Elijah is a non-conformist, non-traditionalist, unexpected boy who marches to the beat of his own drum. What do we do with him? Trevor and I are at a loss. None of our discipline methods work with him. He tends to be a violent sort, so any sort of spanking make him more violent, and he didn't care about them anyways. He maybe would squawk out a indignant noise to let us know he didn't like it, but then he'd go back to what he was doing previously. So, we don't spank him anymore. If we put him in time out he sits there for a minute and then pops right back up. He won't stay there. I have to sit there and hold him down in the spot, but then he still can look around and see what's going on. I sent him up to his room the other day to think about his attitude and he somehow found a hammer on the way up and was smashing things for fun when I got up there to see what all the noise was about. "Look, Mommy! A hammer! I hit stuff with this hammer!".
And forget about food. If I even hint that I want him to eat something, he refuses. He literally will go all day without eating A SINGLE THING! Like right now. I tried to get him to eat one more bite before I gave him his milk, and he forced himself to throw up all over me. In protest. I am so over this behavior.
Trevor and I are trying to show him God's love, hoping this will guide him to the path he needs to follow. But where does discipline come in with this plan? We still do time outs and going to his bedroom by himself to sit for a few minutes, and since he purposely vomited his breakfast all over me, he went to room with no milk after breakfast. I guess what I am getting at: IS THERE ANY OTHER DISCIPLINE METHODS OUT THERE?? Someone, please, give me some hope. Or take this child off my hands for a little hands. Like a boot camp for two year olds. Anyone? Anyone??
Have you read The Stong Willed Child?
ReplyDeleteThis sounds an aweful lot like my Micah. He is a tough one to dicipline also. We took this class call "Growing Kids God's Way", and the main method of discipline is "inflicting pain". And it didn't work either. Just a couple of months ago I was at a total loss with him too. Nothing was working. He was the kid who would throw himself on his face in the middle of a busy road if he didn't want to hold my hand. We were constantly getting bad reports from the nursery workers. I was in tears ALL the time about it. I felt like a was raising a terror. Then all of a sudden it just stopped. We didn't do anything different, he just kinda "grew out of it". That's not to say that he's not still a tough cookie, but he's not making me want to pull my hair out, and keep him in the car when I go somewhere : ). I think it gets better. These two are going to be warriors one day. (That's what I keep telling myself)
ReplyDeleteI hear it's a middle child thing. Our neighbor's middle child is just like that and he is 5. Taeton is getting there as well and we, alot of times, dont know what to do with him. He is very defiant and has major attitude is very rude, if thats even possible to say for a boy that's not even two yet. Hang in there. If you find something that works let me know.
ReplyDeleteI think it just a child thing in general. Although, granted we moved away from all grandparents over a year ago (thats when attitude started really bad) and now we moved across the world from grandparents (attitude got worse).. I feel you on this one. Although brookie does not throw her breakfast up on me. She does get more violent with spankings as well. And the time out thing is the same circus here. If i ever figure it out ill let you know what clicked and please if you ever figure it out, send the advice my way. Praying for you and hopefully youll figure it out soon.
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