Behavior - Green Bay,WI

K.,
I also have a five year old and a new baby. She is usually a really good kid but she started misbehaving around the time I had the baby. Nothing seemed to work as far as time outs, taking away toys, and privilages until we started giving her more attention. I think it's easy to forget the older and easier child when you have other little ones to worry about. My husband started to hang out with her every night before bed to just let her talk about anything she wanted until she got sleepy. I also would talk to her about why she would act out and what she thought would help her not need to do that. She also likes to draw a lot which seems to help her express herself in a possitive way. This I think is very important to this age group. We also took away most of the toys except the few favorites to simplify play time. Then when she was extra good I would let her go choose one toy to take out of storage. This gave me the chance to look for and focus on her good behavior instead of only on bad behavior.

Rest assured...it's not just your 5 year old. Mine is going to be 5 in two months...and he has those same issues...not listening and other behavior problems. He also talks back a lot lately. For that, he'll get hot sauce if he talks back or says naughty words more than a few times...he gets a few warnings. It seems to work pretty well...of course he gets cheese or water right away and our "hot sauce" is not really hot anyways. As far as listening...I started with time outs, they did nothing. So now he gets "grounded" from things. About two weeks ago he was really misbehaving badly for hours, so he got all of his favorite things taken away...video games, movies, computer...and the next was going to be his cars. Fortunately he shaped up and didn't lose the cars too. He ended up earning the stuff back with good behavoir and listening...but it worked wonders.

Try to make sure the punishment fits the crime, too. If he doesn't listen when you're trying to get ready to go and get him into the car, for example, taking away his milk or cars or tv time doesn't really correspond. Taking away the privilege of going places with you makes more sense. It's also a bigger hassle for you because you can't leave your 5 year old home alone while you go grocery shopping, etc. but it should be more effective. Hang in there!

Find out what his currency is and us it against him... Maybe no tv time... No toys...Extra chores..maybe making him write sentences...Try several different things and if they dont work use combinations. You can even try taking all the toys out of his room or something like that.I know a mom that took away her sons milk at night... That really hurt his feelings.

I send my daughter to her room she hates it because she get's no attention and can't be a part of what's going on downstairs. She usually is only naughty enough to get told "go to your room" when company is over so it drives her crazy and she usually is well behaved and can come back down in 10 min. or so. She likes to show off and be rude or mean to our company sometimes or her friends.

Otherwise I tell her to go sit on the stairs and think about what she did wrong

My daughter is 5, and has had issues with this too. I have found that having her sit on her bed in a time out when she's naughty works wonders. She just HATES to sit with nothing to do, so she'll shape up her behavior to avoid having to sit on her bed. I also take away her play time after dinner if she's really being naughty. I'll have her go right to bed after dinner with no snack, and that drives her crazy. Usually one of those two works great. Good luck!

I see a lot of negative reinforcment here! have you tried catching him being good and rewarding him? Don't get me wrong, taking things away ha a place for sure, but if it is not working, try positive reinforcement! When he does good, praise him! When he listens the first time, praise him! It seems like it never works, but I think if you mix it with the taking away of priveledges, you will get faster results! And don't worry...you are not alone! I think this is one of those constant things we have to be consistent with to make it work, there is never a break!

When my second son (who is now 12) was about that the same age,he did the same thing, it took a while, but we finally found something that worked for him and that was time out in a chair facing a wall, everytime get got up or yelled he got extra time. This worked so well because he had to be in the middle of the action at all times. After a couple of times of this I'd tell him to go get his chair and he would straighten right up and do what I told him to do. What it takes is to find a punshiment that works.