Mandy, you said, "I do know that i screwed up and it went more into a power struggle with difficult child, but I am new at this whole new way of thinking and I know I am bound to make a few mistakes.This is completly different than how I parent(ed) easy child. We had always punishment & rewards with easy child and difficult child could care less most of the time about either."
Of course it happens, especially in the adaptation process. Don't beat yourself up over it, just learn form it yourself and move on. This takes time, for everybody.
SRL is right about the holidays and ANY change in routine, for that matter. You need to try to plan ahead, build in "escape hatches" for everybody, try to encourage him to let you know when he's needing to take time out.
Time out shouldn't be for punishment necessarily; it's for taking a break, literally. With my older kids, I learned to send them to their rooms for being naughty. Then I found to my surprise, my kids would, in the middle of a fight with me (or a sibling) run out of the room and head to their room! They had put themselves in time out, not for punishment but for refuge.
Unfortunately, I couldn't do this with difficult child 3. He was too single-minded to be successfully sent to his room. I tried the punishment thing, I tried physically carrying him to his room but he would come right back out again. I couldn't shut the door because by then difficult child 1 had accumulated so much stuff, the door wouldn't shut. We also stopped shutting doors when we had a failure in the door latches in our house and kids would be on one side of a door with the latch broken so the door wouldn't open. Our house is like Fort Knox, you can't get into it under those circumstances without breaking the door.
Anyway, we no longer send him to his room, or even try to. Our main tactic these days is partly give way,and partly use logic and reason.
A big help here, is to look inside the kid to find the anxiety within. A lot of problem behaviours that are anxiety-driven and I've found that we do much better if I don't react to it. difficult child 3 can rage at me about something, and I just talk gently to him to settle him down. For example, on the train heading in to the city, he will get anxious that we're getting lost, that we're on the wrong train, that we have to change trains and should be up and standing in the vestibule of the train several stations before the one we have to get out at. He will try to push his way onto the train as soon as the doors open, when really we have to let people get off first, to make room for us. He will begin panicking, worried that people will still be getting off and the train doors will shut ready to go again before we get a chance to get on.
Pushing onto the train is rude and upset people. I COULD scold him for rudeness; I'm sure a lot of people would applaud. But it wouldn't achieve a darn thing, because it's NOT primarily rudeness; rudeness is just a side effect, a result. We have to deal with the initial problem, which is anxiety.
So I prepare - as the train comes in I point out the station staff whose job it is to ensure people get on and off safely. They can see all the people waiting. I show difficult child 3 that some people aren't standing forward on the platform, they're sitting reading the paper, leaning against a wall, showing no interest in the approaching train. This is because it's not their train, they're waiting. There is a big difference in how people look, when they're waiting for another train, or wanting to catch this one.
On every train there is a guard, his job is to make sure that the driver doesn't leave too soon, but also to make sure that people don't waste time. He watches to make sure people are getting on and off safely. The guard will see tat we're waiting to et on his train but loads of people are getting off; he will make sure the driver waits to give us time. If he doesn't, we can complain to the station staff and they will fix it for us. But I have never needed to complain yet, in all my years.
So difficult child 3 is more prepared to wait patiently. But as the train comes in and people are getting off quickly, and the people on the platform surge forward, difficult child 3 starts to panic again. "There are too many people! We'll never get on the train!"
I tell him, "It's OK, a lot of people are getting off here, and every person that gets off is making room for one person to get on."
difficult child 3's voice can get shrill, it can get angry, people listening in think he's shouting at me and angry with me, but that's not it at all.
Once we're on the train I tell him, "See? We managed it. We are now on the train to... and the next stop will be... We will have X more stops before we get to our destination."
He needs to know, in order to not feel so anxious. He learns more when he's calmer, he learns more when he has a success. And even if he was upset for a bit, if we successfully navigated a problem and we made it onto our train, then it's a success.
You will make more mistakes. We all do. Don't beat yourself up, just pick up and go on.
With the holidays, try to keep an eye on him to make sure he has available to him:
1) Food he will eat, when he is hungry. Preferably before he gets too hungry; some kids, boys especially, difficult children even more so, get frantic when they get hungry and act as if they are about to starve to death. They cannot be reasoned with, barely even spoken to, until they have eaten.
2) Somewhere to sleep if he is tired, or just an opportunity to go sit somewhere quiet by himself where he won't be disturbed. Being around a lot of other people, especially if they are people he doesn't often spend a lot of time around, is very tiring. even if he is having fun, he is going to get tired more easily. A tired kid is far less reasonable.
3) Quiet activity organised for after the evening meal. Try to avoid anything too noisy or too active. Especially try to avoid games (or movies) which have a lot of tension in them, it can heighten anxiety at a time when he needs to be calming himself for sleep.
4) For car trips, especially long car trips, we used to keep at least one seat between two kids where possible. We have even resorted to barriers of cardboard between them, when they were younger and being difficult. A cardboard barrier stops physical attack. We found as they got older we did better with quilts and pillows. The kids sleep better on a strange bed if they have their own pillow, which also provides something to sleep on (or relax on) during the trip. We keep in the car, bottles of water (we have a cardboard box full of water bottles which we refill at the next stop), healthy snacks/food for meals (we stop and eat on the road sometimes, or just hand food around sometimes), spare coats/blankets for kids who are cold or who are getting sunburnt through the car windows, sunscreen, insect repellant and a small hand towel hanging on each door for kids to use to clean themselves after eating food on the road. A packet of wet wipes for the little darlings who just HAVE to keep taking the sweets out of their mouths to see what colour it is now... you get the picture.
Also, always have handy some sort of toy or activity to keep the kids occupied. Bored kids will hassle each other. A much younger difficult child will REALLY annoy an older sibling he admires, in order to get ANY sort of reaction. To break this habit try to head it off before it happens by producing some activity. For instance, we play a form of Spotto in the car, with different rules for older kids. Try to tailor the rules for each child's ability level, so that each has a fairly equal chance of winning. Or you can sing songs in the car. We got a lot of tapes to play, with songs the kids liked and could sing along with.
Choose your battles. Sometimes there's not much to be gained by getting cross at kids (especially the ones who keep taking the sweets out of their mouths to check them out). They will get the message when they keep finding sticky patches on their things. A reminder is of course OK, but you can give reminders without having to sound cross.
Think about a lot of what you say to your child. Try to say what has to be said, in a friendly tone. Use "please" and "thank you" when you talk to your child, to model its use for them.
Catch your children out being good and praise them. Be honest with your praise. For example, in a long car trip you could say, "difficult child, you've been very good on this trip. Thank you for being so quiet and being good."
I know some kids will use this to then misbehave - if that happens, don't change tack. Also, don't say anything like, "Now you've spoilt your good record" because he hasn't. FOR THAT PERIOD OF TIME WHEN YOU SPOKE, he was good. Then is then. Now is now. You COULD say, "You were good before, I really valued that. I will be glad when you can do it again."
Also try to think of other reasons to misbehave - how long since the last toilet stop, for example? Or is he hungry? Sometimes you haven't got a lot of choice, you could be miles from anywhere with no pit stop in sight. Then you just have to improvise, be patient and encouraging. He may be whinging, "I'm hungry!" over and over, don't let it get to you. Instead say, "I'm hungry too. Let's check the map and see how far we have to go before we can find somewhere that has food." You can then watch signs, or mile posts, or estimate from the car speedometer how much closer you're getting to that destination. Or if you have some food and the kids are hungry, stop and feed them. You will find the trip much more pleasant and you are greatly reducing the risk of further meltdowns. Or you could have a sweep, to see who gets the closest time to the proposed pit stop.
And when your boys are fighting, separate them. This punishes both boys, including the one who seemed to be copping the worst of it. Because no matter how they complain, they DO enjoy the interaction at some level.
I remember my mother telling me about this. She had said when she was a teenager, "My children will never misbehave, because when they do, I will send one to the front yard and the other to the back yard."
Which she did. But what she found, was the kids would sneak around to the side gate dividing front yard from back yard, and conspire through the fence palings about what a mean mother they had!
"Explosive Child" methods - use them on all your kids, including the PCs. They will come to value the self-determination this offers.
There are ways, and there are ways. You can still be a controlling, strict parent if you feel you need to be, but you need to know when to take a step back and watch instead. Always keep in mind your ultimate goal - for your children to be independent, happy, functioning, productive members of society. By loving them, supporting them, praising them, encouraging them you will have a much greater chance of success than if you scrutinise, criticise, punish, chastise, ostracise.
You are not a bad parent if you don't punish. And frankly, most transgressions bring their own punishment. Natural consequences will work very well, probably more effectively. You're not the one inflicting punishment (which, to a lot of kids, seems less like punishment and more like revenge). They are being taught that when they do something antisocial, nobody wants to be near them or to spend time with them. They then learn that they have to make it right again.
A kid who offends the neighbour by being rude, shouldn't be sent to his room; instead, he should be sat down with pen and paper and made to write an apology. Frankly, it's a nastier punishment from the child's point of view and it FITS THE CRIME. It's natural consequences. The child may not have meant to be rude; doesn't matter. You can even be sympathetic, but point out that we all say things we shouldn't sometimes, because often people speak without thinking. That doesn't mean you didn't hurt someone. And if you hurt someone, you should apologise. A written apology means even more.
Natural consequences - the child doesn't come when called to go have his bath. As a result, the bath will be cold. Natural consequences. Or the child doesn't come to the dinner table when called - OK, dinner will be cold. He can heat it up in the microwave oven, but it takes time and it can be fiddly. OK, let him heat it up. It's still a little inconvenient.
difficult child 3 sometimes asks me to help him with his dinner, while I am eating mine. I tell him that I am eating my dinner because I came when I was called. He has to either wait for me to finish, because it's not fair to me that my meal be interrupted because he did the wrong thing, or he has to try to do it for himself. Or find someone else to help. Being rude to people doesn't make them want to help you.
Sometimes you need to just stand back and wait. If you make a big fuss about something, they may dig their heels in stupidly and make things worse. For example, a kid rushing out to play in the snow - he rushes out without putting on a coat. You COULD stand in his way and say, "You're not to go outside without a coat, mister!" and risk a meltdown and a showdown. If he goes out NOW without a coat and feels cold, pride won't let him back inside until he's got pneumonia.
But if instead you say, "Do you want your red coat or your blue one?" you have given him choice. Or maybe he gets out the door before getting on a coat at all. If you didn't make a fuss about it, he will be back inside as soon as he feels cold. He doesn't have any reason not to.
This is actually much gentler on you, than constantly riding them. The punishments, the loss of privileges - I don't remove privileges unless I can find a way to link it to the "crime".
When difficult child 3 was very little and LOVED to use our big family computer, he would be punished for computer transgressions with being banned from using it. We didn't ban ALL computers, just the main one. For example, difficult child 3 learned to bypass our password protection by crashing the computer and removing the password option on restart. He was 3. For doing that, he was banned from the big computer for a week.
But he had to be warned first - "Do that again and you're off the computer for a week." You can't make punishments retrospective. Always ensure you have justice in the equation.
Think about it. It does all come down to common sense and compassion, which means that after a while it becomes second nature, and that is about the time your child begins to see you as an ally, not as the enemy.
Marg
As young as your difficult child is, you can probably count on a lot of difficult behaviors over the holidays. I don't mean this to horrify you (!) but so you can hopefully anticipate the likely meltdowns and handle with caution.
