The pic above is of my sweet Gavin. We went ice skating last night for FHE. I forgot my camera, but I had my cell phone. I took a ton of pictures, only to come home and find that I had not saved them, this is the only one that worked. By the way, our whole family is NOT good at ice skating. Mandy and Brett watched Kayler for me, thank goodness. The rest of us struggled around the rink a few times. I’m not going back anytime soon…lol.
So today I need a little advice on my Gavin. Let me just say, he is the sweetest most precious and adorable little 4 almost 5 year old. But, he had been on a bad streak for lets say….a few years now. He is just the one kid that I constantly have to get after. This is not saying that my other 2 kids don’t have their naughty times, or that they don’t get into trouble. It is just that Gavin does twice as much naughty and definitely lives up to the “middle child” syndrome.
He is always the first one to tell me that I am pretty. He was the first to notice the Christmas lights all around and say how beautiful they were. He is just so sweet. On the other end of the spectrum, he is so darn naughty. He is always been the one that is so sneaky and breaks things, makes huge messes, is very mean to other kids (especially his brother and sister), and who is very hard to discipline.
For example, he loves to trip Kayler. He will just be walking along and he will throw toys or anything at his feet just so he can see him fall and cry. I will try to talk to him, put him on time out, etc. IT DOES NOT WORK. A few weeks ago, he had gone too far, Kayler had cried all day because of him hurting him. So I spanked him (gasp…I know that is against the law now). I felt terrible, and he felt terrible, and it broke his heart. I thought that for sure would do the trick. I was wrong. It wasn’t 15 minutes later and he took a little couch thing and slammed Kayler from behind and sent him flying across the room. I have tried reward charts, like if he is nice for so many days, he gets a trip to he dollar store. My mom has bribed him for every day that he is not mean to Kayler, she gives him a dollar. Well, he has currently earned no trips to the dollar store and no dollars from my mom. This has continued up until now, and he has another bad habit.
He is peeing everywhere. HOW SICK IS THAT. So far, it has been on his bedroom floor, on his bedspread, and in a bathroom trash can. He says he “can’t find the toilet.” I don’t know if he is trying to get attention, or what. It is very hard as a mom of 3 to give all my children the same amount of good attention. When Hallie comes home from school, I try to tell her good job on her papers. I try to teach and praise Kayler, but he is a baby, so he has a lot of needs as well. I go completely out of my way to find things to praise Gavin about, because I know that when he is so naughty all the time, he is getting a lot of negative feed back and he needs to have balance. I make a huge deal about the smallest things, and truly love the smile on his face when he realizes that I love him and I am proud of him, even though I have to get after him so much.
So basically, how can I go about stopping this terrible behavior without breaking his spirit? I personally think that kids this age are so fragile, and the things that I say and do to him will stay with him for a lifetime and shape the kind of adult he is. I don’t want to ruin him. So, give me some advice. I know that I am not alone, and other moms got through this too, but I hope things get better soon.
4 comments:
Oh Kandice..... I can't even tell you how glad I am that you posted this!! I wish I knew your phone number because I would be calling you right now! I am having sooo they same problem. My little Easton is the sweetest little thing, who is the first to tell me I am pretty, and say I love you mommy, walk up to me, and kiss me for no reason... But he is so naughty, it is SO frustrating! I also have been struggling the last couple of days thinking about how I don't want to break his sweet spirit, but how I also want to...? Does that make sense? He is so strong willed, and he thinks he is the one in charge. It is so frustrating because sometimes I think people just look at me like what have you done to make him act like that. But nothing works, I have tried time outs, taking toys away, rewarding good behavior etc. Sometimes he gets so annoyed with me telling him what a good job he did, trying to balance the negative like you said, that he will say stop it mom. I don't have any advice for you. I did have someone tell me something one time. I can't really remember exactly how she said it.. she said "His spirit is just to big for his little body..." She was an older lady, and said someone had told it to her when her son was really young :) Good luck!! I think that there needs to be a support group :)
Kandice,
I'm so sorry this is such a struggle for you! I obviously don't have advice, because I am inexperienced in this area! But I took a Psych class from BYU about parenting, and one thing I remember is that sometimes it's good to take a "troublesome" child out all by himself once in awhile...just you & him to do something special just for him. You might do this already, or it might just not be possible in your situation. But that was the only thing that came to mind when I was reading your post.
Anyway, I hope that things get better soon, and just remember that the Lord doesn't give us challenges unless He is willing to give us the strenth and patience to handle them. (I know, easy for me to say, I don't have any boys yet. LOL)
By the way, I read Kristi's comment...I didn't know she had another baby!
Oh, I just read your comments on my blog. And yeah, it DOES suck having computer-nerd-game-freaks for husbands!! But I guess we knew what we were getting into when we agreed to marry them...LOL
well--- from all my SUPER NANNY episodes--- You should watch it, its awesome. You can watch em on the internet too. But with all the kids that struggle. They are given chores to do around the house, and then they have game time, they do as a family, and then mom and dad have special time with each kid, usually more so with the kid thats causing the problems cause usually they are causing the trouble to get attention, He just may need a little more attention than the other siblings. Even though they aren't getting good attention they are still getting it. and having a route everyday might help too, so he knows what to expect, maybe he gets bored to easy. Thats all I can think of let me know how it goes.!!!!
Joce
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