Help! My kids Won't listen or Sit Still!

Those are probably the WORST ages, from what I have heard. The 2 year old will want his own way, etc... The 4yo will probably follow suit, etc... Maybe when they are 3 and 5 it will be better!
NOT perfect, just better. The 3yo might be past the "terrible 2s", and the 5yo might be a BIT more likely to be behaved and listen to you.

8-)

http://pediatrics.about.com/od/toddl...rrble_twos.htm

Steve

What are you feeding them? There are additives in foods that cause behavioral problems - make sure they aren't getting foods stuffed with them and see if that helps. Take them off of all processed foods for awhile and you might see a remarkable difference. (Canned soup is NOT good food!)

Has ADHD been ruled out? Even that can be controlled to some degree with diet rather than Ritalin.

Sara,
first of all ((momhugz)) cause every mother needs them!! it is the toughest job in the world and has no training manual that comes with it.
no way to guess if "there is something" you do to cause it, but my guess is that it's doubtful. Although, you should review your own behavior and reactions very carefully and you may find that in some ways you are reinforcing bits of their behavior. Do YOU act stubborn? How do you show them to respond if you don't get your way?
Frankly, IMO, at those ages, especially a 2 yr old, cannot be expected to sit still (much less quietly) through a church service. Is there not a child care room provided or preschool class for them? If so, use them! If not, you might look for a more 'child' friendly church, or consider alternate service schedule, ie: wed eve rather than a Sun. morning.
Also, examine your expectations of them a bit. Are you setting the 'bar' too high for their ages? Do you allow them some control in their lives? Difficult children take a lot of effort and if you can structure/manage the 'small' battles then the overall 'war' is less wearing on YOU. It is easy to get into a rut of simply surviving the days/nights with 2 little ones and the 'fun' of having kids gets lost.

One of the best things my mom told me when my daughter (19 now) was a baby (a VERY difficult one, I might add)....don't say NO without providing a YES.
"No, you can't play with my cell phone but you can have the toy one or my car keys, which one would you like?"
Give them the power of choices: not open ended (no boundary) options.
Keep in mind, they are in the midst of a big overwhelming world, and overall your job is really just to make it manageable for them. Which is not the same thing as managing THEM.
Often, when the little ones have control over the parts of their life that they can, it makes it easier for them to deal with the rest of the world where they don't have choices.
ie: mine loved to paint/fingerpaint..........but NO WAY would she ever control herself enough to not make huge messes if we did it inside. So, I'd get big cardboard, put her in nothing but a diaper and we'd take it all outside and she could paint, mess all she wanted and I could just hose it down instead of trying to make her keep it clean in a playroom/ or getting angry that she made a mess. I made it OK for her to make the mess. She learned there were 'okay' times for messes - and that also meant there were 'not' okay time/place for them.

Focus on positive reinforcement MORE than negative discipline. And be CONSISTANT, no matter what! Always say Yes if you can and if you say No, then MEAN IT. Do not say NO and then change your mind if they fuss/cry/whine loud or long enough -- this is also where the 'alternative yes' comes in. If you say no to something, try to have a Yes in mind. (No, you can't jump on the couch because you might get hurt if you fall, but here is a big pillow on the floor you can see how high you can jump from it!)
When they do as you ask/like -- Reward them: If you (whatever) now, then you will get (whatever) at the end. But make it attainable for them.

Ok - longwinded enough. I HIGHLY recommend the "Touchpoints" i think it is a dr brazelton that wrote it. it helps understand what to expect those early years and what the little ones really are saying/doing with their actions and how to deal.

good luck -- hope this might help a little
Andie

One that you have to do from the start is give them some sort of disapline so they know that you are the boss.

When you feel that they are stepping out of line then i always give it the 5 second rule, whereas you tell them to do something and then you count down from 5 to 1 and if they haven't listened by that time then they go on the naughty step.

You tell them to stay there for a few minutes to think about what they have done. You must be persistant at all times and if you go leanient then they will get all the control.

The thing is that what works for some doesn't work for others and i bet your a good parent just going through a bad patch.

Keep working hard and you'll start reaping the rewards as your children will eventually pester someone else.

on another note -- it makes a world of difference that if the dad is in the picture (which i hope is the case) that BOTH parents are on the same page of the expectations and methods of parenting. That means sitting down and truly laying out what will be done in regards to daily 'rearing' of the kids and that both parents are saying the same thing.
I swear, I'd put my daughter in 'time out' and if she cried loud/long enough her dad would go interrupt it and if she 'said' she'd behave he'd let her off it early and even reward her. (ACK!) And he travelled ALOT, so he was rarely the 'bad' guy in the parenting pic.
Also - when I had my son (now 13), I was terrified because my daughter was such a <koff> challenge from birth......but the boy was as opposite as could be and to this day is as 'manageable' as an angel.
Apparently gender doesn't have much to do with the innate personality traits!

A bit of advice here, and I think I am on solid ground here. DO NOT expect a valid diagnosis of ADHD, etc... until they are at least about 6. And YEAH, allergies and some things, like sugar, CAN make things worse, but don't go overboard. They ARE young! The 2 year old is old enough to know what he wants, and young enough that he doesn't know how far he can go, etc... so he is probably NORMAL! The 4 year old is not all that old, and they ARE close. So he is probably normal also.

BTW I noticed kay ALSO mentioned 6. I didn't just pick that out of a hat. That is about the time they start being more social. They may start roughousing, etc somewhere around 8, but THAT is normal too. And who can forget the TEENS!

Steve

Andie - you sound like a pro. Great advice.

Very true, Kay. If you notice...there aren't disorders until there is a drug to treat them with. Tell you anything?

I was serious about food additives, too. There are many that cause behavioral problems in kids. Non-organic milk is full of stuff that has been proven to cause behavioral problems in small kids - so send em to school where they get a big dose of that swill for lunch, then drug em down when they react to it. Aspertame and MSG both cross the blood/brain barrier.

There are 6,000 additives in our food and many are toxic - yet with Moms having to work for a living then come home and keep house, it's relatively impossible for them to provide food that must be prepared at home. The results are damaging our kids - both mentally and physically.

I worked with a woman in WA that had a brilliant little boy. He was also very active and very creative. The schools got ahold of him and drugged him to a point where she came home from work one day and called to him and he didn't respond. The babysitter said he'd been quiet since he'd been home. She went into the livingroom and found him sitting glassy-eyed, staring at the tv - and DROOLING. She went straight to the DA and filed suit against the school but as a single mother she was getting financial aid as her job didn't support them. She was told either drug him or we will take him from you. She responded with a "practicing medicine without a license" lawsuit. It had been the teacher who insisted on the drugging. I'm not sure how it ended, but the woman gave up the financial aid she really needed after divorcing a deadbeat so she could take her kid out of the school system. The whole case was Orwellian - but is happening with frightening frequency.

Sara. I'm not a mother. I do a LOT of in-depth research on chemicals in our care products and food so I understand those issues. Kids? I can tell you only what I have seen others do that works. What my mom used to do is stick us outside with some very active toys and let us run our energy down a little bit before trying to take us anywhere in public. By the time we had a good half hour very vigorous romp we were a lot more able to sit and be quiet for awhile.

Kay,
I have to agree with you on that one completely.
It is much to common for parents these days to turn to nearly anything to 'deal' with kids rather than simply deal with the natural consequences of what children are/can be. Common sense has been replaced by all the labeling and the 'cures' for the labels.
If we got rowdy, my mom would throw us outside where it belonged.
If my dad snapped his fingers, we knew it meant quieten down.
There was no question of who was in charge and no doubt that we were 'normal' kids, regardless of our moods and ages.
Certainly didn't seem as complicated back then, behavior had expectation and consequences. It didn't send us to the Dr. to see why we didn't fit into some narrow definition of 'okay', or put some 'disorder' label on us to explain why we didn't.

A
edit: PS: There were 4 of us, 3 boys and my little self (daddy's girl and the baby)

Sal,
I guess we all become semi-experts in the things we have to deal with in our life.
My daughter has been ornery since the womb. Seven months along (home stretch) in the preg. she decided to turn around and be breech instead. She was 5 weeks old before she slept more than 2 hrs at a time (it was a whole 5 hrs, I was afraid she'd died)!
I only recently kicked the little bird out of the nest to show her that she CAN fly on her own. I truly believe she'll look back and be glad I did - someday lol
She lived with her dad a long time, diagnosed as bi-polar around 13 and came back to live with me at 15.
They had her on the most unbelievable cocktails of drugs; ea with their own batch of side effects of course. While I tried to keep her in some therapy, I did NOT continue with all the medications. (seems to me a huge number of her issues stemmed from dad's trail of g/f and wives that came/went in her life there).
Oh, the stories I have of life with children and step-children and so on -- so yes, I've spent alot of time studying, testing, learning (and re-learning) on child-rearing.

Now, it is just me, my son, 5 cats and my daughter's 2 parakeets.
quiet times!!

A

You can't expect too much of them at that age. They are meant to be curious and always exploring and learning. But the advice given in here as been very good. I have 3 children. 2 children that are close to that same age. We watch sugar and caffeine very closely, because it has a huge effect on the way they behave. Also we have to keep them separated if we want them to stay quiet.

Thankfully our church has a nursery and they love it there. Don't risk making your kids hate church. Try and find a way to make it fun for them.

The food thing could be a whole other thread......but big culprits for the little ones are the sugar and caffeine. And this is where the grownups can be the best examples (or not), I've always been rather appalled when a 2-3 year old is having a soda rather than juice/milk/water........there is NOTHING good in the cokes/pepsi, etc. so it just never was an option with mine when they were younger.

I am completely hooked on Coke and will start my day with a cold can. That is it for the day. I do that because I grew up drinking it so much of the time that it was beginning to give me stomach problems. Nothing like a steady dose of acid to do that huh?
Neither of my kids will drink soda much and if they do it is Sprite/caffeine free.
All the rest of the time is mainly water, milk, juice and sometimes gatorade.

For the record, when I spoke of allergies, I meant the actual allergy. For example, let's say it is peanuts. Some kids can go a bit nuts(npi), fidget, etc... because of eating the offending item. I wish I remembered the name of the guy but, when I was a kid I watched this nutritionist and he spoke of how he once, having a meal with some friends, noticed a pattern, took the child off the food, and he got better pretty quickly. The doctor was a well known and respected nutritionist, and the show was part of a college curriculim. Just so you know he had no axe to grind.

Steve

Spank them, that will get their attention.

I'm with ya Kay. Too often now we are living in the "theres a drug for that" age.
And not just for kids, but for every age range. If we were to listen to the medical/drug profession now there isn't a well person left alive.

Sorry Sarahberra, kids will be kids, being active, or even overactive does not mean there is anything wrong with them. ANd you getting frustrated does not mean there is anything wrong with you, either.

Boy, I remember those days. I only had 1 child, a girl. She was 10 children in 1. She's now just turned 20 years old. I was a young mom. I had her when I was 19 years old. I think putting your babies on a predictable schedule and sticking to it will help. Get up at a particular time even when at home, serve breakfast at a particular time, take them to play and let them run, give them a snack or lunch and then a nap. Over time, no matter where they are, they will go to sleep at a certain time, and won't give you grief all day long if you give them a regimen.

I know it's a pain but you are going to have to discipline yourself and your kids by being on a schedule and then when they are all tuckered out at the end of the day, you can put them to bed and you can have the house to yourself.

Some children don't take naps. My daughter was that way. I found if she took naps, she didn't sleep at night, so I kept her busy all day long and she slept through the night. I would have the house to myself after about 9:00 p.m. every night. She used to cry and come into my room, but after a while she learned to sleep in her own room as well. Every child is different.

If your church has a nursery use it. If they don't then suggest it to the church and if all the moms get together and take a turn in the nursery, all the moms can get a break on Sundays if they each take a turn and watch the babies in the church nursery.

Sometimes a full stomach after breakfast can make a child sleepy too..just depends. Try filling foods like oatmeal, eggs and toast, or pancakes.

Hope this helps.

Work with them, until you find something that sticks. Also, little boys need to be wore out, so be sure to give them plenty of outdoors time.

2 and 4 are trying ages, anyways. Remember, "This too, shall pass".

I have 2 very active boys. Kids can be a challenge. I know mine have been. Keep in mind that it is very important to always follow through with you are telling them. If you say-stop doing that or you will lose this privilege. Make sure you do it, as they are testing you to see what they can get away with.

Yeah, my oldest was hyperactive with adhd or whatever title it was that they tried to give his uniqueness. I refused to put him on meds as the school suggested. I thought perhaps love and understanding might work best.

Guess I should have listened to them,
I screwed him up so baddly by using positive reinforcement that he got A's all the way through school and bought his first house at the age of 21...
That's what I get for not listening to "them" I spose........:rolleyes:

It seems to me that the "diagnosed" ones are usually the ones with the unique personalities that are the world movers and shakers.

You must be given to them in the ass with a belt

I agree, a pat on the behind when they're misbehaving will get their attention. The only problem with that is by the time they enter kindergarten they're teaching "Call 911 if your parents spank you." After raising four boys, I used to say, "Here's the phone, you're going to have to call 911 if you keep it up."

The truth is, boys are busy at those ages. They don't sit still for long periods of time. If you stand firm with timeouts and taking away their favorite toys, they will begin to understand your concept.

Sometimes, as parents, we tend to give in when it's convenient for us, but then we expect them to fall in line on command. It doesn't work that way, unfortunately.

You have some good advice here. Hopefully some suggestions will be helpful.

It can be hard to discipline kids at this age.
They are hard to control... It is hard for them to understand what you are trying to impose on them. I think a reward system will help them understand you.

First of all the 2-year-old's psychology is very different from the 4-year-old's, so you have to understand them as being at different levels.

Now, there are a couple or 3 points that might be kind of hard to accept. They might have value as "tips", but I think that what you need right now is a new way of thinking about it, more than tips.

When you say they are "stubborn", that is really your own evaluation -- not what they are trying to be or do. They aren't trying to be stubborn to make your life miserable. They are trying to meet some kinds of needs of their own, whatever they may be.

I can make some good guesses, though - pretty basic stuff like a need for increasing control, need to move, need to learn much faster than us, leading to intense boredom in church when nothing seems to be going on - from their points of view.

Children are very self-oriented. They learn to be less self-centered naturally, and also by your example.

They think very literally and physically, and focus on what's right around them. They don't yet think as much about stuff that is not right around them.

The main point to keep in mind is that they are already real people. With minds and complex emotions, and their own understanding of the world around them. In small bodies, with poor emotional control compared to an adult. And less ability to put into words what is going on inside them.

Next point: you will not be able to get them to be quiet and sit still. Some people try using trauma and pain to make children "behave". But it's kind of a bad idea, for several reasons, and is to be avoided most of the time.

Consider a cat. Kittens play and run around much more than adult cats. We are the same. Grown-ups just don't need the activity levels of small children, and small children usually can't sit still the way adults can.

You can either accept that and work with it, or else you can make yourself and them really unhappy for years, and then have even more trouble after that!

It's not about training and punishing them to "behave". It's about working with their own nature as it grows with them. You wouldn't try to use a racehorse to plow, usually. And I bet you wouldn't try to teach a cow to run horseraces.

And you wouldn't punish the racehorse for being hard to control in the plow harness! It is just not a great place for a racehorse!

In fact, the whole game is not about "controlling" them, it is about guiding them. And keeping them alive and well until they can take care of themselves.

Guiding means being clever, making use of the direction they are already trying to go, and turning it to a good end. (A lot like we do as marketers with our prospects!)

Your boys will learn, unlike those animals. All you have to do, to have success in the end, is to remember what the singer John Lennon said: "Life is what happens when you were making other plans."

You were hoping you could have nice well-behaved little boys. What you really have are growing young men who are every day and week adding more layers of what they will be like when they grow up. You are privileged to be the sacred guardian and guide of their growing up. And the lucky witness to it all.

Hope this helps.

Ps. The guiding and working-with stuff means that you may not always be able to sit all the way through church in the next few years. That's the practical side of this new way of thinking. Ah, the sacrifices we make for our children!

discipline! be consistent, set limits, don't let them get away with anything they shouldn't be doing...after all its all for their own good.

Wow Thank you! These are some great tips! I am not sure if they have ADHD, but we are pretty careful about their diet. They eat a lot of eggs, vegetables, beans and lean meats. My older son actually can't have very many sweets because sugar makes his eczema worse. I started giving the boys cod liver oil and that seems to be helping a lot though. The boys seem to act up the most at church services though.

Here is a link to the book I mentioned. I think every parent of young ones should read it...just my 2cents

TOUCHPOINTS by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D.