"This Whole Family Hates Me!"

i'm trying something were i cuddle my dd in bed at tuck in time and we both share one sad thing taht happened today one happy thing, one mad thing etc. she is super super thriving on that one on one attention and the routine of it. I would ask her stuff about her day before but for some reason she feels i care more when ti's just us in the room. and i'm holding her. shes 7

instead of punishment, you could try discipline. guide him with what you WANT him to do instead of telling him what you DON'T want him to do. Then praise him when he does what you want.

I think instead of punishing him with something UNRELATED to what he did.... how about just reinforcing the behavior of helping our family. Doesn't matter that HE pushed his brother. "Your brother is hurt and in our family brothers help each other. Help your brother up and get him an ice pack. Good, now can you get him a glass of water? If you were hurt what you want someone else to do for you?" walk him through the behaviors you WANT to see.

I never "forced" an apology. It's meaningless if it's not sincere. I was more focused on my daughter repairing what was wrong.... fixing the mistake or helping make it right. Isn't that more important than someone who is sorry only because they were told to be.... or supposed to be?
Instead I would separate your boys. If your son can't play nicely with his brother.... maybe he needs something else to do... like folding towels or helping with dinner. "idle hands are the devil's handiwork" or so the phrase goes......

As much as you are frustrated, try to imagine how frustrated your son is.... for whatever reason.

I like a lot of the advice below for disclipline. I would like to add the flip side of this coin - make sure to praise him when he does good things. Sometimes good behavior goes unnoticed (like the 10 minutes he sits nicely next to his brother watching TV at another time, or when he remembers to share, or when he goes to bed without a fight, etc).

Also, try to carve out one-on-one time with each of your kids. This can be really hard to do, but it is really great positive attention for kids. One of my friends goes out to breakfast every Saturday morning with one of his kids, while his wife goes out to breakfast somewhere else with the other. And they switch kids every week. That way each child gets the undivided attention from a parent for at least an hour or so each week. It really cut down on some of the acting out for attention that their older child was doing.

And it doesn't have to be something that costs $. It could be a hike in a nearby park. An hour throwing a ball in the back yard. It just needs to be scheduled, interactive, and non-optional (for you that is, no cancelling because you are too busy or tired), so that your child knows that he is going to get some one-on-one time with you every week.

Good luck.

You tell him "I always love you. I don't always love some of your choices.".
Then you tell him you love it when he's kind and truthful and you don't like it when any child of yours gets hurt regardless of who's doing the hurting.
If someone hurt him - shouldn't you try to stop it and make sure it doesn't happen again?
Well, you do that for his brother, too.
When you choose to stop hurting, the punishment for it won't happen anymore.
Tell him "YOU are in total control of this. You can make it stop any time you want by being nice. By hurting your brother you are only hurting yourself.".
You might have to repeat it a few times, but things should get better once the message sinks in.

Gosh yours is older than mine so this may or may not work. As you already know, you are being manipulated. Try this tactic, he'll have so many decisions to make he may not have time to manipulate you. So when mine lies, i continue to punish for the incident, but I put my major focus on the lie, making it the greater crime (which I truly believe it is, I am going for zero tolerance with lying). If you turn the focus to the lie, and present an additional punishment over and above what is coming for the original offense, and give him the opportunity to immediately confess and apologize for the lie to avoid the greater punishment, then he has a lot of decisions to make. He will not be as focused on defending himself and keeping up the lie because he is weighing the cost of continuing the lie. He wont have the time to manipulate you. This strategy works great in our house, but again mine is 5 and i know the day is coming where she will outsmart me. None the less, its a great learning opportunity and it has really set a president in our home that lying (especially to parents) is not tolerated. I find that truthfulness is becoming her default response and accepting punishments for the unavoidable mistreatment to her sister is way more tolerable than the consequence for lying.

As far his manipulative comments about being unloved, this is how I explain it to my daughter: Parents who don't love their children don't punish them because they don't care what kind of people they grow up to be. I don't like punishing you, but I do it, because I love you and I want to help you grown up to be a decent human being.

I would tell him I don't care if you did it or not, I saw you do it. He is smart enough to figure that one out...then punish him. And then have some alone time with him and explain to him that it is okay to be honest if we do something wrong and just apologize. But lying is never okay in this house.

I have a lot of trouble with this in class. Our daughter will bring home bad marks for talking too much. If she knows there is something on the line, like an upcoming party, she will say she didn't do it. She was in a work group and everyone else did "it". Ya well, we punish anyway. I just told her last night the teacher is not dumb, she punished the right people.

Yup, this sort of thing happens with my 7yr old daughter. Not a lot but sometimes when in trouble or when she's angry. Just the other night she wanted to do her homework next to me, but her sister was already sitting next to me. Even though there was ample room next to her sister and it was still in arms reach to me she wanted her sister move. When I didn't allow her to get her way. "You don't like me as much as her! You like her better!" ....etc.

Most the time we just ignore it, but sometimes after her fits or at least in the beginning I had talks after she calmed down about how it hurts my feelings when she says that because I love both of them very much the same. I will also point out that her sister gets in trouble too.

Like I said, she doesn't do these fits all the time, but they do come out once in awhile. More than anything she is tired and just venting her anger.

I know it is hard....boys are hard. It is important for him to "own" his mistakes. I would have a long talk with him about making mistakes and learning from our mistakes. If he understands that it is OK to make mistakes then maybe he will be more willing to admit to his mistakes and apologize. You need to stay firm with the punishment though... No T.V. until you confess that you did something wrong. Also, have him go in a room by himself for 8 minutes to think about what happened and then talk to him. Lying is totally a learned behavior. Once they do it and get away with it...they will keep doing it. Also...praise him when he is doing the right thing. Look for those little things. Also, give some opportunity to make choices for himself in the day. Little things...do you want to go to bed at 8 or 8:30 tonight......do you want to wear this or that? Good Luck!

My DD is younger than your son, but maybe this will give you ideas. She will suddenly come up with a pain when she's in trouble. I started treating her like she really did have pain (oh, my tummy hurts! Well, then you have soup for dinner, no dessert and have to lay down and not play).

I would tell him, "I don't hate you, but I don't like your behavior. Whether or not you admit it, I saw you push your brother and the consequence for that is x and the consequence for lying about it is y." And then just go forward rather than weedling him about an apology that he won't give.

I've also reminded DD about the boy who cried wolf. I do want to know her aches and pains, but if she is ALWAYS saying she's in pain, I have no idea what is real. I reminded her to use her words. Is it "my tummy hurts" or "I'm upset that I have to turn the TV off"? "I'm angry/sad/disappointed"? I don't believe you because you're lying when you say you are pained and you aren't.

We also went through this with SS when he was 10-12ish. Every other Monday he'd be "sick". Finally DH got stern with him and said that this "sick" was a waste of DH's time and money and that SS would owe him allowance if DH took him to the dr. again and it wasn't real. The real problem was that it was a way to get attention, especially after visits with his mom. If he was sick, he got to stay another day or got TLC. So we had to get to the root of the problem vs just treating the symptom. So while your son should not lie, what is the root? Is it that he has a problem with his brother? That he's being bullied at school, or what?

Your little guy has your number. He is trying to punish you back with this over-the- top reaction. Firmly say, "Cut the drama and zip it NOW" I would then walk away and ignore him. He is upset because he is in trouble and now wants to make you upset. I would not let his comments have an impact. Put in earbuds and music if you have to and ignore. Also, I would suggest handing out one consequence and then walking away. It can become an argument if you end up handing out several. Later after the conflict I would talk to him about his negative thinking. Explain to him he has a choice, that it may feel like everyone hates him when he is upset, but he can choose to remind himself that he is loved and that he can decide not go into a negative tailspin. Talk to him about negative thoughts vs. positive and how you want him to have the skills to handle things without going into a huge storm of negative thoughts Blessings!

I agree with Jane about this. The focus should be the lie.

I agree with some of the other posts... it needs nipped in the bud as soon as you can. Try to keep punishments the same across the board so that it doesn't seem like you are singling him out. But punishment is punishment... we try to remind our kids that when they do something bad or wrong, bad thing happen & when they do good or nice things nice things come back. We are also getting help with some of the issues from school... they are helping to reinforce things we are doing at home. We have also started using the same rules the school does and word them the same way the teachers do... that way the kids see that rules are not just mommy & daddy being mean, but the way life should be lived.

It is hard sometimes - we have had issues with our 7 yr old not taking respocibility for his actions... this past summer he hurt his brother pretty badly (his brother needed 7 stiches) and wanted nothing to do with him & would cry everytime the can near him. We asked a few times what happened & were told he fell, I didn't do anything. He forgot that the area where it happened is recorded by a camera... after hubby watched the video he asked again. After saying he didn't do anything again... daddy played the video, it still took a little while for him to admit he did something wrong, but finaly did & did say he was sorry.

We have talked to the conselor about everything we have major issues with - responsiblity being one of them... they try to help by playing games & doing other things to show them how it feels to have someone do what they are doing to them. It has helped a lot in just over the year they have been helping us & they only see him for about 20 min every 10 days to 2 weeks.

Keep enforcing the rules & see if your school might have a programs or conselors that might be able to help you to enforce them as well. The program they have at our school isn't just for the kids... it also is a resource parents can use to find out ways of better dealing with situation you are asking about. If you school doesn't offer something - talk to his doctor and see if they can offer up a place that might be around you... only thing with that is it might cost you a bit more then a school based program.

Good luck!