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Time outs and breaks. Timeouts are punishments for actions that have already occurred and after he sits somewhere quietly for a few minutes you need to have a follow up conversation and depending on the severity might require the loss of a privilege as well.
Breaks are a preemptive action to stop something bad from taking place. These do not necessarily need to be a sit down somewhere quietly but they need to be a redirection from whatever is currently happening. Maybe its take a break and take a few deep breathes the sillies are getting to you. Or maybe its hey I noticed you are getting upset lets go do X and come back when we are ready to try again.
It’s hard. It took my older son about 2 weeks or so to realize timeouts weren’t going away and he started to understand throwing himself to the ground was a waste of energy.
If you ever say anything like I am going to count to 5 and you have to do X...count backwards, his brain will have to work harder to follow the numbers.
You are absolutely right to not want to spank. It sends a lot of mixed messages to spank a kid over aggressive behavior. He will be bigger and stronger than you some day and you don't want to teach him that might makes right.
I'm well versed in tantrums and meltdowns with my ND son. This is what has worked for me:
Calm down corner: a comfy place to regulate in a spot that is away from the commotion but you can still supervise. Pillows,.soft toys, nothing hard for him to throw if he's prone to throwing stuff. I use this as an alternative to time outs, especially when my son is likely to hurt himself or break things. Focus on teaching emotional regulation rather than making it about punishment.
Active ignoring: (If he's not in danger of hurting himself or others and isn't likely to cause property damage) Ignore the tantrums. Teach your other kids to ignore the tantrums and stop playing with him and do something else away from him when he starts hitting or yelling. You do something else as well. As soon as he stops the disruptive behavior, praise him for stopping and go back to paying attention to him.
During a meltdown, the less you say the better. He's already overwhelmed and trying to talk things out will make it worse. This is not the time to actively punish or threaten to punish. Once he's a little more regulated you can try to talk things through. This part is really really challenging if you have other family members who "help" by trying to throw punishments or threats of punishments out at this time, which is about as helpful as throwing gasoline on a fire. If they can be reasoned with try to talk to them before the next meltdown and ask them to let you handle it.
That’s my biggest issue is I do have other family memebers here who try to help, but it’s really not helpful. I’ll try talking to him and they’ll talk over me to get onto him. I know I need to stand my ground but I have confrontation and fights so I try not to. Anytime I say I don’t want to spank my parent gets upset and basically says well I soanked yall and yall turned out fine, but I have really bad authority issues and confidence issues.
That sounds very hard. And it sounds like you didn't grow up fine if you have low confidence and authority issues and I would be so tempted to say so in that situation, ha. In my case it was always my husband storming into the room yelling and throwing out punishments when I was working really hard to regulate my son during meltdowns. It took me blowing up at him multiple times for him to finally cut that shit out.
My husband and I actually had a huge fight about that the other day. I’m the default parent so I’m with the kids 99.9% of the time. He works nights and sleeps during the day so he’s not really around. I’m definitely trying really hard to regulate my emotions because I know I over react when my son is probably just super overstimulated
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Time outs and breaks. Timeouts are punishments for actions that have already occurred and after he sits somewhere quietly for a few minutes you need to have a follow up conversation and depending on the severity might require the loss of a privilege as well.
Breaks are a preemptive action to stop something bad from taking place. These do not necessarily need to be a sit down somewhere quietly but they need to be a redirection from whatever is currently happening. Maybe its take a break and take a few deep breathes the sillies are getting to you. Or maybe its hey I noticed you are getting upset lets go do X and come back when we are ready to try again.
Thank you. I’ve tried time outs and that when the tantrums get so much worse. I’ll definitely try this again. I appreciate the reply!
It’s hard. It took my older son about 2 weeks or so to realize timeouts weren’t going away and he started to understand throwing himself to the ground was a waste of energy.
Is he adhd
He is in the emotional part of his brain, try doing things that help him get into his logical brain.
Things like writing simple sentences AKA Bart Simpson
Scribbling in a journal
Have him count or do simple addition or subtraction
Have him recite something...pi to the 100th digit. or the state capitols.
These are the only things that ever helped when my kid was that age.
Thank you for the recommendations! I will give this a try.
If you ever say anything like I am going to count to 5 and you have to do X...count backwards, his brain will have to work harder to follow the numbers.
You are absolutely right to not want to spank. It sends a lot of mixed messages to spank a kid over aggressive behavior. He will be bigger and stronger than you some day and you don't want to teach him that might makes right.
I'm well versed in tantrums and meltdowns with my ND son. This is what has worked for me:
Calm down corner: a comfy place to regulate in a spot that is away from the commotion but you can still supervise. Pillows,.soft toys, nothing hard for him to throw if he's prone to throwing stuff. I use this as an alternative to time outs, especially when my son is likely to hurt himself or break things. Focus on teaching emotional regulation rather than making it about punishment.
Active ignoring: (If he's not in danger of hurting himself or others and isn't likely to cause property damage) Ignore the tantrums. Teach your other kids to ignore the tantrums and stop playing with him and do something else away from him when he starts hitting or yelling. You do something else as well. As soon as he stops the disruptive behavior, praise him for stopping and go back to paying attention to him.
During a meltdown, the less you say the better. He's already overwhelmed and trying to talk things out will make it worse. This is not the time to actively punish or threaten to punish. Once he's a little more regulated you can try to talk things through. This part is really really challenging if you have other family members who "help" by trying to throw punishments or threats of punishments out at this time, which is about as helpful as throwing gasoline on a fire. If they can be reasoned with try to talk to them before the next meltdown and ask them to let you handle it.
That’s my biggest issue is I do have other family memebers here who try to help, but it’s really not helpful. I’ll try talking to him and they’ll talk over me to get onto him. I know I need to stand my ground but I have confrontation and fights so I try not to. Anytime I say I don’t want to spank my parent gets upset and basically says well I soanked yall and yall turned out fine, but I have really bad authority issues and confidence issues.
That sounds very hard. And it sounds like you didn't grow up fine if you have low confidence and authority issues and I would be so tempted to say so in that situation, ha. In my case it was always my husband storming into the room yelling and throwing out punishments when I was working really hard to regulate my son during meltdowns. It took me blowing up at him multiple times for him to finally cut that shit out.
My husband and I actually had a huge fight about that the other day. I’m the default parent so I’m with the kids 99.9% of the time. He works nights and sleeps during the day so he’s not really around. I’m definitely trying really hard to regulate my emotions because I know I over react when my son is probably just super overstimulated