I Feel Like My Sixteen-Month-Old is King of the House

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Yesterday, 09:25 AM	? #1 (permalink)
Member ? Join Date: May 2012 Posts: 192	I need advice. I'm at my wit's end with my sixteen-month-old son. As a mother of four children, I really thought I'd been through it all with my three older kids (3, 4.5 and 7). But this little one has really thrown a fast ball on me. What has worked with my other kids has not worked with him. He thinks it is funny to hit, pull hair, and even bite. An example: I was working in the basement for a few hours last night (I work part-time from home) while my husband watched the kids. When I came upstairs, my son ran up to me with his little chubby arms reached out. Of course I picked him up. Then he promptly hit me in the face and tried to pull my hair while laughing. I do not tolerate this behavior. I promptly firmly grasped his little hand, said "no" and put him in his room. Of course he screamed and pounded on the door. After a few minutes, I went and picked him up again. He tried to hit me again and we repeated the process. I go through this with him all the time. He hits the other kids, pulls their hair, etc... I have tried to avoid spanking my kids throughout my parenting years. There have been a few instances where we've spanked our kids, but we've never used a belt (I will never do that), and it has always been with our hand. I have tried firmly "bopping" my little one's diapered bottom, but he just thinks that's funny. Should I resort to a stinging swat? I'm trying to teach him to be gentle, so I'm not sure if that is the best approach either. At any rate, I am exhausted. He is everywhere. He learned to climb out of his crib, he climbs on the table (I of course don't tolerate this) and if someone forgets to close the bathroom door it's a disaster. It's not like he has no attention span. He will sit on my lap and listen to a story. But what I'm doing does not seem to be getting through to him. Does anyone have advice/ideas?
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Yesterday, 09:30 AM	? #2 (permalink)
Member ? Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 9,787	He sounds like my nephew. ALLL BOY! My older daughter was a biter. Omg. She broke skin on me TWICE (ages 1-2 years), bit a kid at school (almost got kicked out of her daycare!), bit my mom...we tried time outs, etc, but she wasn't getting it...until I bit her back one day (she bit my shoulder and drew blood). Not my proudest moment, but it worked. I didn't bite hard, but enough to where she was shocked and said, "OUCH!" and after that, she didn't bite another person. I don't know about the other stuff...other than he's just a rough little guy. Maybe some other posters have suggestions.
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Yesterday, 09:37 AM	? #4 (permalink)
Member ? Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: Texas Posts: 376	[QUOTE=that_girl;941380]My older daughter was a biter. Omg. She broke skin on me TWICE (ages 1-2 years), bit a kid at school (almost got kicked out of her daycare!), bit my mom...we tried time outs, etc, but she wasn't getting it...until I bit her back one day (she bit my shoulder and drew blood). Not my proudest moment, but it worked. I didn't bite hard, but enough to where she was shocked and said, "OUCH!" and after that, she didn't bite another person. QUOTE] LOL, this was the first thing that occurred to me, but I thought I'd probably be accused of savagery. I was apparently a biter, too. I'm told I bit my grandfather (who I probably loved more than any other person growing up; I mean, I worshipped this man). My grandfather promptly bit me back, and that was that. Never bit anybody again. Anther thing is to figure out what he considers a punishment. Every kid is different. You've already established that spanking is a non-starter, and that sending him to his room is effective, so continue to explore that. Take away (for a week or so, not forever) a toy that he values. No treats, maybe. In other words, determine what pushes his buttons. But seriously, biting back (not too hard) may do the trick. It apparently did for me.
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Yesterday, 12:48 PM	? #10 (permalink)
Member ? Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: Portugal Posts: 657	He doesn't know what hurting is, for him it's all one big joke where he gets the other one all upset (that's so much fun). Swat him in the hand the second he pulls that crap and he'll get the message. Quote: don't use the spanking route, "Violence is okay if you are bigger" is the message you will convey. He's only 16 months and has no comprehension of future consequences. That's false. He has no comprehension of future consequences if they are not immediate and clear enough. Quote: Just remain consistent, when he hits you tell him no hitting and place him in the playpen or other safe zone he can't escape from. One swat is 10x more efficient than that for a 16 month old child that won't even comprehend the link between what he has done and the punishment. I come from a big family. Lots of cousins. Nobody would beat on each other because we all knew how that would be handled by our parents. When our parents stopped having control over us we were old enough to understand how to behave. I know that the new age says corporal punishment this and that. Thing is, i never saw a single scientific article explaining why a responsible parent can't dish out a swat on an misbehaving kid. The articles that do exist are philosophical and use unsubstantiated sentences like the one you used here: Quote: "Violence is okay if you are bigger" is the message you will convey. Given that the older generations basically all had been beaten by their parents why did society just not crumble in a spiral of violence? I'll tell you why, because the message you pass is not that unless you act like an idiot and hit the kid over nothing. The message you pass is that behaving like a wild animal has very clear consequences. Want a clear view of this? Compare the way kids behaved in school back then and how they do now. Were they more violent in the past when they were being belted everyday? Did they do more crimes? Were there more teenage murderers? Of course not, so, where does that leave that idea that dishing a swat is going to turn a kid into a violent person? Lets face it. That idea that a swat is that much of a trauma for a kid was made up by certain psychologists who spend their lives in offices thinking about how to raise a child and not nearly enough time actually doing it. I would take an old father or mother advice on how to do things over some guy/girl who spent years to have a diploma on the wall while avoiding actually doing the stuff that are supposedly experts at.
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