Almost 4 and Zero Impulse Control

My boys will be 4 in January and my one DS has zero impulse control. No matter what I ask him not to do, he'll do it anyway. It has gotten worse over the past few months and I am losing my mind. :headbang:

Just now an AT & T salesperson was at our front door. DS opened the door after I told him to wait. He then said he wanted to let the dogs out (when I heard the doorbell, I close my bedroom door and to lock them in). All of a sudden the one dog comes out and starts barking at the guy. He then kept asking to let the other one out of her crate.

When I ask him to do something, I give him one warning: Either do _____ or don't touch that or go in time out.

It does not matter and he will go ahead and do it and then cry when he's put in time out.

Prior to that it was: don't touch...Don't Touch....DON'T TOUCH, which resulted in him running into his room crying.

When he's done with time out I will ask him why he did what he did and he'll just say "I don't know". I explain to him why I put him there and later in the day he'll do the exact same thing. :gah:

I am just so tired of his attitude and don't know what to do.

 

My kids don't get it either... they keep getting in the Christmas tree, for example, even tough we've told them multiple times not to.. they even spent 20 minutes crying in their room yesterday after I caught them, and still got into it today.

I don't know what to do either!

 

Sometimes I find when I tell my kids "Not " to do something that puts the idea in their head to do it ! I have a 4, a 4 and a smart 2.5 yr old and I tell one Not to do something and they line up for the next one to do it. It seems they each want a personal notification Not to touch something. (and that means you and you and you..)
what works ? time. they seem to be getting a bit better since starting school and growing up a bit more. Being physically near them, a pat on the back of the head (lightly) and sort of manouvering them away from the item seems to work better than my words. Trying to have fun with it sometimes like a pillow or playing the statute game. Trying to make our voices different to them so they will listen, since I think we sound the same to them after awhile. think of the last word you say instead of "don't touch" you say "hands off" so they hear "off" as the last word. I repeat repeat quickly when I can't physically get to them "get down get down get down get down" .

Lock everything. I have those locks on my front door like in a hotel room. LOVe them. keeps kids in, people out. I use it as a door jam so the kids don't lock me out when I'm in the garage, and I hang their backpacks on them like a hook.

I have locks on their closet doors and our front closet doors, all the rooms, pantry and linen. I just cuts down on them getting into things.

Keep him busy with out door play whenever you can to burn off the extra energy. We don't do much juice just milk and water and limit sugar like juice, snacks after 3 pm. (just what we do). Just know that my nephew was so busy as kid and now as a teen he is the most relaxed and sweet kid ever. They will not always stay this way. (hopefully)


hope some of that helped.

Heather

 

Oh yeah it doesn't matter with one bit if my kids were out all morning or not... they still get into stuff as soon as we're home.

We just took down the remaining ornaments of the tree because they got into it yet again, broke one, and put hooks and pieces all over... I'm SO over it.

 

Ian is still like this at 5.5...

 

Ok ladies... why are some kids like this and some aren't? Does anything work to help them over it... or do they just grow out of it eventually and learn impulse control?

 

I wish I knew. I had a 'friend' who was convinced that it's because of our parenting

 

Then why is it only with my one DS? :aggressive:

I think it does have a lot to do with his personality. He needs to be in control. Even at school, his teacher has told me that it's her, then the aides and then DS when it comes to telling the other students what to do. A few weeks ago, DS was bit by another student. When I asked him what happened, he told me "Chris put the blue blocks in with the red ones". I guess Chris did not like being told what to do by DS. I then explained to him that it was not up to him to tell Chris where the blocks should go.

I reward him when he does things without being asked a million times so I know he can do it.

 

My philosophy is that anything good that my kids do is because of my excellent parenting and anything bad they do is due to genetics.