Behavioural Changes/ Issues

<p>Hi mommies,with a heavy heart, I am writing this to seek your advice/ help/ ideas.. recently in the past 1 or 2 weeks I have been noticing behavioural changes in my DS.. it started with him getting stubborn on certain things.. crying to get something done his way.. crying (screaming) for something very silly like in midnight he wailed at first, I thought he had some discomfort, I covered him with his quilt, he started crying, I asked him what happened, he cried louder, so I thought he didnt want to be covered, so I took off the quilt, he screams.. saying he wants the quilt.. I was stumped! this is not the only instance.. lot of similar incidents even while he is wide awake and playing fine few mins before.. and on top of all this he thinks thats not wrong until I tell him. now this crying has gone towards yelling while crying.. like yesterday my DH was carrying him in the kitchen.. DS wanted something in the store room and when DH said NO, this little one tried to take it himself.. there was a hot vessel near that thing and he happened to touch it by mistake.. yes DH's carelessness too, but before we could react, he started crying and he yells at us while crying, saying 'why did you keep the hot vessel there?' we were taken aback and then last evening he bought a gun from toys shop and he wanted to take it to his cousin's house, I asked him to leave it in the car.. I tried convincing him.. nope he didnt want to listen, he cried on the road and I finally spanked him. ofcourse the magnitude of his crying was so much that he didnt bother to hear me nor stop. later I cried so much and even this morning I ended up crying because my little one has started to become totally against what he was earlier..


I have to tell you how he was before.. he has always been a very understanding boy, pretty easy for us (mostly only me and DH can do that) to convince him, he believes me completly so buys whatever convincing reason I give him. he is pretty cooperative and quite an intelligent boy too.. he loves learning new things and his observing power is high.. he loves spending time with me with his activity books and story books.. these things havent changed so far.. he understands when I tell him the consequences and acts pretty much as I expect. there has been no surprises in his behaviour until past 2 weeks.. he was very predictable.. in these 2 weeks, I am seeing him pick up some behaviours from his cousin who is younger to him by 1 yr. this may be one of the factors influencing him but there could be growing pain or something like that that is inducing such behavioural changes in him..how should I handle him? I dont want him to continue this crying business, it is just getting on me. I do not feel like going near him because I dont want to trigger another round of crying so I feel it will be better for him if I stay away.. I know I am taking it personally.. this morning too I told my DH that DS doesnt want me so it is better I stay away.. I let him take care of DS mornings chores.. when he left to school, I felt bad and hugged DS, he says 'Amma, you know I cried..' I told him I cried too.. he looks into my eyes and hugged me so tight and dint leave me.


BTW, there is one more thing thats lingering my mind.. I feel all this is because as a mom I am not available to him all day to take care of him.. my mom takes care of him and the more he has become naughty the more she has become relaxed with him.. my MIL is no less, me and DH cannot discipline him beyond a limit in front of the grannys.. I feel so bad for not being around to be his sole caretaker.. I am feeling so helpless! Am I a fool to think and bring myself to believe that working moms too can bring up well behaved children? Is it not true? How do you deal with behavioural changes? pls advice/ share ideas on what I should do? Have you come across such issues with your children? how did you handle it?

 

hey Asha.. thanks for the hugs.. I felt better after having a chat with Pon, I was still hanging on my thread for some hugs here.. my thread was orphaned until you came in! thanks dear )) Hows DS doing? hope both are doing great.

Exactly the same like your DD did with chocs.. you know abt DS's allergies.. the only thing that is saving him is he himself refusing to take those food items.. when his uncles, aunties and sometimes GPs who know he is allergic still offer him those, he simply says, those will give him worms in tummy so dont want.. he does not say it all the times, but when he does not want it, he simply says that and slowly he stopped completly and now he has it only when he really cant resist and in very less quantity..

as you say, DS is testing his boundaries and checking if it could expand more and more.. yesterday night was far better.. his tamtrums were the same but our reaction to him was little different.. I saw that a change in my reaction changed a lot of his behaviour.. me and DH decided to go easy on him with respect to getting angry.. he started his usual tanrums - crying like a baby when his little cousin tries to play with DS's toys.. though I wanted to say a lot of blah blah.. I cooled down and hugged him and said, brother is only playing.. you promised you will share your toys.. you have to wait until he gives you.. no point in crying. I repeated a few times and then he never cried after that.. when he was happy, I told him 'you are such a sweet boy, see it looks so nice when you are happy happy' he was glad. I am sure if I had got angry, he would never understand.. also later he was jumping jumping and jumping all over.. and after repeated requests to stop jumping, he didnt. me and DH kept our cool and said 'it is not good to keep jumping all over, we will feel sad if you get hurt.. it is upto to you.' we repeated it calmly 2 times and ignore for sometime. he finally stopped! oh god.... it requires so much patience Asha.. I am going to keep repeating that crying will not fetch anything. this morning, he again started to cry for NO reason. I told him 'shuuushhh god is hearing you.. he wont send Santa to our house with goody bag this chirstmas..' he quickly wiped off his tears.. it was funny to see him change his reaction but I see that he just wants to get attention.. phew, a lot of it! Am I right?

 

so true Asha.. like your DD, my DS too gets excited if everyone is paying attention to him.. he wouldnt expect it but when given a little attention, he will want more.. so nowadays when at home he is engrossed in something I dont let my DH disturb or trigger him.. because after a little disturbance from us all his attention is on us and more of attention seeking techniques is used to get even more attention.. huhh!

I am seeing anger issues too.. have you seen that in your DD. I hope atleast little girls are better than the boys.. it is defntly not attention seeking technique but he wants us to know he is angry.. he also wants us to know he is sad and upset.. thats fine with me but I dont want to encourage him getting angry.. I am using the same technique.. like you said, repeat two times, ignore few times.. but I am like how dare a < 4yr old gets angry with me! I know they are humans but little diff to digest! ) I can only laugh it off! I am just ranting.

 

Tikka, thanks a ton for sharing this.. dont punch me, but I feel better when I know it happens with other kids too.. montek?! maybe.. but he has been on it for more than 1 yr.. I am not sure.. but yes you are right, I should let him take out his anger on pillows.. I do tell him story every day abt different characters handling emotions.. but I didnt look for books? could you suggest something on those lines?

last week, I had to raise my voice to stop him from doing something and he had the nerve to tell me 'dont raise your voice, talk softly..' in a raised voice! I am like why would these little ones have to get angry? P frowns his face like a ginger eating monkey when he wants us to know he is angry/ irritated.. what the c$#@?! I tell him 'thats not the way to talk' and he slowly changes his tone.. last night was even better.. he is liking the idea of santa checking on his behaviour.. so he is trying to behave better. I dont know if it is wrong to cook up stories of santa/ god checking on him.. but it works for him so I am continuing.

even in his sleep, he moans often.. past two days I have been patient and keep repeating, 'you have to tell me if you need something, else I wont know.' I can see that he is trying to talk clearly in the middle of the night if he needs something.. good news is his potty habits are getting better, very less accidents and he quickly tells me too.. this habit improved when I calmed down and stopped getting angry when he had accidents.. with him, it has always been like that - if I panic or get angry, it doesnt help him at all.. if I keep calm, talk politely he gets the message..

 

Rekha, great that you are attending these session.. you may not get a chance later.. good that you grabbed the opp.

thats a wonderful idea of 'child-led play'.. never striked to me. ofcourse I see that he wants to control a bit because he is bored of being in control all the time. I am sure it will work with P. hope he doesnt boss me too much ) thanks for sharing Rekha.