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Unpunishable??

I.Just.Live.Here's picture

SS4 has become increasingly difficult lately. The first week or so that he was here (Late August) he was fine and normally, we were actually quite shocked since he had been with his BM for over two months. Now, about a month later, he's starting to turn into demon spawn...

I cannot figure out how to get it through his head that things are unacceptable. For example, we rented a UHaul to get our new couches to our house and he wanted to ride with his Daddy. I told him that that probably wouldn't work since it's a truck with only one front seat. He responded with 'Well we can move my seat, duuuuuh' DH and I both flipped out on him about how incredibly rude that was. His response, which is becoming his standard response, okay. He will literally just say okay over and over and over again... I am at the end of my rope! Time outs, spankings, removing toys, nothing works with this kid! It took two and a half HOURS to get BS and SS (We only have a two bedroom apartment) to sleep for nap time today because SS would NOT leave BS alone. BS is only two, he doesn't understand that it's night time not play time, SS is four and he knows exactly what he's supposed to be doing. Which, stealing his brother's monkey out of his crib is not one of those things. DH said just to lay him down in our bed for nap time but he did that ONCE and we've been booting him out of our bed mulitiple times every night since then :O
I am not a fan of SS4 sleeping with us for a variety of reasons, he snores, he sweats, and it just creeps me out.
He blatantly ignores me, has absolutely no remorse for when he does things wrong, and BS2 is suddenly terrified of this stupid stick for some unknown reason. Another one of his new favorite phrases is 'I didn't do it' or 'It wasn't me'.

I've been considering how to handle him and I have no idea how to punish him so that he gets it but I've decided when he says something like 'It wasn't me' then I'm going to make him clean it up. Disengaging from this brat isn't an option right now, DH works days and I work nights so the kids don't go to daycare but I told DH that SS needs to start going to preschool because I just can't handle him. We discussed this Thursday of last week so if he hasn't called by tomorrow afternoon I'm going to lose it. I cannot handle this kid anymore.

Does anyone has any ideas of how to get it through a four year old's head that things are not acceptable? It's been getting progressively worse and I'm considered about what he might do, I've sometimes wondered if because of BM's neglect some wires weren't all connected at the right times...

Comments

Kes's picture

I would suggest getting one of the Supernanny books on parenting. She is very good on helping parents take back control from out of control young children. Here is a YouTube video of one of her programmes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4HDA-IxHPk

Until you can get his behaviour sorted, you may find that preschools are unwilling to have him as it's too disruptive for the other children.

Bojangles's picture

You're in a difficult situation with the napping. I know if I put my 4 year old and nearly 2 year old to sleep at the same time in the same room nobody would get any sleep, it's kind of inevitable that children that young will mess about with another child in the room. I would either change nap times so that they don't go down at the same time, or stop SS's naps altogether and perhaps introduce an earlier bedtime instead. My 4 year old boy hasn't had regular naps since he was 3 but I did pull his bedtime back to 6.30 for a while to compensate. That also allows you to get SS off to sleep before BS goes to bed.

In terms of frustration with repeat offending and denying the crime(!) I know how infuriating that can be. I didnt have that problem so much with my DD6 but if my BS4 is anything to go by this can be par for the course with some children, it does just take them longer to get it, but if you hold your course and continue with consistent punishments it will bear fruit in the end. With my little boy I've found it effective to try to move the emphasis from punishment to positive reinforcement and incentivise good behaviour with reward charts, so I will pick the most significant issues e.g. Tidying up, finishing meals or using the toilet properly and then give stickers building up to rewards like a trip to the playground if he earns enough stickers over the week. There are still timeouts for really bad behaviour, but the reward system does help to focus them on the benefits of behaving well and can get you out of the rut where you feel like you're telling them off all time time and they act out more not less.