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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Dealing with kiddos who have attitude
This is J right now- he acts like he's 14 and gives us attitude about everything.single.thing we ask of him- even things like eating dinner or sitting down while eating dinner.
I hate it and I hate that it causes me to lose my temper and yell at him way more than I should.
Any pointers to get him over this without all of us going to the looney bin? I don't think he gets it 100% and we've tried to rationally talk to him about it and how it makes us all feel, but it's gotten us no where.
Any help or insight would be much appreciated.
Re: Dealing with kiddos who have attitude
Shoot, one of the child psychologists at church just taught a seminar on this very topic last weekend.
I'll keep my eye out for another one.
For the most part, I don't even react to his attitude issues when they come up. It's kind of hard to be pissy by yourself. Earlier tonight he got mad because I told him he couldn't have dessert until he at all his food. He yelled at me " I don't love you! I'm running away!" and blew a raspberry at me. I told him "Well be careful when you go. You should probably eat that so you won't be hungry while you're running away." and went back to what I was doing. He gave me a serious stink eye but ate his food and that was the end of it. 9 out of 10 times me simply not reacting makes it stop. The other 1 out of 10 times, I make him go take some quiet time alone in his room until he calms down. Usually he's tired or frustrated when he gets that way so a little cooling off helps a lot. If it keeps going on and on I give him a very stern warning about what the consequences will be and then follow through without negotiation or further reaction.
I try to remember what is going on in my own head when I am mad about something and then remind myself that N may be 5 but he still has the exact same emotions and doesn't know how to deal with them like I do. I try to allow him to have his feelings and acknowledge them, so long as the attitude isn't crossing the line. But I frequently remind him "It's ok to be mad. It is not ok to be rude."
But don't get me wrong. There are times when I fully understand why some species eat their young.
This exactly. I think it is important to put yourself in their shoes and acknowledge their feelings and talk about their choices.
we tell DS that he cannot talk to us like that - we don't yell but we say it in a harder voice. He either apologizes and says it like he should (and he doesn't get what he wants until he says it nice - or depending - not at all). or he goes to his room until he can figure out how to talk to people.
we also tell him that we don't talk like that so there should be no reason for him to talk like that to us.
I keep calm and acknowledge her feelings ("I see you are angry/upset/etc.") but lay down the law re the 'tude ("but that is not how you talk to me about it using a mean girl voice") and then model the more appropriate way ("instead, try taking a deep breath first so you can say "mommy, I'm upset with you now because you ____" so I can listen to you."). If she didn't respond to that (she did refuse once or twice), I've said "Oh, is this how you want to talk to people we love and our family and for us to talk to you? Okay, I can talk to you like that." Then I say things in that nasty, snarly way and that's usually enough to have some backtracking quickly. I have found the more I give her an appropriate alternative, the more she tends to take that acceptable path. Then she finds new ways to drive me nuts but that's another post...
ETA: I used the book Purplicious to help on this point. I'd checked it out for DD as she liked the other books and didn't like it much until I realized it could be a good tool for teaching about mean kids, mean words and mean voices (I read the kids in a nasty voice).
DD -- 5YO
DS -- 3YO
We have been dealing with this quite a bit in our house as well lately. I try to remain calm and not yell and then tell her that we don't talk that way and she is going to get xxx by acting like that. If she continues, then she goes to her room until she can act nicely again.
We have also been doing a reward chart. So if she still wants to act that way, then I threaten to start crossing stickers off.
If you makes you feel better, this morning was a bad enough morning that she had 3 stickers crossed off - all before 8 am.
Hadley is like this too. "No" comes out with so much attitude, even if I just ask her something simple like, "did you go to the bathroom?". It is obnoxious!
We use 1-2-3 Magic at our house. Basically I just look at her and say something about her talk, tone of voice (I have explained what this is in detail giving examples). It's usually one sentence like, "I don't like your tone. That's 1". We've used it enough now that at 1 it usually works but we've been at it for almost a year now. At 3 she gets a time out, toy taken away, sent to her room or some other loss of privilege that is appropriate for that moment.
My thoughts, based on things I've read is, less is more. They often know they are being inappropriate (at 5 anyway) but just need to be reminded over and over. Which yes, does drive us all insane! I don't always remain calm. I have lost my temper plenty but this tool has been invaluable for me. Even when I start to raise my voice, over talk it, I can always stop myself and just say, "that's 1".