Mom Seeking Advice About Son

I don't have much personal advice,but I have a strong willed 6 year old boy.I have been reading everything there is on strong willed children and how to deal with them.Parent's that do not have any do not understand.All the books say that they think different,have a problem being told what to do. They want to be in control and want to come up with an idea or outcome to a situation on their own.One of the best things so far I 've used is when wanting him to do something put the word o.k.? behind it.
for instance, At bath time we have a hard time getting him out of it,so if it goes like this "it's time to get out" NO!It's bedtime you have to get out now,NO! "How about you can play for 3 more minutes and then it's time to get out o.k.? yes sir. Kinda hard to explain but it works for us
We are still learning,but the library has a lot of books on this.It also helps that I have a friend who has a strong willed boy,so she get's what I deal with.Not much help,but might help with the books,,good luck,keep me posted,maybe we can share ideas.

I too have a strong willed, intelligent child that could be a handful everyday. I would lay in bed at night and say over and over. " I am not breaking a spirit, I am molding a leader." Can he sit thru a cartoon or video? can he play a game with you? If so He DOES NOT have ADHD. Children who truly have this disorder can't do those things. Also, He should not be tested for such things until first grade or later. THe only exception is extreme violence that is a danger to the safety of others. You and your husband have to decide on an approach and stick with it. Read Dr. James Dobsons book on Raising the strong willed child. I promise it will be of great help, also bringing up boys. Boys truly are different in the way they are wired and as women we don't get it. They approach everything differently and with much more zeal. Good luck

F., My son is 7 and is very strong willed and bores easily as well. But you are right it is more than that. If he bores easily, have you tried some educational games that he can play on his own. Like leapster or v-smile. That seemed to help our son. It gave him a something to do and figure out on his own. I am not saying that you should just give him something to do so he will go off on his own. I am saying that his brain is working overtime and needs some extra stimulation. I hope this helps.

I, too, have a very strong willed 5 yr old son. He is one that also likes to push all the limits, back talk, hit, lash out, yell at me and his father, and tell us no quite often. I was at my wits end as well, so I decided to take him to counseling to see if maybe he had ADHD. My son is one that needs constant attention and stimulation. The counselor suspects he does have it because he cannot sit still and his lack of attention. But they cannot diagnose it until about mid way thru ther 1st grade, and he has just begun Kindergarten. My son can be so loving and sweet but more often than not, he is a handful. So, we have made behavior charts that specify a few behaviors he must do every day to earn a smiley face or start. There is a goal set for the beginning of the week and if he meets the goal, he earns a prize from the prize box. It is made up of things he wants to do with each of us, like breakfast at McDonalds with Dad or fishing with Dad, or mommy time at the park or baking goodies with mom. That worked for a bit. Then we had to move to time outs EVERY SINGLE time he broke the rules. Some rules required a spanking, like yelling at me and telling me he did not have to listen to me or do what I told him. Those were spankings right then and it stopped. He was soooo good for a while and I backed off some and now he is starting again so I have had to get back into it. They say with kids with ADHD you have to be VERY consistent in your discipline whether it be physical or not. That is what I am trying to do. I am also about to purchase Dr James Dobson's book...Bringing up Boys to see if it offers any other advice. Best wishes and good luck. I feel your pain. Hope it all gets better.

Hi F. (my real name's Felicitas), I have a girl like that, she's 8 now. I tried everything, including a diet change (additives and MSG in processed and fast foods can create or increase allergies and neurological disorders - google this). She became a lot healthier physically, and we were able to take her off all her allergy meds - she had horrible allergies to everything - but not much change at school. I finally had to take her to the psychiatrist because she was doing terribly in school and starting to fall behind. She was diagnosed with ADD and we had to put her on meds. I hate having to give my baby pills, but it made a HUGE difference for her. She can now focus on her teacher and her school work.
I would say start with a diet change and see if that helps. The earlier you get em off MSG the better, and all it takes is to eliminate anything processed (premade - bagged, boxed, or canned) and fix everything from scratch. Its not really as hard as it sounds and is actually a lot cheaper too. If you have to buy something off the shelf, make sure it doesnt contain additives, any MSG derivitive, or any kind of corn syrup. After about 3-4 weeks you should see a noticeable change in behavior and overall health (my girls havent been sick at all since I did it, over 3 yrs ago). If you need any tips on shopping on a budget, quick and easy substitutes (chocolate syrup, ranch dressing, etc.), or items to be wary of, just lemme know. I hope this helps, I know how frustrating they can be like this :}

That sounds like my oldest son about when he was 5. He was constantly defying everything I told him. I'm going to take a different approach--how much stress is going on in your life right now? Does he feel like he is in competition with your other two kids? Does he feel like he isn't getting enough attention from you and Dad due to outside stressors? The reason I ask these questions is that when I was pregnant with my 3rd, my husband and I were going through a TON of stress and when we finally took the time to re-evaluate our priorities and take a step back and spend more time with our son, then he wasn't quite so defiant anymore. We still had episodes, but they weren't quite as frequent. You may have constant interaction and activities, but how much of that time is spent just relaxing and doing fun things together just you and him? I will also mention that I've discovered a connection between a peaceful atmosphere in the home and kids being more cooperative. Children, without our realizing it are so keenly aware when we as parents are stressed out. They want our attention so bad and will stop at nothing to get it until we figure it out.

Several months ago I posted a question about my 3 year old daughter not listening and I got a number of similar responses to what you had gotten. The gist of the responses pretty much told me that I have to be consistent in whatever disciplinary method I have chosen and to follow through when the boundaries have been crossed. I don't give her 3rd, 4th and 5th chances anymore and she knows I mean business when I tell her to do something. Because she is only 3, we definitely still have our moments where she just feels like letting it go in one ear and out the other, but things have smoothed out considerably.

I hope these ideas can help. I've enjoyed using this message board to gain insight on many things. Of course you have heard the saying "it takes a village to raise a child". This is our own little moms community joining together to see that our children are raised to be the best people they can be.

God bless!

With kids like that or with kids that are placid most of the time and THEN get like that, I always get vigilant with their diet. No processed food, no pop, eliminate dairy and wheat, no dye and anything that is made in a factory needs to go. Whole organic food like fresh fruits and veggies, preferably raw-- will settle him. All of these food additives are poisonous to many kids and they display very obnoxious behaviors when ingesting them. After I get the food under control, make sure they get enough sleep then I might read one of the many books out there on behavior for four year old's. One of my all time favorites is the old book " "Your Four Year Old". The wrong food will ruin your child and get his challenging behavior patterns established. If you are already doing a great job in this area, then I would go get a Classic Homeopathy consult.

Good luck.

Hi F.,
I know exactly what you are going through. I have a son who is 11 yrs. old and we are still battling with this. The first thing I would do is to get him fully evaluated by a pscychologost. This can be expensive but it can answer alot of questions. We had our son evaluated at Children's hospital in New Orleans by a neuro pscychologist. It ruled out certain things like Autism, but it made us well aware of other issues like a mood disorder. My son has ADHD but he also extremly oppositional. We are working with Dr. Grazzafi, a child psychiatrist and Denise Sellars from The Family Therapy Group which is his psychologist. Hope this helps.

I have a daughter who feels bored of everything. she will be 5 next week. If I work with her challenging things for her she will be busy and also every time she feels like she would go and try to figure out how to learn. For ex: I introduced her how to find words in cross words, how to write words looking at a book, chinese checkers game, would encourage her she will be super star in the class if she knows how to do this, I would tell her she may be able to earn a trophi in the class. She is keeping her self busy cleaning up rooms and trying to do what I showed her. I encouraged her listening to songs and sing along with me her mind is busy when she can't think of next sentence in the song. I think she is getting better with different activities. But ofcourse my time will be killing not able to get it done anything around the house. I do feel tense I can't keep up with things like I use to she goes to full time schl. I kept her busy during summer everyday swim lesson, library, dance class, scating, kumon tutoring kept me and her very busy.

Hi F.. It's comforting to know you're not the only one. My 4 year old son is the exact same way. I'm having him tested for adhd. There's nothing they can do about it now if he does have it but it'd be nice to have reason he drives me crazy!! LOL
Brandon loves the park. There's tons for him to do, he can run around, and it wears him out. I put B in preschool. He loves it and his teacher tells me he is doing better.
Just keep on disciplining him, stand your ground, don't give in. The first time you do you are going to have to start all over again. He should grow out of the rest of it, eventually. Just don't let him know he has any power over you b/c it'll just get worse as he gets older. (the power is driving you crazy until you just throw your hands up and say, "Whatever!!")
Good luck, and know that your son it's the only challenging boy out there! :)

Good Morning F.. I can totally understand. My son is 5 1/2. He is very strong-willed, but I can say that he gets it honestly. He is very smart and bores easily. One of my friends at church just gave me a book to read called "Raising Your Spirited Child" by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka this past weekend and I have begun reading it and am already feeling better. It seems in todays world that they want to put all children in a cookie-cutter mold and that just does not work. My pediatrician has already told me that my son is a very loving, kind and gentle child, but that he is also very smart and he is an analytical thinker. There is nothing wrong with that at all, but he will need someone that will be patient and understanding and work with him. Not someone that just wants to throw him on medication so that they don't have to deal with him. He does test ALOT on the discipline and we have to be very diligent in what we do, no slipping at all, especially when you think that he is doing so great and you start to back off. That does not work. It will be a forever thing. It will be OK though. I hope you will look into the book.

This may sound a bit far fetched to you, but he sounds a lot like my grandson at that age. He was called ADHD and put on drugs! I found out he has bad reactions to chemicals in cleaners. He is one of four kids in the same house and the only one who acts out that way. The others have issues with writing and focusing. ALL of my cleaning products are now non-toxic and guess what - NO MORE ADHD meds! Once I added the air purifier, I was able to stop his allergy meds as well. Might be something for you to look into.

To find out what’s lurking on your shelves, go to the National Institutes of Health Library of Medicine Household Products Database. You can search almost any brand of cleaner and personal care product you use, find out what’s in it, and uncover its links to health effects. Or search by chemical ingredients (see list below for some examples) and discover what brands contain it. The information may shock you. http://www.householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/ingredients.htm

Chemical ingredients to look out for:
• Sodium hydroxide
• Hydrochloric acid
• Butyl cellosolve (2-Butoxyethanol)
• Formaldehyde
• Bleach (sodium hypochlorite)
• Ammonia
• Sulfamic acid
• Petroleum distillates
• Sulfuric acid
• Lye (potassium hydroxide)
• Morpholine

These are the ONLY cleaning products I use. They are non-tox and concentrated so they are also economical: http://www.GreenHealthyClean.com

Another thing could be his diet - does he do lots of sugary stuff (i.e., cereal, soda, etc). That plays total havoc with the sugar level in the body.

Hope it helps. If you have any questions, you can email me directly at ____@____.com

~V~

My daughter is the same way. She is 6. I have found putting her in her room and isolating her is the only way to get though to her. She wants constant attention and will do things to get it, whether they are good or bad. They are mostly bad. Also doing positive reinforcement has worked. I still have my moments with her but there are not as many of them. Good luck!

I agree with Kathryne. I don't have boys, but I struggle sometimes with my girls. I really believe it's all in the way we communicate with our kids. I've read that toddlers/preschoolers are in the same mentality as teenagers. They are just trying to find out who they are and what boundaries they can cross and get away with. Because my girls like art, I have made an art station in a corner of our home. I put things they can get out and put away easily. I know there are make-you-own comic books if he's into that kind of thing. The hard part is trying to find out what they like to do. It changes so often, so try new things. (We also have the kids karate training dvd, but they are only allowed to do their kicks and punches when it's on.) Hope this helps!

I have a few suggestions I could give you. But here is what I want to start out with. I went to a Parenting Conference this past weekend and the speaker was quite intelligent. John Rosemond is who it was. He is a psychologist but was very blunt with us. VERY!!

I know you are probably thinking your child has ADD or ADHD, which many responders have already said. This is more than likely NOT true. Dr's today tell you what you want to hear. You walk in saying something is terribly wrong with your child and you've tried "everything" so the dr will give a diagnosis (not even a scientific one) and give you meds. Sure, the medicine works for temporary problems, but it's really not what the child needs. As was pointed out to us, ADHD is really a form of toddlerhood that the child has failed to grow out of. You should check out his website, not that I am singling you out- but I figure other people may read this to. I believe it is www.rosemond.com and there are lists of books he's written and other things you can begin to learn about.

As for your son, give him things to do. Chores will keep him busy AND give him some responsibility. I'm not saying have him cook dinner but maybe sweep or simply clean up a room, put away clothes, feed the dog, etc. We had to go pick up sticks outside. Tons of options!

Good luck!

You mentioned that you have tried everything... BUT, have you been consistent in what punishment you have chosen? You can't do time-outs one day for a certain bad behavior, then the next day do something different.
Children thrive on structure, and knowing what is acceptable and what isn't.
My oldest son just turned 5, so we are still dealing with these issues. When I am at my wits-end, I send him to his room, turn off the lights so its darker in his room and make him calm down. If he is screaming and throwing a fit, I DO NOT go back into this room until he calms himself down. Then we talk about what he did, wrong or bad or what-have you, and we get him to apologize for the bad behavior. Making them understand that what they did is unacceptable is a good first step.

Not sure what more to add except that maybe he needs some outside activities. Have you tried putting him in pre-school. I think it has helped my son quite a bit.
And yes they will try to push the boundaries. I have found that w/ son I take away toys that he loves and tell him to think about what he done and consequences. Then after a little while he will say he is sorry and I'll give him the toy back. But there have been times he has lost alot of toys in one day!!!hahaha
Best of luck.