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The Spankings Will Continue Until Morale Improves...
My son (now 25 months) has been a "biter" now for several months, if not a year. It used to happen on a daily basis, now every few weeks we get a "bite report" from daycare. It became the new normal. However, in the past two weeks he has become a complete sociopath. He now spits on kids and when a teacher gets down on her knee to correct him he either slaps them or spits on them as well.
They do "time-outs" and he will take his "naughty circle" seat cushion and chuck it and run back into the fray of playing kids, laughing. They've started to make him do timeouts in their business office. What worries them is that through all the punitive measures he is gleeful and completely remorseless. He can say most anything now, so they want him to repeat "No biting." or "Biting is not OK" and he will look at them and laugh or slap when they ask that. They will ask him to say "I'm sorry." He will. Then they will say "No biting" and he WON'T. I almost got him to say it today, he said "No bi..." and then shoved his hand in his mouth, laughed and garbled the end of it blowing a raspberry of spit. HOW PSYCHO IS THIS????
He pulled this at daycare for about a week and a half before he started it at home. I put him in timeout every time he hits me, but frankly he laughs at me, too (though I can get him to stay--in fact he's only two but he did a 10 minute stint today without batting an eyelash, he just sat there all smiling).
We've never spanked him, daycare obviously doesn't spank him. But I can't help think that if I pulled this shit on my parents, I would have gotten a swat on a diapered behind. I don't see him as a cute little boy anymore. I see him as a future serial killer who tortures small, furry animals. Someone suggested that we get him to a shrink stat before he's not allowed in school when he's 5. I'm a teacher, I know how easy it is to bend over backwards trying to help students that are genuinely nice kids, and how difficult it is to cut slack on the kids who act like total douche canoes. He was so mellow for 2 years, I want that baby back--even if it didn't sleep in 12 hour stretches with a 3 hour nap.
They do "time-outs" and he will take his "naughty circle" seat cushion and chuck it and run back into the fray of playing kids, laughing. They've started to make him do timeouts in their business office. What worries them is that through all the punitive measures he is gleeful and completely remorseless. He can say most anything now, so they want him to repeat "No biting." or "Biting is not OK" and he will look at them and laugh or slap when they ask that. They will ask him to say "I'm sorry." He will. Then they will say "No biting" and he WON'T. I almost got him to say it today, he said "No bi..." and then shoved his hand in his mouth, laughed and garbled the end of it blowing a raspberry of spit. HOW PSYCHO IS THIS????
He pulled this at daycare for about a week and a half before he started it at home. I put him in timeout every time he hits me, but frankly he laughs at me, too (though I can get him to stay--in fact he's only two but he did a 10 minute stint today without batting an eyelash, he just sat there all smiling).
We've never spanked him, daycare obviously doesn't spank him. But I can't help think that if I pulled this shit on my parents, I would have gotten a swat on a diapered behind. I don't see him as a cute little boy anymore. I see him as a future serial killer who tortures small, furry animals. Someone suggested that we get him to a shrink stat before he's not allowed in school when he's 5. I'm a teacher, I know how easy it is to bend over backwards trying to help students that are genuinely nice kids, and how difficult it is to cut slack on the kids who act like total douche canoes. He was so mellow for 2 years, I want that baby back--even if it didn't sleep in 12 hour stretches with a 3 hour nap.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by mcglory13 on -
Kids who are spanked are more aggressive, statistically. It would likely make the situation worse. Other than that I am afraid I lack helpful answers. That sucks though, I'm sorry. I don't think it says anything at all about who he will be as an adult though. I think it's a normal phase for some kids.
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Permalink Reply by Ylimemagic on -
These phases suck ass. My only tactic when Reid has gone through one of these downshifts in psychotic behavior is to tell myself that it will pass and be REALLY consistent with her as far consequences. Time outs seem so insignificant in the face of such irrationality, but the consistency I think is key.
Good luck and stay strong!
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Permalink Reply by ruth on -
bap, are the time outs in the office still supervised by an adult? The real point of time out is TOTAL removal of adult interaction that could in any way be reinforcing. When my son went through a biting phase, we reinstalled the pack-n-play, put him in that and COMPLETELY ignored him until he had gone through his defiant phase, crying phase and was starting to calm down, then with an extremely matter-of-fact reminder "no biting" we took him out. Using this consistently eliminated the biting in about 2 weeks.
I really think the key is that time out has to be confined to a place where he isn't being forced in some way to stay in the time out place by an adult, because this, as negative as it seems to us, is still reinforcing to a toddler - the old "any attention is better than no attention" attitude of most 2 year olds.
And no matter how you feel about spanking, I doubt it would work anyway given his general attitude toward authority at this point ;)
Good luck
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Permalink Reply by TommysMommy on -
We went through this as well from about 2-1/2 to 3ish. It was like he was a little sociopath. Every time he hurt someone whether by accident or intentionally, he would laugh and run the other way. He would not say he was sorry even though he would say sorry to the fridge for closing the door too hard or bumping the chair. It drove me crazy. I really wanted to smack him sometimes. Had to walk away a few times.
He seems to have gotten over it although it does reoccur occasionally. So there is hope. It's probably just a phase. I was so thrilled to get my sweet kid back.
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Permalink Reply by jenra on -
Do you know how many kids do this? Do you know how many daycares and teachers act like this is a huge deal and your perfect baby is tainted because they do this? A lot of them.
Your son is normal. He is going through a very normal (however annoying) stage of development. He is not going to be a serial killer, it's unlikely that he'll ever be mean to animals.
Lots of perfectly well adjusted adults were spanked as children, but they also used to "bleed" people for fevers. Inflicting violence on a child as a punishment for violence is completely irrational (though tempting, you get mad or frustrated, it's tempting to hit). I also question how effective time out is for kids that little. They have poor reasoning capabilities, short attention spans, and poor sense of logic. The ability to recognize cause and effect is somewhat there, but it's far from well developed.
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Permalink Reply by BunnyKrygowski on -
Holy crap, this was me last week. In the middle of the grocery store. The Achiever smacked me so hard while I was trying to talk him down from screaming that he knocked both my glasses off my face and my nosering out of my nose. Then spit. I was shaking I was so upset.
We have never spanked, have only done 1 time out in 21 months, but I had visions of our little snuggler, the kid that will come up to me out of the blue, pat my cheek and give hug and kiss will be disemboweling the cat in 10 years.
I chalked it up to a REALLY bad day, frustration on his part because he's so slow to talk, tried to change gears when we got home.
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Permalink Reply by wookie on -
I always thought a lot of that acting out behaviour was not being able to use words to express how you felt. I might be misremembering, but at an age where they're starting to feel more complicated things strongly, their expressive language hasn't always caught up. Obviously there is a lot of something pent up in there, maybe parents and teachers need to brainstorm some ideas about what is a permissable way to act those out?
I doubt I'll be the lone ranger here but it looks like I'll be the first on this thread.
Why do we as adults equate spanking with violence?
I'm not saying that violence is not visited upon children, and that violence, especially to children is terrible and damaging. I'm saying that a swat on the behind or a slap on the hand is not violence. It (can be) part of discipline. Bleeding people for fevers never worked. Spanking on the other hand, absolutely can be effective for some kids.
Discipline, by the dictionary definition, is "training to act in accordance with rules;" A spanking can be a negative reinforcement to an action. A slap on the hand that is reaching for a sharp knife or hot stove. A swat on the behind for repeatedly trying to scale the bookcase, after multiple warnings and other corrections.
Something to keep in mind with very young toddlers, is that almost nothing is all that effective when a child is not yet able to understand action/consequence, or has not yet developed any self control. As tempting as it may be to hit back when you are hit/bit/spat on, unless the child understands that a spanking is the consistent consequence for those actions, it's not appropriate to spank. And there are often many other things we can try and do, and many of these are successful.
Not every child responds to timeouts. Not every child responds to spankings. Personally, I would like to see people return to common sense. A swat on the behind is not the same as beating a child.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Mama on -
I think Ruth has hit the mark - a good time-out stops the child from getting what they want (attention), not giving them something that is inherently bad (pain). Safe isolation consistently applied is the key. Toddlers really don't care enough about your feelings to be doing something in order to hurt your feelings (little narcissists), while thier behavior can be infuriating, walking away when you find yourself taking it personally is essential.
(spoken as a mom who had to put herself in time out more times than I can count!)
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Permalink Reply by Joe Mama on
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I bet the insult became a learned behavior because all the adults freaked out when he did it and gave him all sorts of attention.
T-Rex said:Who knew that spitting on someone as an insult is freaking hardwired into humans? I mean, I never spit, and certainly not as an insult or assault. Where do they get it if it's not hardwired monkey behavior?
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Permalink Reply by mcglory13 on
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Maybe spanking might be helpful for some children, but the majority of research shows it leads to bad outcomes as an adult: http://educationalissues.suite101.com/article.cfm/spanking_and_devi... (one of the first, of many, references to the studies). I personally wouldn't risk it.
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Permalink Reply by Floor Pie on -
Yeah....I went through something like this when my son was 2-and-a-half. The behavior is highly undesirable and it has to stop. But while it may seem "psycho" by adult standards, it's actually developmentally normal for that age. (Are 25-month-olds mentally capable of empathy toward their peers?)
Right now, it sounds like he's getting a big kick out of all the fuss and attention he's causing. His caretakers need to be completely stoic. No emotional reactions. They need to keep the other kids safe by assigning one person to shadow the child (without him realizing it) and immediately intervene if a bite is about to happen, before it happens. Without emotion, they should say "I won't let you bite" and physically remove him from the situation. If he spits, they can calmly direct him to an acceptable place to spit. All the energy and attention should be directed to the "victim," not the kid who bit them.
Forcing him to say "sorry" is bullshit and actually makes me question how qualified his caretakers are in the first place. Everyone knows that forced apologies don't work. There's good information to combat biting out there in the world of early childhood education. They need a better response, because what they're doing right now clearly isn't working.
I actually did have my son evaluated by a therapist last year. He'd stopped biting after only a few weeks at age 2, but the undesirable behavior continued throughout preschool. (Hitting, cliquing up with the toughest boys, freaking out at fire drills or at song time, inconsolable crying for no apparent reason.) He was diagnosed with anxiety and depression at age 4. I think the diagnosis fits, since we are the Anxiety and Depression Family. My anxiety manifests in almost the opposite way, which makes it especially challenging as a parent. I'm all "flight"; he's all "fight."
I'm really disgusted that people are already trying to scare you about kindergarten. Kindergarten has been a fucking paradise compared to preschool. There are resources. The teachers are highly experienced and genuinely empathetic, ready to handle situations without even blinking an eye and without judgment. And, for better or for worse, my son is not the neediest kid in the mix. But I'm glad we had the diagnosis going in, because I was able to meet with his teacher before school started and talk about what to expect. She's been amazing.
I never spanked; although I've been angry, frustrated, and tearful enough to want to on occasion. In our case, I just don't think it would work. You can't spank the anxiety and depression out of someone (although sometimes our asshole society seems intent on doing just that). What I have done -- very effectively -- is teach him to recognize his feelings so he can tell when he's getting angry and calm himself down before anything happens. His teacher has complimented us for it. It was a lot harder to do than spanking, but it has lasting results.
I know what you mean about missing the baby years. Those were some good times. He was a great baby and it broke my heart a little when he emerged as a little person with emotional challenges. But I love him unconditionally and work my ass off to help him make his way in the world. We have a great relationship; maybe stronger for all the challenges. Fasten your seatbelt...
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Permalink Reply by Bertha Waterbury on -
Hi. I haven't posted here very often but this topic resonated with me. I think floor pie is really on the mark here. To have you worrying about kindergarten is really unfair and if they can do the shadowing for a little bit he might just get the idea that they're not going to let him get away with it. Calm, consistent behavior on the part of adults can sometimes bring that out in the kids. Not always, definitely, but hopefully eventually. Modeling the behavior that you want to see is really the best bet. That's why I don't think spanking works either, violent or not. If you smack a kid's hand for touching the stove instead of just physically moving him/her so they don't get hurt, what's to stop them from smacking a friend's hand who is about to grab their toy? They perceive just as much danger in someone taking their toy as we do in their burning their hand. If we model for them how we want them to behave it will eventually sink in, but they will go through frustrating phases as they are trying to understanding what for them is an increasingly bigger and more complex world.
I was a biter - I was repeatedly told to stop biting, it annoyed everyone for over a month, I showed little remorse, eventually I stopped and went on to do other annoying things.
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