Parenting Big Kids (5-8) Support Group
This community is focused on the joys, challenges and concerns faced by parents of big kids (5 to 8 year olds). The major areas of child development include: physical development, perception and sensory development, communication and language development, cognitive development, emotional development and social development. Join to share your stories and get advice.
Please help, I desperately need tips for remaining patient with my children, namely my five year old son. I've struggled with this all throughout parenthood thus far and have been truly trying to work on it as of late. I know it stems from my insecurities in general but I'm tired of all the negative self talk and discouragement I give myself when I mess up. My kids are worth it and I'm worth it.
My five year old has been precocious and strong-willed his entire life and the older he gets the more he's learning to manipulate situations. He is smart, funny and a great kid....but his behavior is still out of control. I'm willing to take the blame for the most part since I am a stay at home mom. But I know his fathers behavior has influence as well.
I would like to have more control over my own emotions and not just resort to yelling, because that obviously doesn't work. Time outs are not having much effect. I just find that he seems incapable of listening...as if his brain just shuts down the minute I begin to tell him something. I've been working super hard on remaining calm and using more reasoning and less spanking. And also following through with things rather than bending and breaking which is easy to do when you have two other younger children needing attention as well.
I know my husband expects me to parent like he would, not letting the kids take an inch and run with it. I try, but we're not the same person. The kids do not respond to me in the same way, probably because they are in my presence the most and just for the fact that I'm not daddy.
I want so badly to find a better dynamic with my kids, with more laughter and fun. I try to do little projects with them. My weakest point is play...I'm just not imaginative enough lol. I could do much better.
Thank you for any and all feedback!
My five year old has been precocious and strong-willed his entire life and the older he gets the more he's learning to manipulate situations. He is smart, funny and a great kid....but his behavior is still out of control. I'm willing to take the blame for the most part since I am a stay at home mom. But I know his fathers behavior has influence as well.
I would like to have more control over my own emotions and not just resort to yelling, because that obviously doesn't work. Time outs are not having much effect. I just find that he seems incapable of listening...as if his brain just shuts down the minute I begin to tell him something. I've been working super hard on remaining calm and using more reasoning and less spanking. And also following through with things rather than bending and breaking which is easy to do when you have two other younger children needing attention as well.
I know my husband expects me to parent like he would, not letting the kids take an inch and run with it. I try, but we're not the same person. The kids do not respond to me in the same way, probably because they are in my presence the most and just for the fact that I'm not daddy.
I want so badly to find a better dynamic with my kids, with more laughter and fun. I try to do little projects with them. My weakest point is play...I'm just not imaginative enough lol. I could do much better.
Thank you for any and all feedback!
I'm not imaginative either, I never cared to play pretend and now my boys are 13 and 10 and they are still alive! ;) They never cared for it much either and that's just how our personalities are. They are super smart, respectful and really enjoy other things like sports and my younger one loves building and drawing. But no pretend, instead we have played many many board games. They love those, so do I. Even cards. Get the board games out and go to town. We played lots and lots of play doh too when they were young. That can be a bit more imaginative...we made pretend food! There are so many things you can do with your kids that will be fulfilling. We went to the park often, playgroups. We joined the home school group and I did home school with my oldest until my youngest was ready for kindergarten. With the home school group we did many cool field trips and co op classes. Met lots of nice people, and other moms who stayed home. Being around like minded people helped keep me motivated when I felt bored.
Your son is not so small now, at 5 you could break your day with doing school work, playing outside, board game, free play time for him - no tv on at this time, then later a cartoon as a reward, clean up time. So much to do. Plenty to keep him busy. Let him start in a sport, tee ball, soccer, football, something where he runs alot is good. Sounds like he has lots of energy. Boys NEED to run. And I also believe they need to climb trees and build forts, so find someone with some woods for him to play in. My boys and their friends will stay out there all day long building forts and shoveling dirt to build bike trails with big humps.
Keeping him busy and active coupled with your consistency will be the key to getting better result with discipline. Then if he goes haywire with disrespect, that earn the swat to get his attention. My boys also had to write sentences, always about what they did wrong. It's good writing practice for someone new to writing.
All the best!