Help!

[MrsK]

I need some advise. K1 is 3y10m. K2 is 2y4m. (So, roughly 4yo and 2.5yo.) We moved a little less than 1 month ago. In our prior house, I had a time out spot and both boys would go to the spot when ordered to do so. I'd set a timer and they'd stay. If they refused to go to TO or refused to stay in the spot, I'd add another minute to their sentence. Usually, the threat of additional time was sufficient.

Now we are in a new house and I'm trying to establish a new TO spot. The boys are aware that I am physically incapable of lifting them and forcing them to stay in the TO spot. I can sort of lift K2 briefly; he weighs about 35lbs and he's about 1/2 my height. I cannot lift K1 at all; he weighs 40lbs and he's about 2/3rds my height.

Today, (in addition to offenses such as pulling down a rack at a clothing store), we were playing in the yard and the boys began throwing rocks. I ordered them into the house. They both ran from me, in different directions. Our yard is not fenced. I again ordered them inside and told them that there would be consequences if they did not go inside. I began a countdown. They ignored me. I picked up K2 and put him inside the house. K1 followed after K2. Once inside, I told them to go to the TO corners. They refused. I picked up K2 and put him in the gated playroom. (He considers this punishment, cried for a few minutes, and then began amusing himself with the toys). I told K1 that he'd be in TO for 4 minutes and I'd make it 5 if he did not immediately go to the TO spot. I had to repeat this threat, adding minutes, until he ended up in the corner for an 8 minute sentence. He kept sneaking out of the corner to visit with K2 through the playroom gate. After ordering him back to the TO spot repeatedly, increasing his term, etc., I finally released him after 15 minutes.

I let both boys in the playroom where they proceeded to play roughly, throw toys, etc. It was quickly getting out of hand so I offered to read to them. They seemed enthusiastic so I let them out of the playroom and told them to sit on the sofa. Both boys proceeded to run, wrestle, and kick me. I ordered K1 to go to his room and K2 to go to the corner. They refused. I finally dragged K1 to the stairs and ordered him to go to his room. He's refused and now he is sitting on the stairs wailing; there is a gate at the bottom of the stairs and he cannot get out. (Nevermind. He just got out.)

I've resorted to "Wait until your father gets home." They know that daddy can force them. I'm having similar battles over things like getting into the carseats. In the past, negotiation/reasoning/rewards/bribery/punishments worked. Physically forcing them into time out or into car seats Super Nanny style was a last resort measure.

I'm getting larger every day and in about 3 months, I'm having a c-section. I need this to stop immediately. What do I do?

[MrsK]

When K1 let himself out of the stairs, he came to the kitchen and told me that he's "ready to be nice now". I asked him what that means to be nice and he said "don't kick you when you want to read to me." Then he claimed that he'd wet his pants when he was sitting on the stairs (because he was too stubborn to go up the stairs and use the bathroom like I told him too). I gave him clean pants, told him to change in the bathroom, then choose a book to look at himself on the sofa. He changed his pants with much yelling and whining, then refused to choose a book or sit on the sofa. I told him that, I've told him what to do and it's not nice to refuse to do it. I have repeated my instruction nine times. He's quiet now but complaining that he doesn't want to and he doesn't know how to choose a book and he has a headache (from screaming at me for the last hour). I'm exhausted!

[HouseofWool]

I have no advice for you whatsoever. I cannot imagine how you do what you do each day. I would be so frustrated.

[Michele]

That's pretty close to how things go in my house most days. And being able to physically place a child in TO doesn't mean they stay there...and they can and do totally outlast my patience for returning them to TO. I can't keep it up for more than 30min. I usually have 1 cooperative kid out of the three.

What I've found is that it's a 2-5 day phase and then we are good for a week or two and then it happens again.

Keeping them well fed, well rested and well well exercised helps. ...but really it seems like a phase that needs to be endured. I try to keep the discipline the same and do the best I can. And when the phase has run its course, they will sit in TO and follow the rules.

[MrsK]

Keeping them well fed, well rested and well well exercised helps. ...

Well, naptime was a bust today too. K1 slept for about 30 minutes in the car (after knocking down the rack at the store and before throwing rocks in the back yard). K2 "napped" for about an hour only after I removed K1 from his room and forced him to stay in there alone where he couldn't wrestle with his brother. IDK how long or whether he actually napped because he was looking at books when I went to wake him. They both played outside and took walks in the morning. The playing in the yard was my attempt at afternoon exercise but it ended when the rock throwing began.

We just finished dinner (grilled cheese and soup -- Daddy knows better than to complain). DrK came home and very gently asked the boys about their day. K1 reported that the day "wasn't very good" because he knocked over a rack of dresses, got time out in the store, threw rocks, kicked mommy, wet his pants three times, climbed over the stairs gate . . . K2 told him that "mommy's MAD and Lambie is MAD too!" K1 whined and fussed through dinner which he claimed "isn't very good" and repeatedly demanded his gummy vitamins, which he promptly dropped on the floor and then screamed bloody murder when DrK took his uneaten sandwich from him. DrK just ordered them upstairs for baths. He had to ask at least 7 times and I told them twice. Now it sounds like he's got them both in the tub and they are making a ruckus, splashing him and screaming. I am sitting at the kitchen table, totally burned out. It's his turn to deal with them. Put a fork in me. I'm done.

[Thirteen]

I'm sorry. I was just thinking how hard it's getting to lift B (he's 38 lbs), and I'm not even pregnant.

You are a super mom in my book, MrsK!


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[Vishenka69]

Can you put them in preschool full time? That was my solution, I can't really keep my sanity otherwise.

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[MrsK]

K1 goes to school Tuesday through Friday, 9 to 1. K2 goes MWF 9 to 1 (except they both get out early on Fridays). So, I spend Mondays with K1 and Tuesday/Thursday with K2. In the past, both have benefited from having one on one time with me. I could send them full time or even longer days but the school does not have nap time which they both need. In the past, more time apart from them has backfired because their misbehaving was even more when reunited.

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[ides]

The only suggestion I have is to add loss of privileges if they do not do their time out. For O he'll loose something for a day that he really likes- tv, certain toy, tricycle, etc.

[MrsK]

I was doing that today too. Every time I had to tell them to go to time out and they didn't go, I'd put another of their toys in the basement. They are convinced that a dragon lives down there so they were asking whether the dragon was eating their toys.

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[Sheherezade]

The only thing that ever worked when we were having days like that was to get out of the house for a significant stretch of time. Hours at the park, a day at the zoo, something like that. I think we just got sick of each other and it ended up with a cycle of bad kid behavior. I realize that's not always possible, but I think the obnoxious behavior on their part is pretty normal yet totally annoying kid stuff.

It's very hard to be pregnant and have two active little boys!

[ladymoreta]

Big, big hugs. I know you've had good results with sticker charts in the past. Are you still using them? Could you take off a sticker, or do you think they'd care at that point? I also agree about getting out of the house when they get awful like that. Does K1 fit in a double stroller at all? We'll shove DS in there if he loses the privilege of walking when we're out. (He's really too big for it.) Maybe go somewhere it won't matter if he screams about being put in it, like the zoo. But I know lifting him is getting to be really hard, so maybe a leash backpack attached to K2's stroller?

[PrincessFiona]

We went through similar behavioral issues at about the same ages. I was also pregnant at the time. Amanda would actually sit in the time-out chair and scoot it around the house cackling wildly. The only thing that helped me was to put away most of the toys and only get them out as a reward for good behavior. I put almost everything away in a closet and then would catch her being good and offer her favorite toy as a reward for being so kind, helpful, quiet ... whatever. The toy went as soon as the behaviors started. As far as physically getting her to sit in the time-out chair? I wasn't always successful, but I did scoop up the toy and put it away. It meant that I dealt with more bad behavior at first without her being distracted by toys, but she eventually got the hang of it and things smoothed out.

I truly feel for you!!!!

Kris

[MrsK]

Interestingly, they had a meeting/seminar at the boys' preschool today with a clinical social worker from the JCC. The topic was "positive parenting" and, specifically, discipline. There were about 6 parents in attendance including myself.

One of the moms was the mom of the boy that K1 shoved at the birthday party and made cry. Another of the moms had a girl in K2's class, they'd moved here in the last couple months, and she's expecting in January; her daughter has social anxiety like K2 does. The one dad was the father of a boy that K1 has befriended from the other pre-school class. Overall, I felt comfortable just spilling my frustrations with this group even though none of them had boys as close in age as mine. Most of them had one boy/one girl about 2.5 years apart. I threw out a couple examples from my day yesterday. At the end of the seminar, the other parents told me that my stories made them worry for when their kids are a little older as their second children were not yet toddlers.

The social worker pretty much advised that I do the things that I am doing. . . which has me wondering whether I'm doing those things correctly because we had the same advise from the developmental psychologist during residency. While on the one hand, she was talking about positive parenting and rewarding good behaviours/ignoring bad behaviour, she suggested really tightening up the structure in our home to the point that the boys have a choice of maybe 3 toys with which to play. Right now, we have about 12 toys out which is a significant reduction from the past. Her big message was to avoid power struggles and ignore bad behaviours which I find impossible to do when I'm standing in the rain and the boys refuse to sit in their carseats or when K1 has knocked over a rack in a store or the boys are throwing rocks which are safety matters regarding which the boys should have absolutely no choice but to comply with my instructions. Then she started quoting the tantrum study on which I worked for four years of college. It's frustrating because it seems like, given our backgrounds, DrK and I have heard it all before. While these theories are sound, they are much more difficult to implement in real practice when I really need my boys to be able to follow a verbal direction immediately from across the room.

Ultimately, the social worker seemed annoyed because I was unintentionally dominating her seminar though each of the other parents had their own issues regarding which the group brainstormed. As a group, the parents were really good about brainstorming and coming up with workable suggestions. For instance, suggesting that the mom with the socially anxious daughter make a book for her with pictures of family friends and relations she sees infrequently so she can become more familiar with them or suggesting I get special stickers to put in K2's clothes so they are "his" and he may be less adverse to wearing K1's hand-me-downs (big struggle right now. He's figured out that he's the only one in the house that needs to wear hand-me-downs and refuses to wear anything that belonged to K1). Also, I spoke to three moms there who participate in the Parents As Teachers program here and they all raved about it. So I guess I'll stick it out and see if it improves for us. It seemed that the parents working together were more helpful than the social worker.

Big, big hugs. I know you've had good results with sticker charts in the past. Are you still using them? Could you take off a sticker, or do you think they'd care at that point? I also agree about getting out of the house when they get awful like that. Does K1 fit in a double stroller at all? We'll shove DS in there if he loses the privilege of walking when we're out. (He's really too big for it.) Maybe go somewhere it won't matter if he screams about being put in it, like the zoo. But I know lifting him is getting to be really hard, so maybe a leash backpack attached to K2's stroller?

I haven't been using the sticker chart but I give stickers as rewards for good behaviour. My boys are usually plastered with tiny stickers (though K2 eats his, ugh!). I had a rewards chart before we moved but I always found it cumbersome. I'm thinking of switching to a marble jar where I can just add marbles for any positive behaviour performed by either boy rather than having a formal system of placing stickers or magnets on a grid if specific behaviours are performed by each child. It may be easier for me to just say, "Hurrah! K1 dressed himself! Let's add a marble to the jar! K2 pottied; he gets a marble too!" and let them work together to accumulate marbles for a joint reward or two small rewards (i.e. we go out to a favorite place, they can watch a movie, they both get a lollipop). They are a lot better at celebrating each other's accomplishments and working toward a goal together than they are at competing with one another. I've always thought that if one sees the other rewarded, he'd replicate the behaviour but they tend to just give their brother an atta boy and carry on with their current course of action. There is very little rivalry between them and I'd like to keep it that way. I really hate it when one is rewarded and the other is punished. Today, K1 earned an M&M for readily getting into his carseat and K2 did not because he was a stinker who ran around the whole van instead. K2 screamed and cried the whole way home; K1 was pointedly miserable watching is brother suffer so his reward was tainted.

K1 fits in the double stroller as does K2. However, neither of them want to ride in it and it is a huge struggle to get either of them in the stroller. We last used it for both of them at a festival a couple weeks ago. We ran into one of K1's classmates and he was embarrassed to be riding in the stroller. K2 has to use the stroller because there is no way I'll be able to have both boys on foot once the baby arrives. K1 and I talked about it and agreed that he won't have to use the stroller once Lambie arrives (he'd have to be booted out to make room for her anyway). He likes the idea of having extra privileges and responsibilities when the baby comes so I've been working with him on stuff like learning how to buckle his carseat before she comes. K2 is conflicted about the whole middle child/big boy/still a baby thing so it's a lot more complicated. On one hand, he wants to be a big boy and on the other he wants to nurse again.

[Deebs]

Do you ever use music to help move them along? I have songs on my phone for all types of situations:
Can you get in your seat before the song ends?
Can you get dressed before the song ends?
Can you get your shoes on before the song ends?
etc.
Then, there's a HUGE party when they "beat" the song (even if it's just a little car dance).
We also have "invisible" stars ( they do this in kindergarten here). DS just did something nice for his sister? 10 gold stars!!!!!
Every time you post, I both totally identify, but also think of other little tools I have in my tool box.