Monday, October 20, 2008

Where Has My Son Gone?

The last few days I have been punched and kicked more than ever before. This morning I am feeling sad about where my cute, affectionate little boy has gone. My four year old is really struggling with his temper lately. It all started at pre-school where another classmate was bullying him every day. My husband told our son next time to punch him in the nose. Mom's solutions was to tell his teacher and use his words. Well, now my son and this bully are best friends. We are tyring to transition my son from the Children's Center to our local elementary school, but it has been rough for him. He loves it up there. I have had to hold his arms and legs gently as possible to avoid injury to me or one of my other children. Any ideas moms? How do you curb and prevent the violence? I am feeling much more calm since I have already been through this once before with my oldest. It's no longer an embarrassment or a trigger for me to get frustrated. I just want it to stop.

7 comments:

Luke and Erin said...

I am sorry I have no advice or ideas I am sure you have tried a lot.
You are doing a great job!

Aprilyn said...

Marshall still does this, thought not to the degree he did before he started taking Risperdal. Time out doesn't work but you have to make him understand that hitting is not Ok. I love the book, "Hands Are Not For Hitting." We read it a lot to remind him that he can't hit. We put him in a full body lock down when he gets out of control. That makes him hurt me more but he will eventually get too tired.

Happy in Holland said...

I used to work in an early intervention preschool that had a lot of "violent" children who would get quite out of control. When they got violent, we had two options to help them calm down. One was to remove them completely from the situation--not necessarily a time-out, but more of alone time. If they were violent enough to be hurting themselves in alone time, we would have to put them in a pretzel hold with them on our laps, then basically wait it out until they calmed down. If us talking to them didn't make it worse, we tried to use a calm voice to recognize their feelings and get them to talk about it instead of use their body to show how they felt. If talking didn't help, we sat quietly and waited.....Good luck with him. I hope it gets better soon.

tiptoe mama said...

great advice. I don't have a whole lot of experience with that. Only that my six year old has been bullied a lot. He's quite small for his age. I have noticed that while he doesn't dare to stand up to the bully, he will take it out on other kids. It's kind of a phase that usually lasts a few weeks after the bullying has stopped. I'm like you though. I try to tell him to use his words and tell a grown up.
How did your son get to be friends with his bully? Did he actually hit him? People have told us to try karate lessons, but we never have.

Anita Nap said...

Ok. I just now realized I was logged in under the wrong name. LOL. Oh well. :)

We've also had people recommend Karate but I just felt like that would make him more violent. Maybe I'm wrong. Marshall has been super angry today but thanks to Risperdal, he never hit me. I hate medicating my child but it works.

Ima Mom said...

Thanks you guys! Yes, he did punch the bully in the nose and now they are besr friends. I started him on Zoloft yesterday and so far he is taking it despite sensory stuff. Today is OT as well, we started back up again. Does anyone know about ABA programs and how to pay for them?We will see what happens. FYI I invited about 30 other moms I found on facebook to our blog. We will see if they have any input or even peek in!

Anita Nap said...

We tried Zoloft with Marshall and he had worse behavior. I hope it works for your son better than it did for ours.
Ask your OT about The Listening Program. Ask if he/she is trained in it. If not, ask him/her if she can get trained. I've seen it help my boys. I just need to get back in the habit of doing it. Here is the website for The Listening Program- http://www.thelisteningprogram.com/

My favorite calming CDs are Peaceful Baby and Sleepy Baby. You can see them here-
http://www.advancedbrain.com/baby_intro.asp

Good luck! We still have trouble with this.