We have two boys. One just turned 5 and one is 2.5. I feel like my husband and I try so hard to be good parents. We spend a lot of time with our kids and try to be the best parents we can. We love them so much and want the best for them, but we feel like failures. What are we doing wrong? Both of our children have issues and we are at a loss.
Our 5 year old has a lot of anxieties. He is scared of the doctor, dentist, water (swimming lessons), has separation anxiety and so forth.
To describe my 2.5 year old, I would say he is incredibly stubborn, has no patience, is angry and frustrated 75% of the time. For example, almost every time we are in the car he is screaming and crying about something. He screamed when his car fell out of his dump truck, he screams when waffle falls off his fork, he screams when I try to hold his hand in the parking lot, he falls and bangs his head on purpose. He has been like this since he was an infant. He used to scream and stop eating when I was nursing and had let down because he would choke sometimes. I had to watch how I held him walking through door ways because he would get mad so often and would through himself backwards and would sometimes hit his head on the door way. When he learned to sit he would throw himself backwards when he got angry.
I just don't know what we are doing wrong. It affects my husband and me. Today we tried to take my older son to swimming lessons because he said he wanted to go and learn how to swim like his friends. He has really good intentions. He just seems to be scared to death. He won't do anything but sit on the stairs. The director focuses her attention on him the whole time just trying to get him off the stairs. Today I ended up having to take my other son out of the room twice because he got upset and ended up sprawling out on the wet floor. Then on the way home, my youngest son was just crying and screaming in the car and my husband and I ended up getting into an argument because we are just so frustrated and don't know what to do with our boys. My husband thinks maybe we are just being too soft on them. But, we do discipline with timeouts and taking privileges away.
We don't feel like we can talk about it with our friends because they don't have these issues. So I'm just looking for support from people who deal with similar issues.
Our 5 year old has a lot of anxieties. He is scared of the doctor, dentist, water (swimming lessons), has separation anxiety and so forth.
To describe my 2.5 year old, I would say he is incredibly stubborn, has no patience, is angry and frustrated 75% of the time. For example, almost every time we are in the car he is screaming and crying about something. He screamed when his car fell out of his dump truck, he screams when waffle falls off his fork, he screams when I try to hold his hand in the parking lot, he falls and bangs his head on purpose. He has been like this since he was an infant. He used to scream and stop eating when I was nursing and had let down because he would choke sometimes. I had to watch how I held him walking through door ways because he would get mad so often and would through himself backwards and would sometimes hit his head on the door way. When he learned to sit he would throw himself backwards when he got angry.
I just don't know what we are doing wrong. It affects my husband and me. Today we tried to take my older son to swimming lessons because he said he wanted to go and learn how to swim like his friends. He has really good intentions. He just seems to be scared to death. He won't do anything but sit on the stairs. The director focuses her attention on him the whole time just trying to get him off the stairs. Today I ended up having to take my other son out of the room twice because he got upset and ended up sprawling out on the wet floor. Then on the way home, my youngest son was just crying and screaming in the car and my husband and I ended up getting into an argument because we are just so frustrated and don't know what to do with our boys. My husband thinks maybe we are just being too soft on them. But, we do discipline with timeouts and taking privileges away.
We don't feel like we can talk about it with our friends because they don't have these issues. So I'm just looking for support from people who deal with similar issues.
