you had a normal-wild three year old. But now that you've updated, it'sclear that something much more is going on.

 

At this point, without the feedback from the doc I'm not sure there's advice we can give, so I'll just give hugs and understanding. I hope the doc can come up with a few effective ways to handle his intensity. Once you have a dx, I'll bet there are people that could chime in on what worked for them.

 

And I believe you that he's looking around to do things to make you upset, whether he fully understands why he's doing it or not. Something inside him is calling out for attention and then going overboard with it.

 

My son has ADHD, so it's much milder than what you're dealing with, but boy-oh-boy could he drive me crazy. I remember someone telling me about how I should take 15 minutes here and there to tidy up the house and I went home and cried because the idea that I'd have 15 glorious minutes to do *anything* before the boy needed my attention was about as attainable as peace in the Middle East. I could get maybe 3 minutes before he was either getting into some sort of trouble or somehow demanding my attention. He was about 6 before I could get 15 minutes without him neeeeeeding me. And that was just once or twice a day. (It's completely different now. He certainly outgrew that and now he's a pleasant young man and we're all introverted and give each other just the right amount of space.)

 

So, I'm just commiserating with you a tiny bit because you're looking for some understanding. When the doc tells you a little more, I hope you'll have some tools to use to help in this situation. The only thing I regret is that I was harsh on my son when he was small. It's like that was all he would respond to. If I was gentle or quiet he just got worse. Only yelling seemed to get through. But now I wish I'd found another way to connect with him. It was hard, hard, hard, but I still feel very sad inside when I think back to how I would yell. There just *had* to have been another way.

 

ETA: There are other ways. I'm thinking back and I learned to be very careful to have lots and lots of positive interactions whenever I could, especially after we'd been "apart." Apart would mean--after sleeping, after focusing on a tv show, after being away from each other in separate rooms, etc. I would make sure that when we met back up again, even if it was just 5 minutes apart, that we'd have a happy reunion. So, for example, if he was playing in a room with his dad, I would not walk in and say, "Ok, time to put the toys away!" Instead, I'd walk in and give him a big hug and ask him about his toys and *then* after the re-connection, say, "Let's put away the toys."

 

It wasn't fool proof. Sometimes no one wants to put away toys no matter if mom burst in and demanded it, or if she hugged and connected and then suggested it. But it did help a bit to make sure we had a happy positive interaction before I'd have to have him do something he didn't want to do.

Edited by Garga
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I can sympathize. I have one that seemed defiant since he learned to crawl (at 5 months!). Obviously he wasn't actually being defiant, but it sure could seem that way. He would go from one thing he couldn't have to the next. It got even worse when he learned to climb. Three was hard, four was the worst, five was pretty hard. He just turned 7 and is such a delightful kid now.

 

What I did that saved my sanity was completely baby proof his room-mattress on the floor, one basket of toys, and one basket of board books and nothing else. He had an hour of quiet time a day in there and was in bed by 8:00 every night. When he was awake I tried to be extremely patient and loving toward him and it helped that I knew that at 8 I was done.

 

Three is hard, but it is so very little. He has lots of time to learn how to behave correctly.

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I also don't think it sounds normal...but don't know what sort of problem it is.

 

At one point when I was dealing with an adult who was probably a psychopath I became aware that that sort of thing is probably present since infancy, but that there are still ways of handling it that tend to have better outcomes long term.  I'm not saying your ds is a psychopath, just that even if that were so as a sort of worst case scenario, there are still ways to handle that as a parent that are likely to result in a pretty good kid as an end adult, rather than a monster adult.

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Does the child psychologist agree that your son tried to be bad and disobey you as an infant? And does he or she agree that spanking is an effective method?

Yes, to the first. Jury is still out for her on the second. She isn't definitely opposed to it, but nothing works especially well.

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I can sympathize. I have one that seemed defiant since he learned to crawl (at 5 months!). Obviously he wasn't actually being defiant, but it sure could seem that way. He would go from one thing he couldn't have to the next. It got even worse when he learned to climb. Three was hard, four was the worst, five was pretty hard. He just turned 7 and is such a delightful kid now.

 

What I did that saved my sanity was completely baby proof his room-mattress on the floor, one basket of toys, and one basket of board books and nothing else. He had an hour of quiet time a day in there and was in bed by 8:00 every night. When he was awake I tried to be extremely patient and loving toward him and it helped that I knew that at 8 I was done.

 

Three is hard, but it is so very little. He has lots of time to learn how to behave correctly.

Yes, I have a totally safe room too where he goes for 90 minutes. Sometimes he sleeps, sometimes not. I'm having an especially hard week because DH is on a business trip.

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Haven't read all posts, so maybe this has been already suggested.

Lots of regulation issues at that age and maybe more so in some kids.

When he is out of control, have you tried holding him tightly but of course not hurting him until the thrashing stops? Ignore everything else he does, like making faces or screaming at the top of his lungs.

I've seen this work for some kids but they are all individuals and sometimes we have to look for a while before we come up with something effective.

 

What strategies does the psychologist suggest and what therapeutic approach is she taking with him?

Edited by Liz CA
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I said it in another recent thread and I'll say it again--diet can make a huge, huge difference with this type of behavior. If you haven't already, try cutting out dyes, preservatives, artificial and "natural" flavors, artificial sweeteners, and flavor enhancers. The difference was literally night and day in our house. See fedup.com.au and feingold.org.

 

I am not a food fixes everything kind of a person. Your son very well may have other things going on. But cutting out the ingredients that have been shown to cause oppositional behavior for a month or so can't hurt and might help tremendously.

 

A three-year-old is old enough to know he's being naughty on purpose. You have my sympathy. Things will go better if you don't spank in anger, don't raise your voice, and don't say unkind things. Our kids need us to be more self-controlled than they are.  ;)

 

:grouphug:  :grouphug:  :grouphug:

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Have you considered that your easy kids are the anomaly and THIS behavior is why other parents were complaining about this age? The Attitude Fairy comes at three. Even my super easy kid had some ridiculous moments at that age. (And a few more between 14 and 16.) Don't take it personally.

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He wasn't manipulating me, he was just deliberately breaking all the rules, just because they were forbidden. He's very gifted, he was quite advanced in comprehension for his age.

 

Physical restraint of any kind makes him panic.

 

 

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It is not normal behavior. I know other kids. I've talked to lots of moms. I am actually working with a child psychologist. She says that he's exceptionally difficult and on a road to developing a defiance disorder. It's not a phase, he has been this way since he learned to crawl, literally. Spanking is somewhat effective. Obviously I don't want to yell at him, I just get angry and lash out from time to time. I'm getting my own counseling about that too.

 

I just thought maybe someone else had an unusually defiant, difficult child and might have advice. "He's just normal" isn't true, per his pediatrician and psychologist, and it isn't helpful.

 

I've tried the whole love-it-out-of-him thing, so far to no avail. I have 3 under 4, which is certainly part of the problem. I cannot interact with him every waking moment. But if I leave him alone at all, this is what I get.

 

 

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I do think that as an infant he was trying to do things that I did not want him to do. Now he thinks, "what would make my mom most mad? What would cause the most trouble?" By malice, I mean purposely trying to cause harm, as opposed to my 2yo who does naughty things because they're fun, not because they're naughty. I don't mean that he's a wretched sinner.

 

 

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Yes, I have a totally safe room too where he goes for 90 minutes. Sometimes he sleeps, sometimes not. I'm having an especially hard week because DH is on a business trip.

 

One, since you know it's a disability involved you might wanna come on over to LC. Not that you can't talk disabilities here, but on LC people are working on the assumption it's a disability, not a young, novice, overwhelmed mom needing to be told it gets better with time. Nobody realized you had that other back channel stuff. Those of us who've btdt can predict it, but in general that "this is what kids do" gig is a pretty normal response.

 

Socialthinking - Articles This article might fascinating you because it can let you contrast an ODD profile (what they call Resistant Social Communicator) and a more straight ASD presentation (other levels like ESC, etc.). Just read the article and you'll see. It doesn't apply to your ds just yet, because he's young, but you might see things in there, patterns and differences. 

 

My *personal* advice on that is to make sure that you're really getting a team approach and seeing all the issues. You don't want some psych calling it ODD when they haven't seen enough to realize it's ASD. You don't want to miss OT or language issues. Someone mentioned that. And I think the Social Thinking people might be selling a book for ODD, look and see.

 

Hmm, now for my own two cents. I hate to give it. I'm not opposed to spanking, not in the sense of spanking that is done with an intent to restore. With my ds, spanking did not communicate. All it did was set off his sensory issues and make things worse and make him more dysregulated. He now has an autism diagnosis. So whether spanking is appropriate for your situation or not, I can't say. I will say, as someone who thinks it *can* be a reasonable tool, that it actually needs to be communicating. The dc has to understand cause/effect in order for him to make the connection that, hello, I did X and Y happened and I don't what Y to happen again so I won't do X again. If the dc isn't getting cause/effect, it really might not be an effective tool. For my ds, that just wasn't where he was developmentally at that age or for a long, long, long time. 

 

Also, someone mentioned you're assigning motives. Far be it from me to say why he's doing things, mercy. You could be reading it correctly, or you could be missing it. And I think if there are legit issues (developmentally, with language, with social thinking, whatever), then sometimes the way things LOOK isn't what's really going on. Like I remember talking with this mom whose dc was on the spectrum, while her ds was twisting this knob on a toy around and around and around. She's like HE'S JUST DOING THAT TO BUG ME AND IT REALLY BUGS ME!!! I looked at him, looked at how engaged he was, and I'm thinking wow, that's a lot of social thinking to expect out of a kid with autism, lol. Really, he's thinking about the click click noise and what the gears look like inside and how fascinating it is and wondering what they look like and liking how the repetitive sound makes him feel (sensory). But in her ever so NT (neurotypical) perspective, that kid with social thinking deficits was CLEARLY OUT TO GET HER.

 

You have 3 kids under 4 and your dh is out of town for a week? That's really hard for ANYBODY. You need help, and you need see what you can do to make that happen. Respite care, a person from church, a relative who moves closer, your whole family moving closer to a relative. Whatever is going on is not going to change or get easier in the next 3 or 6 months. He's going to be like this another 18 years. So assume and make a change. 

 

Have you called in EI? If he still qualifies, you would be WELL ADVISED to bring in EI. Once he's 4, the ps takes over and it's a pain in the butt. Calling in EI while he's still 3 and letting them eval is the way to go. They will bring services to your home, which will give you respite.

 

Some kids really are just pistols. You're at a point where you know it's not. Don't be afraid to come hang on LC. It's not too early. :)

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He wasn't manipulating me, he was just deliberately breaking all the rules, just because they were forbidden. He's very gifted, he was quite advanced in comprehension for his age.

 

Physical restraint of any kind makes him panic.

 

 

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You're going to want to start reading stuff on the Social Thinking site and getting better tools. If he does not have any developmental delays and his IQ is that high, then he's probably able to do mindfulness, somatic experiencing, and other strategies that could help him learn to self-regulate better. We've got Zones of Regulation, which he actually may be ready for. He shouldn't be by chrono age, but I'm just saying if his IQ is that high go out of the box and consider it.

 

So he's got extreme anxiety, yes? Again, that's something concrete you can work with. You've got nutrition, books from the Social Thinking site, all kinds of tools. Depending on where he is, CBT strategies might work for him. My ds doesn't have the self-awareness to apply anything like that, even though he has the IQ. But if your ds is manipulating, that's a totally different level of social thinking.

 

Does he understand cause/effect? First/then? Like if you present things in a first/then format, does he understand? What about if/then?

 

What motivates him? You find what motivates a person in order to control the flow of it and modify behavior. Sometimes it helps to think through it that way.

Edited by OhElizabeth
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nm

 

Agreed though I don't mean it in a perjorative way, only in a nice way. :) The challenge in parenting is to move from assuming everything is about being "bad" and to asking whether it's COMMUNICATION. If we take the behavior personally, then we can't stop and ask what it's telling us about his self-regulation, about what he needs, about what's going on. 

 

The number one thing I'd be doing right now with that dc is getting him connected to someone. The amount of down time and alone time that is acceptable in normal homeschooling is NOT acceptable with SN, imho. Like put him in preschool, get him some structure, bring someone into the home. I haven't done ODD, because my ds turned out to be ASD in a way that people will think is ODD. I'm just saying I would be BEGGING to make more connection time happen. The more you can decrease the negative behaviors simply by giving him more chances to have positive (tomato staking), the more momentum you'll have in a better direction. I just think you can't do that too much. It might be a really important tool for you. I try not to have my ds have a lot of feral time. He really needs to have that time connected to other people, time COMPLYING WITH DEMANDS, to stay connected and have appropriate behaviors. When he is allowed to go feral for a few hours and just do his own thing, he's MUCH harder to snap back and work with. 

 

So the more your ds has someone working with him, tomato staking, making simple demands (put this here, find the blue one, hold this open while I do that, help me stack these), the better. Not just babysitting and people letting him do whatever he wants. The people have to actually make demands that he has to comply with. Sometimes people work around behaviors by not making demands, ugh. 

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Edited by Susan Wise Bauer
Deleted quote from nasty post, left helpful advice.
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Believing infants manipulate their caretakers is not a sign of a professional you can trust.

 

It would be good to have a 2nd opinion and a team approach. We had a misdiagnosis from a psych, so it does happen. Also, we don't know what the IQ of this dc is. 

 

In general, I don't think psychs are always quite as up on things as they ought to be. Now that I've used a bunch of them, my impression has sort of gone down. :(

 

My ds, from day 1, has been EXTREMELY self-determinant. Manipulate is a really edgy word, but there can be something about SN and the *intensity* of the dc and the self-determination and the IQ. It's something people will comment on. To me, I'm reading what she's writing and going ok, might not be putting it the best way but she's probably legit seeing SOMETHING. The question is what the SOMETHING is and what the word is. When we back off the really emotional, behavior-judging words (manipulate, bad, etc.) we can be more precise.

 

I also think there's something odd about a psych fitting in a client here and there, when the situation seems sort of emergency. But, like I said, I've got sort of a nasty, cynical opinion of psychs these days. They get paid a ton of money, have no consequences if they're wrong, and sometimes do a really hack job. So you have no way, as the customer, to know if what you're getting is half good, all good, or anything else. Sometimes half the point is to make you feel better. 

 

You should be getting referrals, definitely. What is your ped suggesting? 

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Edited by OhElizabeth
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What is your daily routine and how old is everyone?

 

You need to move away from the conscious defiance crap and look to the functions of the behavior. Come on over to the behavior world. You have a good start. You said when he's tired, bored, or doesn't get his way he morphs.

 

Toddler proof the house for him so he can't pull things over or knock them down. (I tantrum proof for a 5 and 12 year old, so it's possible)

 

Get him out a lot so he can run and climb where it's acceptable.

 

Hire a mother's helper for him, or for the others so you can focus on him.

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Not all the time. But often enough. If he's tired or bored or something doesn't go his way, he morphs into a bad place. He makes ugly faces. He talks in a different voice. He runs around looking for naughty things to do, quite literally. He tries to annoy me. He destroys things. He will not play with me or do anything productive that he usually enjoys. He hurts his little brother. He's just an all-around terror. He becomes very hardened so that nothing I do appears to affect him, positive or negative. He's been this way his whole life, my other two kids are totally sweet and nothing like this so it's not an age thing primarily.

 

Anyone have a kid like this? Any coping tips? I get so angry about his attitude that I yell and spank and say mean things. I can deal with naughty toddlers. I can't handle that he's naughty with malice!

 

When Hobbes was like that, he needed attention and would do anything to get it.  I would take him in my arms, cuddle him close, ask him what was going on, and talk to him about what our expectations were.  No time out, no naughty chair.  I would hold him until he was calm and snuggly. 

 

Then we would do over anything necessary (tidy up any mess together, say sorry together).  Over time, he was more likely to come for a hug than cause a riot.  He didn't perceive it as 'rewarding bad behaviour'.  Instead he was a three year old getting the attention he needed.

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He sounds like my younger brother.  My mom used to say he was switched at the hospital, because he was so different from the other kids.

 

He was always extremely headstrong and demanding since birth.  On the positive side, he was also very intelligent, capable, and independent.  :)  At 7yo he used to leave after school and not come home until well after dinner - every day having his own adventures - and no amount of punishment or bribes helped.  So no, it wasn't a phase.  :P

 

What helped him most was realizing what he was really good at and being encouraged to pursue that.  In my brother's case, that was music.  He had a natural talent and could play by ear starting at 2yo.  When he was playing the piano, he was happy and not getting into trouble.  I hope your little one discovers a positive passion soon.  :)

 

And eventually, just natural consequences.  Wanting something really badly but not being allowed to have it because of poor choices.  The realization that his own choices really do matter.  In your son's case, perhaps you could take away toys when he breaks something, and explain to him in a moment of calm that things get lost when we don't treat things with care.

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I also have a kid who winds herself up and can't talk herself down.  At 2-3yo it would present as a half-hour screaming fit (thankfully not very often, and thankfully not violent).  Now at 10yo it manifests as very age-inappropriate backtalk.  In her case I strongly believe it has to do with blood sugar, as it happens when she's hungry, but it can also happen when she's simply stressed out.  It's not pretty, but so far we haven't figured out quite how to help her.  (Not for lack of trying.)

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He wasn't manipulating me, he was just deliberately breaking all the rules, just because they were forbidden. He's very gifted, he was quite advanced in comprehension for his age.

 

Physical restraint of any kind makes him panic.

 

 

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At 6 months old??? They don't have a sense of right and wrong at that age. 

 

Children who are acting badly feel badly. Please continue to get him help. Seek out a developmental pediatrician or a neuropsychologist. 

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Get him out a lot so he can run and climb where it's acceptable.

 

Our Y has gymnastics programs for preschool. In fact, when I realized how nice the programs were, I wondered why I hadn't put him IN their preschool. In the summer, the kids go swimming every day too! You want that tomato staking and the increased demands. You want to see what happens when he's in other environments. Doesn't have to be preschool, but one with a strong physical component, like at the Y, could be something to *try* if you thought it would go ok. Or do like we did and get him going in gymnastics. There's lots of compliance work, and they get that good banging and crashing and risk taking. You can't have too much with some kids.

 

Are you getting out to the park? Our park has a sandbox. You're going to want really clear expectations and consequences (this is the plan, we're going to stay 40 minutes till the alarm goes off, you'll get warnings at 5, 3, and 1 minutes before then, if you don't come when you're called we won't be able to go back tomorrow or won't get the ICE CREAM CONE we're going for after the park...). Making yourself really high value and motivating, kwim? The more momentum you can get by setting things up like that, the better. 

 

I actually do compliance drills with my ds. You can google it and see it on youtube. Laugh all you want and say it's horrible, but it's what smart grannies do with kids when they come to their house. Gets them obeying. If I can get my ds through 10-15 of those small demands, his brain goes into "Oh, THAT'S what I'm supposed to be doing" mode, and he's much easier to work with.

 

I have workers in my house twice a day most days this summer. Like this is really what I do, kwim? My ds can be pretty astonishing and non-compliant. We really work hard to make sure someone FRESH is working with him, so that he has demands, is staying connected, and so it stays positive. We really need that momentum. I was afraid having him obey others would be confusing or bad, but it actually helps. He hadn't (and actually still hasn't) picked up the clue phone on who we obey and why. It requires a lot of social thinking to have figured out ok I obey Mommy, Daddy, sometimes my cousins or big siblings, sometimes adults at church, NOT strangers or bad people... It's really complex! My ds' paradigm was really simple: I obey whoever is BIGGEST. For real, ugh. And because of his social thinking deficits, any physical discipline just turned that into obeying whoever is strongest. Like that's really not gonna work for life, kwim?

 

I don't know what your ds' social thinking deficits are. It's something you can read about and learn about, so you don't assume incorrectly. There are materials aimed even at 4 yos for Social Thinking, things like picture books. You can filter on that site by age. If you're getting that referral for behavior, they'll have some strategies like that and help you sort it out (what is social thinking, what is an OT issue, what motivates him, how we can get him on a more positive track with some momentum of compliance, some increasing understanding). I really think IQ complicates it too. He really may be as astonishing as you think if he's wicked smart. My ds' misunderstandings of the world are very firm. Some kids, without that sort of 2E challenge, can be more straightforward. The 2E just makes it more complex, like his brain is TRYING to piece it together without all the information to come to an accurate conclusion.

 

  I would hold him until he was calm and snuggly. 

... Instead he was a three year old getting the attention he needed.

It's helpful information for the op if she can see what happens when she tries that. Is that cuddling calming to him? Does he resist it and run away? If you try to hug him for calming when he's yellow zone or red zone (losing control, not calm), is it *calming* to him or does he become more aggressive? It can tell you a lot about where he is, the need for referrals for OT, etc.

 

Some very bright kids actually crave and try to create their own therapy. They don't always know what they need, just that they need something. Our culture, even our homeschooling culture, says kids ought to play alone, blah blah. My ds, when he has his ABA, comes out wanting MORE interaction. And it's not like we neglected him before, honest, but now it's like WOW he really CRAVES it! Some kids need a LOT of interaction to get the inputs to work through what their bodies and brains are working through. So tomato staking, fresh workers, preschool, anywhere where they are committed to giving that level of stepped up interaction and demands. To me, there's enough work to go around. I can have workers AND work with him myself and have it not be too much.

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The dc has to understand cause/effect in order for him to make the connection that, hello, I did X and Y happened and I don't what Y to happen again so I won't do X again. If the dc isn't getting cause/effect, it really might not be an effective tool. For my ds, that just wasn't where he was developmentally at that age or for a long, long, long time. 

 

 

 

 

 

This. My son had no concept of cause and effect. None. Not until he was almost 13 yrs old. So traditional discipline, as in punishment and reward, did nothing but frustrate me. What worked, as well as anything, was to manipulate the environment. So, at three I knew he'd use any kind of long object (bat, plastic golf club, etc) as a weapon. So he couldn't have them. Period. He couldn't be unsupervised. He needed to be fed every few hours. If I was supervising I could stop things before they got bad, usually. 

 

He did get better, and is not the serial killer I feared he'd be. 

SaveSave

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I also have a kid who winds herself up and can't talk herself down.  At 2-3yo it would present as a half-hour screaming fit (thankfully not very often, and thankfully not violent).  Now at 10yo it manifests as very age-inappropriate backtalk.  In her case I strongly believe it has to do with blood sugar, as it happens when she's hungry, but it can also happen when she's simply stressed out.  It's not pretty, but so far we haven't figured out quite how to help her.  (Not for lack of trying.)

 

Zones of Regulation

Also the book Interoception. I would do the body scan exercises there and help her begin noticing the symptoms and putting words to it. You can put her eating into a routine so her blood sugar doesn't drop.

 

It's sort of inverse, but there's some thought that the stress and anxiety is weakening the adrenals which is causing the hypoglycemia. So instead of focusing on the hypoglycemia directly, you work on lowering the stress and improving self-regulation. Interoception activities are mindfulness, but you can take them farther and learn more about it. 

 

Fwiw, I used to have hypoglycemia, so I get what you're saying. We got it a lot better using a nutritionist and rebuilding adrenals. Really though, she's old enough to be learning to self-regulate, to recognize how she feels and how her body feels and use strategies to calm down and make better choices.

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...he ran away from me in a busy parking lot as I juggled two bigger kids, a new baby, and a grocery cart. One quick swat, a stern explanation of why we don't run away....the swat seemed to only get his attention so he heard the explanation. It has never worked any other time for him, and it has damaged our relationship.

 

... in a SCHEDULED and PREDICTABLE way for some boys.

...

I like Susan Wise Bauer's analogy for teaching skill subjects as being nibbled to death by ducks. I think parenting takes the same kind if philosphy. A little done consistently over a long time WILL yield astonishing results. 

 

She said a lot of good things here, so I wanted to pull out some important points. :)

 

One, that running away is what they call "body in the group" in Social Thinking. In other words, they have materials so you can TEACH this and have WORDS for it. That way they SEE it ahead of time, PRACTICE it ahead of time, have a way to understand what your expectation is, and you have a way to say when it's not happening. 

 

Schedule, predictable... They're going to call this STRUCTURE and CONSEQUENCES. Not punitive, but follow through. We taught the expected behavior and we explained the consequence (can be positive!). So we PRAISE more because praise can be a reinforcer to help them notice that they're doing the thing we wanted and were trying to teach them. Positive touch, like a pat or a huge or a high five or fist bump, can be a positive physical reinforcer. It takes a lot of energy and a fresh worker.

 

So then, I'll disagree on one thing. I haven't found nibbled to death by ducks to work on my ds, unless you've brought in a HERD of ducks. :lol:  He may need more, more, more exposures to the concept. He may need to circle back around on it over and over to understand it at deeper levels. He may need a lot more attention than one MORTAL is going to provide all by themselves.

 

In our house, with my ds, the behaviorist will not bring in a worker for longer than 4 hours. She's like nope, they'll be too worn out. And sometimes all they're doing is playing Wii and games and stuff! He is just really intense. It's ok to say your dc is really special and benefits from a stepped up level of interaction. There's sort of reverse discrimination with gifted kids, like they assume oh they're so smart that they'll just figure it out, understand, and they won't need that much support. I say they need MORE support. My ds sometimes needs a LOT of support to have expected behaviors. It's really fatiguing to keep up with. It's why I go to the Y so much. I get a break and I'm paying someone else to work with him, lol. Gymnastics is the deal of the century btw. Like do the math per hour. I pay my college student ABA workers $20 an hour, which is considered cheap. I get *24* hours of gymnastics in a group setting (compliance work, positive reinforcement) a month for $80. Makes the Y a DEAL!  :lol:

Edited by OhElizabeth
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This. My son had no concept of cause and effect. None. Not until he was almost 13 yrs old. So traditional discipline, as in punishment and reward, did nothing but frustrate me. What worked, as well as anything, was to manipulate the environment. So, at three I knew he'd use any kind of long object (bat, plastic golf club, etc) as a weapon. So he couldn't have them. Period. He couldn't be unsupervised. He needed to be fed every few hours. If I was supervising I could stop things before they got bad, usually. 

 

He did get better, and is not the serial killer I feared he'd be. 

SaveSave

 

I don't know how they eval social thinking at this age (3). It's very interesting though. Someone can be very gifted and NOT be making inferences, not be getting cause/effect, etc. When they're older, we have things like the Test of Problem Solving that give us data on it. 

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Does the child psychologist agree that your son tried to be bad and disobey you as an infant? And does he or she agree that spanking is an effective method?

I was going to ask the same. If yes, you need to find another psychologist. And look into whether that person actually has the education and licensing they claim.

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Hire a mother's helper for him, or for the others so you can focus on him.

 

Or flip it and hire the person to work with the SN dc. Over time it will affect the others if they realize Mom isn't giving them attention because the other is sucking it up. Also, he's going to need to be able to comply with a variety of people, not just you. So bringing in someone else that he has to work with, someone who is fresh, can be really good. 

 

It's just choices people make. You can even make different choices for different seasons. But to send him to a preschool that has structure and behavioral supports to handle him would *not* be so crazy. Then you could focus on the others. And maybe other times you flip that. 

 

That's just what I found with my ds and dd, that my dd really needed attention and couldn't get it because ds was so intense. So if I pay someone to work with him and it gives me time to be with her, that's a good thing. And it's not like his bucket gets so full that I don't get time with him, mercy. It just clones the love and makes more happen.

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