(Vent, JAWM) Why do some kids not listen until you’re a screaming lunatic?

[Katy]

I have a child who will not listen unless I yell or physically grab them and remove them from whatever they’re doing. I have more than one child,  I sometimes cannot physically get there so I end up yelling from across the room. Push, push, push that boundary until I’m angry and hate myself. 
 

You know how you can think you’re a great mom until you have that one kid who makes you realize you were just lucky with mostly gentle and compliant kids until now?  Yep, that’s where I am today. I’ve yelled so many times DH has come up from his office to check on us twice and a dog had to be taken to his office to protect the dog. 
 

It’s probably a growth spurt because same child can’t stop eating everything high in calories in the house after two weeks of barely eating anything, but ugh. I wish kid would take a carton of ice cream to bed and leave every other living creature in this house alone today. 

[PeterPan]

Not a compliant kid in my house, but I hear you on the discrepancy between Mom compliance and Dad compliance or self directed compliance. 

If I get in that rut and take a break, sometimes I'm fresh and see what I need to do.

And yes, send him to his room with the ice cream. Or bring the ice cream to your work station with two spoons. He might suddenly become very compliant.

[RootAnn]

I'm gonna just nod & agree with you. 

4 minutes ago, Katy said:

You know how you can think you’re a great mom until you have that one kid who makes you realize you were just lucky with mostly gentle and compliant kids until now?  

I started off with the One Kid so I started off as a bad mom & then improved. (I didn't really improve. I'm probably a worse mom with my next two mostly compliant kids. Eldest did help me deal with #4 & #5 which have some of One Kid's habits that rub me wrong.)

7 minutes ago, Katy said:

I wish kid would take a carton of ice cream to bed and leave every other living creature in this house alone today. 

I wish I could claim growth spurt some days & retreat to a sound-proofed area with ice cream & chocolate bars.

I hope the vent helped.

[Katy]

3 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

Not a compliant kid in my house, but I hear you on the discrepancy between Mom compliance and Dad compliance or self directed compliance. 

If I get in that rut and take a break, sometimes I'm fresh and see what I need to do.

And yes, send him to his room with the ice cream. Or bring the ice cream to your work station with two spoons. He might suddenly become very compliant.

It’s only 11, we’ve had breakfast and multiple morning snacks so far, but no lunch yet. 

[PeterPan]

Just now, Katy said:

It’s only 11, we’ve had breakfast and multiple morning snacks so far, but no lunch yet. 

Ice cream is dairy, which means it's a food group. Just saying. Put some strawberry sauce on. You can correct any nutritional imbalances at dinner.

PS. Trader Joes has these really good bean burritos that I keep for times like this. After you eat the ice cream, have burritos. They sell little cups of guacamole premade that keep really well. You can freeze them even. Then you just whip out to serve on the burritos. Plenty of filling for a boy and a healthy follow up to the ice cream for his bones. 

[Momto6inIN]

Sometimes I've had to call a big pow wow and declare that we're having a "do-over day" where we all get back in bed and chill for a bit, then pretend to get up again but this time on the right side of the bed and start over. It's silly but it really does help us reset after rather large malfunctions.

[Katy]

5 minutes ago, Momto6inIN said:

Sometimes I've had to call a big pow wow and declare that we're having a "do-over day" where we all get back in bed and chill for a bit, then pretend to get up again but this time on the right side of the bed and start over. It's silly but it really does help us reset after rather large malfunctions.

This is a great idea. Yes, this is exactly what we’re going to do. Have as high calorie a lunch as I can come up with and everyone going down for quiet time afterwards. I don’t care if they’re too old for naps, we all need a break and a do-over today. 

[fairfarmhand]

My oldest was that kid so I felt like a terrible mom for years. And then my oldest moved out and I was left with three kids who were actually enjoyable and fun. I was like OH! This is what parenting should feel like. 

You know those families that have multiple easy kids? I envy them. Really, we probably would've had more children if my oldest didn't struggle the way she did. But you get what you get....

[Amy in NH]

That is very frustrating.

What worked for me:  When not in an elevated emotional state, I had a calm sit-down discussion with the offender(s).  "I don't like having to yell at you, you probably don't like being yelled at/grabbed.  Next time I am starting to feel frustrated with you and know I am about to yell, I will get your attention - you must listen for me when I am calling your name - and I will let you know that I am getting overstimulated by your behavior and I am about to start yelling.  I expect you to stop that behavior immediately."  Then if they didn't, and I had to resort to yelling/grabbing, they got sent to sit on their bed for 15 minutes while I calmed down.  It took a few tries, but then it worked very well.

As far as the growth spurt - feed them a decent amount of protein, and as many baked potatoes as they want.  When I had a bunch of hungry teenagers playing sports, I used to make and freeze 100 beef and bean burritos at a time for them to just thaw and eat when they got home from practices/had a gnawing hunger.

[Katy]

He’s finally full. Only ate 1/4 of his lunch. After French Toast & Turkey Sausage, a large apple and about 1/3 a Costco sized jar of peanut butter, and 2/3 of a party sized bag of tortilla chips I had planned on the whole family have on Monday. I only had to stop him from bugging his siblings again twice. Goodnight all, I think I’ll take a nap too. 

[ScoutTN]

(((Katy)))