As a mother of a teenager boy and a pre-teenage girl I just want to say GOOD FOR YOU :-) Its never easy being a parent more and more these days we are being frowned upon if we dicipline our children but I was one of those very strickt moms when my kids were little they had to pick up after themselves, eat what they were given and mind their manners - its was lots and lots of hard work - but the rewards are two lovely well behaved kids, I'm not saying don't drive me nuts every now and then - but when I see the behaviour of other children around us I know I did the right things and I am very blessed to have my kids.

Something that worked for my husband when he was a small child and started swearing was that his mom (who is still a primary school teacher) calmly told him that those words were not nice but she did not mind so much if he used it as long as he never ever said the word 'stetoscope' - she informed the rest of the family about this so when he would use a real swear word everyone would ignore it and proceed as usual but when he said stetoscope everyone would act in shock and tell him how 'bad' that word was - after a day or two he happily stopped using swear words and for the next year went around shouting stetoscope everytime he got angry :-))

One of the reasons childred use swear word is that we react when they do - we get angry, shocked, stressed out, etc and then it gives them the control over the situation - when you remain calm and act as if its nothing then the word no longer gives them power and eventually they give up trying to use it as it is no longer 'fun'.

Good luck - and most important don't give up and don't beat yourself up about it, dicipline is repetative never ending work, but it does pay off when they are older :-)

[quote=Scutagirl]I reckon you did the right thing, I did that with my boy when he was about 2 years old and wouldn't stop biting. But I had a glass of milk on hand to calm the burn and lot's of love later. I had to do this a few times before he learnt the lesson, but he's now 4 years old and has had no ill effects.

However I think there is a deeper underlying thing here that you need to get at that is causing this beha iour. Perhaps something has changed at school or at home, maybe there's additional tension somewhere, perhaps there is a child he interacts with who treats his parents like that and your boy is acting it out, whatever the problem is you need to find that out.

Maybe you should look at taking him to see a child psychologist BUT before you do that, see what he is like tonight. [/quote


Children crave attention - negative or positive. If they cannot get a positive feed back then a negative one will do. To a child any attention is better than none. So now, from now on make sure you give him attention when he is doing something good and correct e.g. ' I appreciated the way you spoke to me then' or 'I do enjoy your smile' etc. One thing we often forget when they are around us all the time is eye contact and things like saying 'good morning' and hallo.

In saying that, how do you discipline them? By taking away the attention! Tell the child you will ignore him if he yells, cries, swears, whines, or screams. Then when he does, you purposefully put your nose in the air and walk away and sit somewhere near and pretend to read a book. He may wack the book and try all sorts of ways to get your attention but persevere with the nose in the air!. It is hilarious but it worked wonders with my boy who use to scream at a high pitch, We had tried all other methods and it had failed. This one worked. All the best and good luck.

Oh dear, Chilli-Mom. I TOTALLY get you and why you did this, and I think I would also have felt really terrible after the fact.

I found myself in the same situation with my three-year-old and a fat old slap the other day: the same series of distractions, explanations, encouragements, warnings, alternative disciplines, until I actually could not take it anymore. And the way he wailed broke my heart.

Neither a spot of chilli nor a smack on the bottom will scar our children for life, but I daresay we'd feel better if we found other ways of dealing with this sort of unacceptable behaviour.

I went to speak to his playschool teacher the next day (kind of like confession!) and explained the whole thing. I really respect her and her attitudes to discipline and she said I couldn't have done more in the circumstances. Took the sting off - just a little.

The bottom line is that the behaviour needs addressing - especially if he's playing up all of a sudden. We figured our son was demanding attention because I've been under the whip at work and he's used to more attention from me. A difficult balance but we're trying to address it and it seems to be working. What could be causing your son's sudden outbursts?