Parenting advice..

pincushions

How do you handle your whiny 4 yr old?

Miles literally takes 45 minutes to put his pants on to go anywhere. I ask nicely. I have offered to help. I even left them on his bed and said "Miles I need you to put your pants on so we can leave."

 

Every morning we go through this. Taking stuff away is not working. Time outs aren't helping because I need him to hurry the hell up. Hell not even hurry just get it done in 5 minutes.

If I even raise my voice he gets extremely hurt feelings and cries about random crap. Then goes and hides in his room whining.

I just want him to put his damn pants on. He does this with everything. I can not leave the house without it being a full blown crying fest. Even if we go somewhere he wants it still requires me to raise my voice to get him ready and out of the house.

How do you handle this?

Taking the kids anywhere is starting to give me anxiety attacks. I feel trapped in my house again because we are in full on I WANT MODE with them and really they rarely get what they want, but Emilia can cry/whine about wanting something for hours at a time and Miles don't get me started.

Miles has also started crying when I try to drop him off at school. He doesn't want to go. He is fine after I leave but getting him in the car for school and then in the class room has become a huge fight.

loosing my mind here and it is only tue.

 

Jamaica_Bride

Luke is my ass dragger. We have a rule that during the week he needs to get dressed first before leaving his room in the morning. I leave his clothes out for him. Soon enought he gets bored, hungry, thristy enough to get dress and come out.

Jodi&Joe

Have you tried a reward chart?

Honestly, I felt as though I had tried EVERYTHING with Joey and school (he acts out there....one of the more rambunctious ones, let's say!) 

Anyway, the reward chart -- KEY!  Every time I drop him off, I will say "Alright, don't forget to have a good day so you can put a sticker on your chart!"  It works 9 out of 10 times.  Don't get me wrong, we have still had a few days that the teacher had to talk to me....but the offenses were minimal and WAY less frequent.

POSITIVITY baby! 

And if you've tried that, yea, I'm at a loss!  (((HUGS)))  LOL

AggieCouple

How about positive reinforcement like stickers/sticker chart?  ML has been sleeping in her bed all night every night since we started giving her stickers for it.  

pincushions

Jamaica, your a genius. I didn't even think to do that!

I just told him he isn't getting his morning drink until he gets dressed..

 

I wish I could tell him he isn't allowed out of his room until he is dressed! He would probably stay in there all morning.

pincushions

He is not a sticker chart or candy reward kid. That is Emilia all the way. She loves stickers and charts.

He is my tough discipline cookie.

joseysbride

I also started getting Rory dressed first thing before she even left her room.  I think it helped that it was a little more routine that way, and she didn't have to stop what she was doing (playing toys, watching tv, etc.) to go and do it.

As for whining in general...I don't know!  R has gotten a lot better in the last couple months, but she does still whine when she's tired.  For awhile there, I thought I had forgotten what her real voice sounded like.

KoriBrett

Would he go for eating breakfast in skivvies, then putting his pants on after ?  Does he maybe just want more say in which clothes he's wearing?

Jodi&Joe

PIN -- I really would have NEVER thought Joey would be receptive to a silly sticker chart. Honestly, it's why I avoided trying it for so long and tried other, more "stern" methods.

It shocked me (still does) that the kid even cares about a sticker --- SO not like him, at all. 

This is the kid that helped me throw away his toys because he refused to pick them up.  HELPED ME....put them in the garbage bag, one by one!

pincushions

KoriBrett:

Would he go for eating breakfast in skivvies, then putting his pants on after ?  Does he maybe just want more say in which clothes he's wearing?

He loves wearing just his underwear around the house. He doesn't care how cold it is.

Mornings are just hard. I feel like we fight first thing in the morning every morning and I dread it. I usually let him relax when he wakes up but now with school 2x a week and the mornings that I need to get out of the house by 9 have been hard.

 I know that they are testing limits but I feel like that is all I get all day.

 

Denying him his morning drink did get him to put his pants on real quick. I hope that works tomorrow too!

 

 

KoriBrett

Samantha pulls the same crap, but we have the bonus of being upstairs and having the stairs gated off.  We just don't go downstairs until everyone is dressed. 

If I try to help her out of her pjs she gets ticked, so if she's slow I'll reach for the zipper LOL  I also ask her if she's hungry & talk about breakfast a lot to get her ass in gear. 

Not sure what else to tell you other than maybe bring an outfit in the car (without him knowing it) and say ok, put him in the car in his underwear and go.  I think my mom did this to my sister once.  Never had a problem again ;-)

shouldbworkin

I set the kitchen timer for 5 mins and tell him that if he's not dressed when the timer goes off, he goes to school in his PJs.  It has worked really well so far. 

I generally try not to take my kids shopping with me lately b/c they just don't have the patience for it.  If anything, I will just take one and leave the other with DH.  I try to do my shopping at night after they're in bed.  I'm tired, but it is so much better than taking them. 

 For school drop off, I would just adopt a mantra to repeat to him every day when you drop him off.  Give a hug and a kiss, say have a nice day and walk away.  Eventually they learn that this is the only response they're going to get. 

npeacock

I could have written this post almost word for word.

Once DS got to pick out his own clothes, that helped. And he doesn't like to get them from his drawers, but from a laundry basket. So I put two outfits in a laundry basket at night and leave it outside his bedroom door. He opens the door when he wakes up, and grab whichever clothes he wants to wear, and puts them on before going down for breakfast. It's helped. Also, counting 1, 2... I haven't gotten to three yet. I don't know what he thinks will happen when I do.

As for the whining, I don't know what to tell you. We do the "I can't understand you when you talk that way" or "Please use your big kid voice" but that only works once in a while.

At drop off, I had to get the teachers involved. I get the lesson plan for the week, and we talk about the "exciting" thing of the day at drop off, whether it's an art project, show and tell, whatever. It's helped him get excited for the day, and he can tell the other kids about it.

femmegem

Ditto Jamaica. I use something immediate as incentive. GL!