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glinNC
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| Posted: May 08 2008 at 8:48pm | IP Logged
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There's an adorable little 6 yr old boy I know and love  who has some unpleasant tendencies such as pushing and hitting, mostly with his 7 yr. old brother. I've spoken to him several times about using words, treating everybody as part of the Body of Christ, Golden Rule (at his level), used time out, no desserts (for NOT being sweet), and doing "penance" for his brother; but nothing seems to be sinking in. He has an awesome vocabulary and could clearly express himself verbally, but he just doesn't! 
Has anybody experienced this and can offer some words of wisdom? I'm at my wits' end.  I need some new tips for trying to break this pattern.
Thanks in advance!
glinNC
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: May 08 2008 at 11:28pm | IP Logged
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From my experience here...
I'd be listening real carefully for a while.. sometimes it's the child REACTING that is violent.. but the instigator is actually the other one.
Then I'd just pick one thing.. I usually try and use something that involves removing the child that is out of control (standing on the wall, a time out space whatever, usually not going to their room) and giving them time to calm down AND making them come up with what to do instead of whatever violence they used.
And then just be more stubborn than the child. Catch them every single time.. implement whatever something happens even if there's a question about fault.. you can always explain that because of past behavior that he's suspect now.
It may take time to sink in.. that's where the stubborn comes in.. you just keep doing it constantly and consistently and the child will get it.. changing around.. trying to get them to have the light bulb go off and promise to never do it again and follow through usually doesn't work. But nailing them everytime they transgress usually ends up with it not being worth the trouble because they can never actually get away with it. It just can take longer with some children than with others.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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mary
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| Posted: May 09 2008 at 7:15am | IP Logged
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i'm not sure that isolating the child works. it isn't what is recommended in the hold on to your child book. i find that some of my kids can't calm down - they are still pretty hot. what they really need is to figure out how to control the emotion before it bubbles over into violence. so, we just got this book take the grr out of anger and it has been so helpful and is written really well. it's in kid-speak but gives some terrific advice. we read it a lunch. on wednesday, another kid on my boy's team called my boy an idiot and my boy didn't respond back. yesterday, we read what to do if someone insults you - say "i don't like what you said and i deserve more respect than that." my kid feels like he doesn't have just two choices - swallow the insult or insult back. the book also suggested that we figure out our anger triggers. it was kinda fun for the kids to sit and discuss what made each other angry. it gave the control back to the kids, kwim?
HTH!
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ALmom
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| Posted: May 09 2008 at 6:25pm | IP Logged
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It takes two to tango or tangle - so one thing I've consistently done is call both parties into my presence and require them to tell each other what is wrong and they must work things out. No one leaves the chairs until all involved are truely happy and friends again with a solution for the next time something comes up. I may have seen the final blow in a situation and of course must address directly anything I directly saw, but there is rarely a time that I actually saw everything. Yes, the child who hauled off and hit must suffer some consequences and I have an immediate reaction to anything I do see - making sure the injured party is tended to. The offending party is reprimanded for hitting as no matter what someone else does, we do not hit and they will suffer whatever our family consequence is for hitting. In our house it is generally some sort of time out.
I do, however, try to find out the bigger picture as well and always ask both children what they did. It is easy to ask the offended party in private while the other child is in time out. Then when I go to get the child from time out, I have private time with the offending party as well. It is often clear that more than what I saw occured and the two parties need to meet to discuss. There is a meeting of the two parties at this point. (Sometimes it may be the other child did nothing and all that is required is an apology and forgiveness, but most of the time both children were involved in some kind of spat that they need to learn how to work out and not let get to the point where one is so angry that they are hitting).
I will act as translator to defuse the situation - often asking each child to tell me what they themselves did, helping them to recognize how actions were misinterpreted, reminding them to assume in the other person's favor, etc. I have learned from experience that what actually happened is almost never what I thought happened. The children are the only ones who really know and by making them work it out, they are walked through the process of solving the problem themselves. However, the process initially takes so long that the children quickly learn that it is so much more fun to get along and they lose so much play time that it isn't worth aggravating each other intentionally, at least. It takes a long time the first few times, but it doesn't take long for the children to begin working things out gladly or much more quickly. Eventually all the modeling I do in helping them phrase their questions politely, listen to the other side and negotiate acceptable solutions, becomes habit and saves lots of time in fights I don't have to deal with because they don't go beyond a verbal communication of differences.
I assign seats on different chairs but in the same room during this process so we don't add any fuel to the fire. If necessary, I go out with each child one at a time, but until they are friends again no one resumes play or leaves the chair without me. In my books it is too important to reconcile and anything else can wait.
Now if one child or the other is being obviously stubborn about refusing to forgive or some such and the other has made many, many obviously real efforts to reach out once everyone knows and agrees to what actually happened, I will allow the child who has done everything they could to reconcile to get up while I continue with the other party trying to help them forgive. I often recognize other factors like hunger, heat, etc. as it is typically a young child in our house who won't get over it and during this time it is possible to remedy some of the other factors while encouraging the generous act of forgiveness which usually comes soon after. I have the child go back to the first one and communicate so it is obvious that both are friends. I encourage everyone to express how they saw things and take the information given to lead us to the truth. I often have some ideas from things that each child has told me but I don't assume to know the truth, just keep asking questions.(Ie if one child accuses the other of hitting, etc., I ask that child, but what did you do? (They may not have done any hitting but there must be something that got the other person so angry. If they are honestly clueless then it generally means an accident is being interpreted as intentional and this must be addressed as well as the child must learn not to jump to conclusions and to accept the word of another that it was an accident or maybe the other needs to learn that they still must apologize, even if it is an accident because accidents still hurt, etc., etc. Other times I have one child absolutely adament that the other pushed them and the other child equally adament that they did not. I generally respond with "Oh my something happened that made so and so think you pushed them. Can you think what it might have been that happened that made them think that. The truth always comes out with patience and requiring each child to express what they did and what bothered them. Things cannot be satisfactorily resolved until the children each communicate to the other about what happened and what did not happen and how they might have responded differently. If it is a fight over toys or some such, then they must come up with something that is agreeable to all. When a solution is proposed, I ask each one at a time if the solution is agreeable. I can tell when my chidren are pretending it is just to get out of the chair and call them on it by asking if this is something they are totally happy with. We keep working.
My mantra is the solution must be one that everyone is happy about.
I also give the children strategies (not tattling) for those situations when they are being picked on and don't want to end up being stuck on the sofa for endless negotiating sessions with a stubborn sibling who is just having fun causing discord. I simply let these victim children (secretly) know to move the game into my presence so I catch the culprit first hand (but they are never, ever allowed to hit, period, no negotiating on that one). This becomes our secret for how to address the next time and helps the child forgive this time knowing that justice will not be forever denied them and it allows them to own the wrongness of their own reaction to the situation.
If there are major getting along issues, I will require those children to always shadow me and play in my presence until the situation has been remedied through consistent proper skills or I may forbid certain games for a time because they've never gone anywhere but a fight for many days. The children, if it really is a worthwhile game, will come to me with a proposal for how they will be able to play without fighting and I will give them one last chance - which generally works.
I basically take the attitude that of course we will all get along, we all want to get along and we simply need to learn how to communicate better. The children, for the most part, live up to that expectation. (Not saying of course that we don't have normal squabbles - often they are related to immaturity and the particular development stages clashing - but the assumption that we want to get along and we just need help understanding each other still applies. I may simply have to explain to an older child that a 3 - 4 yo simply will not be able to consistently follow complicated rules to a game and for them, that isn't the same as a 6 yo doing the same thing (cheating). Then we can strategize about how to make things work so the older child still has opportunities to play games and the younger child doesn't always feel left out of the games, etc.
Janet
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4Real Forums : Mothering and Family Life
Topic: Sibling Fighting
