DP wants me to get 'tough' with DS next time he is caught in the act of killing another plant. I won't do what he's suggested (tell him to 'go away' and refuse him my attention etc - in the same breath as trying to say it's caused by my not giving him as much parenting attention since DD came along...makes no sense to me, how's that gonna make sense to DS if this really is the cause??) and now I have a sicho where DP is yelling and ranting to me in frustration at the trail of wreckage when he gets home (cos I'm not 24 hrs attentive to DS when DP's not home...duh, there's only ONE of me!!), and DS is just not paying me much heed.
I have done far more yelling lately than I ever wanted to and I hate it. I know as soon as I've yelled that I've just wasted my energy, created negativity and eroded DS's faith in me (I'm the adult, why am I yelling like someone who has zero emotional regulation??).
He is just not listening. He has tuning me out down to a fine art. He'll just look at me blankly and continue doing what I have just specifically asked him not to do (with associated reason - I don't merely lay down the law and expect compliance, because I don't value compliance, I value cooperation...till now!).
There are other things he's starting to do with no regard to my reasonable and polite requests to desist (climb up on furniture to get to things that were supposed to be out of his reach etc), but it's the wanton destruction of plant life that saddens me and is bringing out a lot of anger in DP. When other kids are here he literally leads them up the garden path and they do whatever he's doing, thinking it must be ok cos DS is doing it at his own house...WRONG! So, the other kids get in trouble (when DP is home) because DS is a bloody ringleader.
Up until now, explanations have had the gradual effect of realisation and it's been ok because they didn't involve living things. Actually, the only thing, until the plant thing of late, has been hurting the dogs - that still hasn't sunk in.
My conundrum here is that time is of the essence with both dogs and plants - plants will die when wacked and maimed. Dogs will develop fear and distrust, leading to bigger problems. I need a more immediate 'tool' than explaining, cos it's clearly not working. I do the 'Coco is sad and scared of you', 'would you like to be kicked?', etc etc. The only thing that works to get the small dog let off the leash (after being dragged around the house and yard) is to say that she needs to be let go to do a wee and have a drink. I don't threaten him with anything more than free will, I just say "if you don't take her off the leash, I will" - no "or else I'll [insert random 'punishment]" and that works wonders...but how to actually stop him from hurting her or plants in the first place??
Any anecdotes? tell me it gets easier! I just can't follow him around all day and I can't just sling up DD and give him the attention I'd like to - I just don't have enough of me to go around. And DP thought I was being silly wanting a larger age gap than 2 years...sheesh, I'd be out of my mind by now!
Sorry, rambling, it's late and DP and I had a heated discussion about what he wants me to do about DS when he's not here. He's not getting it and DS doesn't get it, I'm in a bind.
What is really breaking my heart is that DD is watching and listening to me relate to DS in this incredibly antagonistic manner - I don't want this to become how she sees my relationship with him, let alone how DS sees his relationship with me. I dont' want him to have this vibe with his dad, but that's up to DP in the end - DP answers to DS, ultimately, when the time comes to evaluate it all. I don't want DD to think she has to avoid being like DS so that I don't also yell at her. I love how DS is and his beautiful spirit - I dont' want to kill that to save the plants and the dogs. I don't want to raise DS to become a compliant adult, so compliance is not the aim now.
Will stop rambling and hope someone has some kind of tool I can borrow!!
Not sure how much this will help, but have you tried time-out? This is the only thing that works for me DS1 who is 3. I give him 5 minutes in an area free of toys but where he can see me. It calms him down, lets me calm down and he can watch while I give attention to the dogs or DS2 who he has hurt.
Before I 'release' him from time-out, I get to his eye-level and explain what he has done that I did not like. I ask him to think of the consequences (i.e. how would you like it if the dogs twisted your ears? etc), ask for an apology (which he gives now without prompting most of the time) and then tell him he can get up/go play gently.
This seems to work and has actually stopped a lot of the excessive roughness. I think my DS didn't/doesn't realise how strong/big he is compared to the dogs and his brother. It is slowly sinking in but is not helped by DS2 being a bulldozer (closes his eyes and goes until he hits something that doesn't move ). DS2 is only 1 and has no comprehension that he is not indestructible.
To start - I don't have any specific advice about what to do with DS. Personally I would let him know you are really, really upset with him. You are top dog and and you have a puppy to protect (DD) from another dog (DS). At an animalistic level what you are doing is normal. But that is not why I am writing this post. I am doing so because I want you to STOP WORRYING
Now mate I know where you are coming from in your parenting philosophy and i respect it even though I don't entirely share it. So know that is where I am coming from when I say these things
Many of the studies about the detrimental effects of yelling and losing your cool and being unreaonable in punishment come from examining kids who have been maltreated, right? Sure some are based on animal research (I am thinking of Harlow's poor monkeys here) but mostly the theories on the damage bad parenting does come from case studies of children who have been abused, because no way would you get a "yelling at kids all day" experiment past an ethics committee. Am I right?
So with that in mind, don't think that if you lose your cool or yell at the kids that they will be damaged long-term. I am certain that 99.9 to 95% of the time you are loving, attentive, caring, affectionate and considerate of DS. If some of the time you lose your cool with him, he will cope. That is life. You annoy people, they get peeved off. He will still fall back on the remainder of his relationship with you when he needs you. You will still be a soft place to land when he needs you.
As for DD, she is a second child. Her life and experiences will be different to DS. You cannot shield her in the way you did DS. She will be hit and teased and pushed and sat in in a way DS never was. You cannot stop this from happening all the time. She will be rougher because she has an older sibling, she will learn to defend herself, she will be wily before her time - all of these things - because of her place in the family. You cannot stop this - it is a natural consequence of having an older brother. But she will cope. She will live with it.
And remember your mantra - this too shall pass!
What is going on now in these early days and months and years of DD's life will not be the pattern for your family. DS will develop reason and compassion, DD will develop her mind and body and grow strong, and you and DP will learn your way with two children. It will change over time. It will get better, then worse, then better again, and so on until they leave home. You now have a 4 way relationship going on here!!
Thanks Ror, you made me teary! Last night I was a bit more highly strung than usual because DP was pretty much saying my way with DS is useless. I know it's not - everything I've done with him has paid dividends thus far and he knows it. It's when something new comes up (this time the plants is the latest challenge) he doubts my 'methods' anew...only to be proven that my instincts haven't let us down yet. What DP wants is an instant fix that 'works' and anything that takes longer to sink in (like consequences that actually make sense to DS so that the offending behaviour can be extinguished through mutual understanding, rather than through fear) is "not good enough", quote.
Reading your post has, indeed, reminded me of how temporary this will be (was thinking it vaguely whilst watching him play in his batman outfit this morning!) and that I need to remind DP of it - he lets loose with emotional outbursts (and quietened down when I told him that he was the adult with emotional self-regulation, should he choose to use it) and because he's so tall and with a booming voice when it's angered it can have the 'desired effect'...except that it doesn't.
The pressure I feel the most is not from things getting broken (though I'm still smarting a lot from the loss of my fabulous glass nail file!), it's from DP who doubts my instinct all the time (and proven wrong EVERY time!) and offloads his frustration about DS' personality and shenanigans on me. Here's me trying to figure out how to avoid him getting mad so that he can back off me and actually appreciate the results of my work - how does DS feel after he's been on a great adventure only to discover it has given his dad a meltdown? If that's how DP wants to be with DS that's up to him, but I'm not going to do the same just to make DP feel better.
DS hates it when we 'get sad' - so I do tell him when I'm having emotions and he apologises to all of us when he's crossed a line. DP is a hard arse and says that if he were really sorry he wouldn't do it again...this is simply not true for kids OR adults; that would mean perfection!
I'm not sure what he expects of DS exactly, but he admitted last night that he felt disappointed by DS wrecking plants (the last one was a tree fern he pulled new fronds off).
Choc- the closest we get to time out is putting DS in a chair to keep him immobile for a while. Doesn't work so well with me cos I'm not big enough to hold him there if he puts up a struggle and if he's struggling he's upset, which means he's not going to be thinking about what he did, but what I'm doing to him...not what I'm after! So that can be DP's tool.
As for DD, I know she'll be moulded by life with a rumbunctious big brother and that she'll develop her own schema for that. I do know that my sister would watch me get in trouble and modify her own behaviour so that she wouldn't get caught - she became a lot more subtle in her behaviour, just in case any of it 'transgressed' and it wouldn't be as noticeable as my own, obvious transgressions. She remained under the radar and developed sneakiness (never my forte!) because of how she saw I was dealt with when I was just being myself. DD will learn sooner about what's unacceptable because of the modelling from DS, I just don't want her to become shifty and evasive to avoid 'punishment'. I also don't want her to think of her brother as always in trouble and as troublesome. If what's happening now continues or escalates, this is how she will come to see him. That's how my sister saw me for many, many years - as a troublemaker. Having seen it happen to me, even she won't do that with her kids - she hated seeing punishment meted out to me and seeing me be yelled at and smacked not just because it instilled fear in her (and reinforced her subterfuge), but because she loved me and it hurt her, too (oh, man, that's the first time I've put that into words...just having a little cry now...).
I don't think I have any more problem with DS than the average mummy of a child with a bit of gumption. DP isn't handling it so well and that's where MY stress comes in. I would like to stop yelling and now that I realise it doesn't do anything except make me hoarse and sound awful to the neighbours (live in the hills, sound carries!) I can consciously work on it.
I just don't want these conversations with DP to cloud how I see my beautiful boy, cos on the whole he is such an ace little kid. The names DP used to describe DS last night were awful. I was demonised as a child, and even teenager by my parents (my dad travelled and I would hear myself being described on the phone when my dad got into a port to call home) and I knew it just wasn't me, it couldn't be all I was.
I'll leave the other things to DP and I'll deal with my boy compassionately, as opposed to indulging my emotional breakdowns.
As I type I am looking out the back window at DS perched on top of the dog kennel in his batman outfit (and facepaint batman mask) with the poker for the fire and a bamboo stick (bow and arrow) imagining himself in a wonderful world of adventure. I can't kill that off.
Another thing (can't type much cause I am at work) - your children's experiences will not mirror yours. Don't parent through your own childhood-filter. Theirs is a different childhood with different parents. Just cause DP vents to you about DS does not mean he will be demonised as you were. And don't let your childhood-filter affect your interpretation of and reaction to DP. DP loves DS, right, in a way you were not? So necessarily it will not be the same. In reality, history does not repeat in the way it does in our heads when we are tired or stressed. Remember DD is only 2 months old so you are still very fragile. When you had DS you were still in a little bubble together - it is different this time, but not wrong.
Super super quick reply as I am about to head out the door... Totally non-philosophical suggestion, but have you tried really involving DS in planting some plants? Maybe if he watches something grow from seed, and learns to appreciate how things grow and how fragile they are, he might learn to "respect" the plants a bit more??? I dunno - we planted marigolds with DD and she is very gentle with them (to date...), also she loves to stroke the new baby leaves of the frangipani cutting we're growing. Does he have his own garden? We each had a vegie / herb / flower garden at home when we were kids, and I remember it being good fun watching things grow and learning what is a weed etc.
Sorry - maybe no use at all, but just thought I'd throw it out there.
Destroying plants...help please!
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). DS2 is only 1 and has no comprehension that he is not indestructible.
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