I just wrote a very effective reply and forgot to copy before I sent it. Lost the lot. Blast!
here I go again...
Jules, you have got my point exactly. Your son is trying to communicate in the only way he knows how. It is immature and childish, but hey - he IS a child! He has an excuse. Use your own memories of childhood and how it felt, to guide you. Also try to work out what is in his head and use this too.
What you have to do, is model for him the behaviour you want from him. So if you want him to say, "I'm frustrated because..." then YOU have to do this with him.
When you change your methods you will see change. But you will also cop flak from observers who tell you that you are spoiling your child, you are a slack parent for not disciplining your child as you should (ie as they think you should). Too often, this sort of discipline is interpreted by the child as revenge. They then try to punish you the same way, when they feel you have wronged them. So if you shout at your child, your child will shout at you. If you take something of your child's (confiscation) and it is not directly connected to the "crime", then expect a difficult child to 'steal' from you to punish you, for something they are angry about. For example, your child does not do his chores, so you confiscate his iPod. Your child later on gets angry because you don't give him money to go out with friends, so he takes your favourite jeans. A bad pattern to get into. Prevention is best.
We don't punish. Instead, we have natural consequences. We also involve the child in setting the consequences. So if difficult child 3 fails to do his work because he's been playing games, we ask him - what stopped you from working? WHat can we do to resolve this? How can we help you get your work done without the distractions?
Some of the problems we have from others, is their deep belief tat not only do they know better, but we CLEARLY are not listening to them so they will discipline our child when we are out of the room. Their intent is to do our job for us, to present us with a "See? You said traditional methods don't work, but it worked for me!"
Of course, that is when the sewage hits the air conditioning. We do come into the room at times to hear our kid yelling, or perhaps just sitting sullenly, or perhaps even storming out of the room, with a righteously indignant family member telling us that our son is spoiled and needs a good clip round the ear. If the family member is a respected elder, the temptation is to immediately call your child back to make them apologise. Don't. You should never force an apology from anybody who is still angry. They won't mean it and such an apology will be worthless. Instead, get the story from the family member while difficult child is absent. Let them vent, let them talk. Then tell them, "I will talk to difficult child." Then go find your child and let HIM vent. Let him talk. Not in the presence of the other person.
After that - discipline is a private thing.
We have been in the position where we had to tell our child, "What family member did/said was inappropriate, but he/she doesn't know any better. We are teaching you to behave better than that, even where the other person is wrong. Now, you should not have shouted at him/her so I think you should apologise for shouting. But it's up to you. If you do go to apologise, remember that family member is likely to be critical of you and tell you things that may make you feel angry again. Remember, it is up to you to accept what this person says, or to reject it. If you can think about what they say and feel it is wrong, then ignore it. There is not need for you to let wrong information make you angry. In your life, you will often meet people who don't think like you or who have a different opinion. Everybody believes themselves to be right. Some adults want everybody, especially children, to always agree with them. That is not necessarily right. What YOU know to be right, is what is important here. Now, think about that situation. How could you have handled it better?"
We role play it a little and the end result generally is, our child is better insulated against future meddling, and also has learnt a positive lesson in how to cope.
I was just 11 years old when I first realised that adults are not only fallible, but sometimes are bullies as well. My school principal was chastising me in front of the class and I know his aim was to have me in tears. But I had compartmentalised my mind and told myself, "He cannot physically harm me. I have not done anything wrong, he just wants me to believe I have. My mother knows what I have done and might frown, but will not scold. All I have to do is wait here, stand here, until he finishes talking."
The principal was trying that age-old discipline method, "Make the kids cry, especially publicly, then I know I have asserted my authority." My silence in response was classic passive-aggressive. ALso not healthy if it becomes a habit. But it begins as a defence mechanism to the heavy emotional card being played.
Yelling is another emotional attack. Too often, all it does is teach an emotional response.
husband used to yell a lot. He is a classic example of do as you were taught. Not that he grew up with a lot of yelling, but he did grow up with a lot of emotional manipulation and being set up in a lose-lose argument. He was slower than me to change tactic (I was the pioneer in the family; there is always one, it's rare to both be working at the same pace). As a result, husband is more a target for difficult child 3's yelling than I am. But husband is doing brilliantly.
Two nights ago, difficult child 3 was angry about something. We had reached our broadband limit and frankly, it was pretty much difficult child 3's overloading the system. But he was attacking husband and demanding he fix things, when husband intended nothing of the sort (it was due to rollover to the next month's large allowance within hours, anyway - a few hours at slow speed would be a valuable natural consequence). husband kept saying (in the face of difficult child 3's yelling, swearing and direct abuse), "I will not discuss this now. I will discuss it with Mum. If you shout at me again, I will leave. I am not shouting at you; please do not shout at me."
husband left. Told me later I would have been proud of him. I was.
Now, some people would say that we should have chastised difficult child 3 for such bad behaviour. But what would that achieve? The aim of discipline is to teach. Punishing difficult child 3 (as with a lot of difficult children) only feels like revenge to him, and then justifies him taking revenge on us when he is angry. Instead, we talked to him, but made it clear, this was NOT a scolding. "One day you may be a supervisor and have people working for you. You COULD order them to do what you want, but if you are terse, they will resent you. Or you could ask nicely, and they then will be more willing to do what you want. You get a lot more from people when you work with them and not against them. You need to be good to people to get more of what you want."
Because by this time he had calmed down, and also because this was not a scolding, he got the message. As a result, the lesson has been learned, but with no need to punish.
Read "The Explosive Child". And other books. Read other threads here. Read the archives.
Parenting a difficult child takes a change in mindset. It also takes self-confidence and consistency. You need to stand your ground with critics politely and firmly.
Immediate benefits to you -
1) your stress levels should ease, as the behaviour improves, even a little.
2) As you have changed from mentally notching up resentment at your child's infractions, you will have let go a lot of the emotional pain that builds up. You will feel calmer and happier as a person.
3) Eventually other people will notice that you are managing better in general, with other people. These methods can have a very broad application. Find the chink in the armour of that stubborn public official and h=you have a better chance of getting under than person's skin.
You can do this, and you will feel better.
Now, can I post THIS without losing it?
Marg
