Not Listening and Disrespect

I LOVE Jim Faye's "Love and Logic" books. When you are able to be empathetic and calm (ha ha ha!) and provide an appropriate consequence they cannot be angry with you because you are yelling and they learn to realize that their actions have consequences. This teaches them important lessons in responsibility. You can go to loveandlogic.com (I think). Good luck!! (The times that I am able to do it correctly it has worked wonderfully)

I'm a very hands on kind of person. I'm the oldest of 4 and now have 2 of my own. According to the world of ME, if the child says "No, I don't want to" is say "That's too bad, I'm the Mommy and I make the decisions. Now, go do it." Depending on what it is, If it's cleaning their room I'd give them a time frame and anything left out afterwards gets taken away (possibly to Goodwill - only took once). If it's throwing something away or putting the dish in the dishwasher, I'd take their little hands in mine, and make them do it, Crying and kicking and all, then I'd send them to their room. Generally, If my kids throw a fit and start crying, I tell them to go to their room and not come out till they are done. And I ask them as soon as they come out again. I don't do the whole "talking" to them thing. My way works for my kids and they always come to terms and choose how they should behave with respect to me and what I've asked them to do.

K.,

I can commiserate with you. My kids are busy too, a 5 yr. old girl and 8 yr. old boy, and can give me and my husband a run for our money sometimes. A book that I have found invaluable is "Have a New Kid by Friday" by Dr. Kevin Leman. He really has some good advice in it and also has a Q&A section in the back for specific questions. I've found it very helpful.

As for your hubby not "remembering"" things you've told him, make sure that you've got his full attention (eye contact, no distractions) when you're telling him something. Guys are not the best at multi-tasking and sometimes can't focus on two things going on at the same time...like dealing with a kid and hearing their wife.

Those are my two cents. Things will get easier...hang in there!

S.

K.,

We have an only child and he started doing some of these same things with us around the age of 3 1/2 to 4. He is now 6. We have always used the one swat punishment when he did something REALLY RUDE. However, since you didn't mention your older son as disrespecting you, work with him. Give your two oldest children chores (something small in the beginning) and when your oldest child follows the directions given then give him a reward, such as going out for ice cream, getting a new "small" toy from the store, or going out for dinner with mommy.

When your middle child objects tell him that when he follows the rules and listens he will get the same rewards his older brother does.

Just be aware that if you do this too much and don't give your middle child a real opportunity to reach the reward then you will build resentment between your children as he sees his brother getting to do everything with you and he doesn't get to do anything.

Give your middle child lots of opportunities and "model" the appropriate behavior you want him to use. A couple of times I had to "show" our son the things he was doing to me. Like whining, once when we got home I dropped my things off in the kitchen and proceeded to have a whining temper tantrum to show him how his behavior affected others around him. It worked for a while. Occasionally I still have to remind him about whining, but it is not longer a daily occurrence.

Good luck. Remember all kids test the behavior they see around them. He may be testing the behavior your husband is modeling, but he may also be picking up this behavior from daycare. If you can find out where it is coming from and work to limit his exposure, then it may be easier to reverse his negative behavior.

Hi K.:

I strongly recommend a parenting series called "Love and Logic." It's a parenting philosophy developed by Jim Fay and Foster Cline. Check your library for their books, or audio books. The techniques are easy to learn and they WORK! You can view more about them at http://www.loveandlogic.com/

My husband and I have always had a rule, we ask one time. Only one. No nagging! The child then has a choice, they can do what we've asked, or we will take action and "help" them do what we've asked (which they typically don't like at all!).

As far as your hubby, I agree some of the previous mamas. #1, make sure you have eye contact when you speak with him. You could even ask him to repeat back to you what you've just said. And #2, make certain you and hubby are on the same page. You must present a united front for your children's sake.

Good luck!

K.,
I am not sure if you have tried doing the same thing to him. I have one son and I started doing it to him and things really have turned around. When he would ask me to do something I would tell him No or winne back at him, most of the time he would laugh but I would tell him this is what he sounded like when he answered me. Now that he is 9 I can now say to him "is that a nice way to talk to me"?

Iam sure you will find the right thing to handle your son your way because you are interested in making it work out right.
Good luck - R.

K. G,

Sorry, this is long!

I had 2 boys and on occasion similar problems. When I was told now/yelled at in general treated with disrespect, they were punished.

There were times when they would ask me to do something and I would "not hear them-you didn't say that" back to them. In otherwords, when they want YOU to do something (be sure its important to THEM not so much to you) "you don't want to."

One thing I can't stress enough: BE CONSISTENT!

If you are not able to handle these things now, what will heppen when they are teenagers?

I'm sorry you husband does not seem to be on the same page with you. Try discussing this with him in regard of needing his support/back up. Also, when you want him to pay attention to you, "GET INTO HIS FACE". I mean make sure he is looking at you with his eyes and ears.

The last thing I can suggest: counseling. As a couple and as a family. Before these children are in their teens. Have been there and done that. When they are in their teens they will not listen to anyone of athority.

A little about me. 59 year old Mother of 2 sons and 3 granddaughters. I have been a full time working mom since my boys were 12 & 9 years old. My husband divorced me when my oldest was 6 years old and they youngest was 3.

When my oldest was 12 yrs old I sent him to live with his father-I couldn't control him anymore. Also, he had been picked up with a friend of his vandalizing a building.

When the youngest was 14 he went to live with his father-was turning into an angry freeloader. Their father had the strength and tenacity to get to them.

Today, my oldest son is retiring from the Marine Corp. His 17 year old daughter is having some major problems which the law is getting involved in. My take: He made her "daddy's little girl" from the day she was born. Took her hunting, fishing and other activities where she could go. And when she became a teenager he gradually started distinceing himself due to her "girlie" activities. Don't get me wrong, he is a productive, hard working, loving, kind man. I am very proud of him. He just didn't make the right decisions where his daughter was concerned after she became a teenager.

My youngest son has 2 daughters. The oldest is 21 works 2 or 3 jobs (last I heard) and lives on her own. She is a very special young lady. If she hasn't started back to college, it is her plan. His youngest is 14 and also very special. For the past 2 years he & his wife have been having problems and are getting a divorce. In spite of this both girls are still the kind, considerate and mannerly young ladies they always have been. He is the opposite of the oldest and has always been very involved with his girls. They have a wonderful relationship. He made them "daddy's little girls".

Also, my step daughter had some SERIOUS problems when she was 13. My sister in law knew some police officers who did a Scarred Straight program and took her to them. Today, she has graduated from high school and is signed up for the Air Force. I am so proud of her! She has come a long way.

I realize these children are all from divorced families, but share some of these things with you husband. Let him see your heart and ask if he will help you so your children don't have some of these problems. I pray everyday for my 17 year old granddaughter that she doesn't make any mistakes which can't be fixed.

Sorry this is long. Hope it helps.
C. S.

K., you need to set boundaries, not only with your kids, but with your husband. How he reacts to you will have and influence on how the kids react to you. If you don't enforce some boundaries now, think what they will be like as teenagers...... If you don't have an honest talk with your husband about boundaries, not only for the both of you, but for the kids, it will lead to real problems when they are teenagers. You and your husband also need to show a "united front" in disciplining the kids. You have to agree not to undermine each other and to support the other in disciplining. That means you need to discuss now how to handle situations and to talk to one another before handing out punishments as new situations arise. You are raising adults. I never thought of it that way until someone else told me that. We always say we are raising children, but we aren't, we are raising adults. How do you want your boys to be as men, husbands, fathers??? Hope this helps. L. S.

Super Nanny has a lot of good tips on how to handle this type of a situation.

Do your boys ever ask you to do something? Like feed them, take them places?? Maybe you don't listen to them next time or just say NO. Then after 5 minutes ask them how it feels. After a few days of their own medicine they might get it....mine did. You kids are the same age difference of mine and they still will repeat my "line" to them..."there are 3 of you and only 1 of me..WAIT". I am not a patient parent either, so when I ask them to do something, I don't count to three, I don't wait, I expect it to be done. However yesterday my 13 year old didn't do what was asked and when she wanted to leave I again ignored her until the job I had asked her to do was done. She was late, but she learned! Keep consistent. If they don't listen, make a "job chart" or list. As they get older this helps to break up the jobs or show that one child is doing all the work. I give allowances on job completion as well.

You are at the tough ages and it will start getting better if you stick with the plan and get them to respect you. But you also need to respect them by not asking them to pick up during the most exciting part of the movie they are watching. I often say, "at the next commercial, I need X done." And don't nag. Say it once and expect it to be done. If not then don't fulfill their next request (dinner works best) until it is done! Be consistant, but know it is work.

This might sound a bit silly but, have you watched Super-Nanny? She has wonderful tactics. She prescribes firm but kind CONSISTENT action for unacceptable, disrespectful behavior, with natural and logical consequences. I had 3 close together and it is very challenging to keep up with all three, when all three are toddlers. Daddy, being a role model needs to pay attention to HIS behavior towards you. Your boys will mimic EVERYTHING he does. You and your husband need to be on the same page with this or you will end up looking like the one with the crabby-pants on and have no respect from any of your men...large or small. Back to Super Nanny...in spite of it being a TV show, she really has good results and involves the whole family, not just mom's parenting skills. I hope you can nip it in the bud NOW, rather than waiting til they are all three teenagers. Even though your youngest can't talk much yet, believe me, he gets it and is learning all the tricks from his older brothers. All the best to you!

I highly recommend the Love and Logic series. Their website is www.loveandlogic.com where you can purchase their resources (they are also available at amazon etc) and they have downloadable sheets to print off. And sometimes Love and Logic works with husbands too:) So much of it is taking out the emotion that comes with being disrespected (understandably so!).

Dear K. G.

People I have seen who are successful with their kids, hold the child's face gently in both of the parent's hands and talk so the child can only look the parent in the eyes while being spoken to. My church recommends taking away absolutely EVERYTHING from the disrespectful, and disobeying child. They get food when hungry, but they have no privileges. Only a bed and books and writing utensils and papers in the bed room. No radio, no t.v., no videos, no computer/computer games, etc. Expect temper tantrums but if you stick to your guns, eventually he should behave as you expect.

That reminds me: You have to tell him exactly what you expect from him when you have his little face in your hands and he is listening and looking you in the eye. He has to know exactly what you will allow and if he does not obey those boundaries exactly what the consequences are. He has to know that you will follow through with whatever you tell him. Boundaries are healthy and we all need boundaries; even adults. If he does not learn to obey now when he is older he will be even worse. Better to suffer his noise/loudness now than when he is older and stronger physically. No bosses will tolerate temper tantrums for long and if you don't want him living off of you/your spouse forever he has to learn to behave now.

I was too lenient with my granddaughters because I thought they had such a hard life with their mom and now it is even harder on me. I now know that I should have been as strict on them as I was on their mom and her sibling. I am paying the price for it and it is much harder to make them obey now than it would have been if I had been harder on them as younger girls.

Hope this is helpful to you.

L. C.

It does sound like this may be stemming from your son seeing the way your husband treats you. Our husband plays a very large role in parenthood and needs to understand that his behavior of not listening to you (the old 'tune her out' bit), is greatly affecting your relationship with your son and making him behave the same way.

I feel you really need to have a heart to heart with your husband and let him see first hand what is occuring in your home with your child.

You sound overwhelmed.

My suggestion is to be consistent. it takes a while to change bad habits. You need to be calm and deliver the message of " I dont respond to rude talk" and completely ignore any message delivered in that tone. The biggest advice I can give is to find a good parenting class, like love and logic. this will give you great tools to deal with your situation.

It takes a lOT of the pressure off the parent and puts the responsibility on the child of the behavior. Basically, "you do this or, bummer, you lost your tv. or whatever thing is important to him at the moment. Your choice, and I hope you make a good one kid"

The classes also provide support and the teachers are usually great in helping with individual situations.they might have a video in the library or online if you cant get into a class. (usually offered by public schools)

good luck to you.

All I can say is that I can feel your pain!! I suggest going online and looking up Jim Fay's Love & Logic material. Buy it, listen to it, implement it. It will work if you use it - even on your husband. When my children were this age, I had similar issues and attended a Love & Logic Course at a local church out of desperation. I don't have time to go into a lot of detail - but try it. It is easy - and it's amazing how well it will work for you.

Best of luck. Feel free to call me and I can give you some specific examples if you like. My home phone is ###-###-####.
Barb

K.,
Time for your best buddy to get up off his keister and back you up with disciplining the kids. Let's face it, he was there for the 'creativity' and he should be there for the development too. You need to be on the same page. It shouldn't be totally up to you. And this ignoring stuff sure seems to be manifesting itself between father and son and it has got to go. Let hubby do the job for a while. No kidding; switch places and offer the same ignorant lines you get. This is not sounding very balanced.
You stay consistent with the time out, taking away privileges, exact an apology for disrespect when he's done with time out and does what is asked of him.

K.,
I also have had it with similar situations in our home. We have 3 girls ages 10, 8 and 6. I have pretty bad allergies, and until I lost my voice 2 weeks ago, I didn't realize just how much I had to nag and repeat myself over and over to motivate our little darlings.(My husband also says I'm a push-over, but I think he's crazy!)I have several family members and good friends who are teachers and all agree that children are individuals who need to be approached accordingly, and that sometimes bribery DOES work. So, I've resorted to the 'ol $ bribe. This works with our girls who love to take a portion of their allowance to Claire's and buy jewelry, or get a new Webkinz. You would have to go on what interests your boys. I just started this 3 days ago, so I have to work the "bugs" out. I started the girls out with $5 each. I told them that if they did not mind when asked to do something, or if I had to remind them to do what I asked, $1 would be taken away. I set a 2 day time limit and they are allowed to keep any $ left. I could have gone longer especially with my 10 yr. old, but this is a new tactic for me and I have to adjust for ages, etc. So far, this really motivated them, and the girls even remind each other to mind/behave. By the end of the 2nd day, my 10 yr. old had $5, 8 yr old had $4, and my 6yr. old had only $2. Doing this really opened my eyes as to who is the "troublemaker" of the group. You may not be suprised to hear it is the youngest! I hope this idea helps, I hope to get other ideas from your request also, as I want our family to have a fun and peaceful summer. Best of luck to you and your family.

A.

Hi K.- I'm sorry you have been dealing with this! I know it is very stressful and wearing on you! That makes you feel overwhelmed and have less patience- at least that's how it gets for me. I have daughters rather than sons, but all kids try to test their parents. In fact, our 4 1/2 year old is our toughest as well. (she's the youngest, though.) My husband is awesome at backing me up and vice versa, and it makes a world of difference. It is HUGE for the kids to see the parents have a united front, and if they don't it is confusing for them and causes a whole pile of other problems that make it even harder on mom and dad as well as cause issues for when the kids are older(I have read about this). Sit down with your husband and let him know that you respect him as husband, dad, and 'man of the house' but as hard as it may be, he needs to respect how you feel so that you 2 can figure out compromises and get on the same page. If this isn't happening- go get some counseling or it will NOT improve. We are very consistent with punishments with our kids and try hard to not repeat things to them for them to obey and this helps A LOT but we still have issues a little, so we are going to try one new thing (just a bit of a different approach): we are going to have the kids memorize 2 simple rules- 1. When we say their name, they are to stop, look at us and listen. 2. They are to obey immediately what they are told. It's very simple and if they do not obey either rule # 1 or rule # 2, they get a punishment. And when they get punished, we simply have to tell them, "you didn't obey rule # 1" or whatever. We feel that this will help with a lot of the little issues we deal with. Of course, sometimes you have to deal with each specific child in a way that they works best with them...sorry if this is long; and it looks like you have gotten great advice already so I hope this helps a little!! Just make sure your kids know that you love them unconditionally and that you are the parent and they are not going to control you in any way; it's disrespectful.
God bless you and I hope you can get things figured out!

Try your hardest to get your husband on the same page. It may still be challenging to teach that second "middle child" to stop being disrespectful (they usually have extra 'fire in their belly' which can be a good thing too as they get older), but at least you will be a united force. There are still times when my husband does not back me up, and it makes the issue at hand more frustrating...which doesn't help my "patience". Be a united force, and BOTH of you give him a "calm" taste of his own medicine one day...it will leave more of an impression on him if you are both showing him what it is like to be told "No" and to hear whining and attitude. Just make sure to explain it to him too. Be consistent and stick together "calmly"...don't give him the frustrated reaction that shows him he has accomplished his mission of being in charge. Have set-up consequences (that relate to the 'crime) that you and your husband promise each other you will both enforce...even if you are not both present. And most importantly stick with it, because it may be a process.

I have been reading a book called "redirecting childrens behavior", and I like it if anyone wants to check it out. It reminds me of some stuff I should know and insight to why kids do what they do. Punishment should fit the crime, they want to eat in the living room and don't clean up then tomorrow simply state not today, you didn't clean up yest, you can try again tomorrow. A big thing with me is not getting frustrated and just state what is. I can relate. (this is why this is my summer reading:) K.

K.,

First of all you need to get your husband on board. The two of you need to work as a team, not opposing each other on discipline. Unity in front of the kids even if you disagree in private. Children also learn from example i.e. how your husband responds to your request will teach them how they respond to you. Your husband needs to understand this and help you asap.

I, too, have a four year old boy that can be defiant. When he tells me "no, I don't want to!" I tell him I didn't ask him if he wanted to or not but he is required to do what I ask. We've had the talk about who's in charge several times.

You have to be strong and hang in there with him. Don't give him the chance to think he's the one with the authority to make decisions. Think of it this way...it's much easier to get a handle on things when he's small than to wait until he's an unruly teenager, bigger than you and still thinks he's in charge.

My husband is great at backing me up in front of our children. To me, for some reason children respond to the male voice much quicker and easier than they do a females. It could also be that they hear me all day long and it doesn't have as much effect by the end of the day.

Good luck and hang in there!