Strategies for correcting behavior

[schoville]

Can you tell me your best strategies for resolving agressive outbursts with your child? We are exploring medicines, therapy, etc. for our son but in the mean time while we wait on testing, appointments, etc. we still have to deal with the day to day. He has been very defiant and aggressive lately (throwing things, hitting, screaming, running away, cursing) when he is corrected for a wrong behavior like excessively teasing a sibling, hitting, etc.. How do we best correct him (calm him down) yet still get the point across that he can't do X,Y or Z. He keeps repeating the behavior over and over.

[Onthemove1971]

Have you listened to the Podcast, Parenting ADHD? It really helps me alot, she has specialist to help you with the many issues we struggle with. Recently she had a podcast.on punishment. The other one that helped a lot were strategies to deal with behaviors.

Just hearing her explain what she has been through, her son is a freshman in high school so she has been throught this.

Hope it helps and welcome.

[momwifedaughtersis]

Hello, we have had similar challenges in the past, and it’s really hard. One thing that we noticed is that the school/daytime environment seemed to really impact my son’s behavior at home (evenings/weekends, both parents work full time outside the home). We elected to skip the summer camps this summer, bc my son was consistently getting in trouble for fighting, and expelled in some cases). My son’s therapist felt that constant negative feedback at school (or camp) leads to more acting out. We were lucky that my son’s favorite babysitter was available to watch him 1:1 for several weeks during the summer, and the number of outbursts/problems at home were greatly reduced. So... hopefully, things will improve as you are addressing the deeper issues going on.

Our son’s therapist suggested to try to simplify to a couple Big Rules for the house, and try to let the rest go. We landed on 1) No hitting and 2) Be respectful. (And we decided not to worry about jumping on the furniture). At a calm time, we talked with our son (7 yo) about what consequences were appropriate for violating the 2 big rules. He came up with 1) No dessert; 2) No iPad and 3) Early bedtime. He seems to really buy in to using these same consequences in the same sequence, every time.

I second the ADHD podcasts are very helpful - there are a lot of options to choose from.

[Onthemove1971 in reply to momwifedaughtersis]

I love that you guys let him pick the consequences, this has more buy in for kids. I know your house is much happier.

YES, I agree when things are good it is much better at hope, thanks for sharing

[Paperplane in reply to momwifedaughtersis]

Really like the way you guys are handling this. Also wanted to share that jumping on the furniture fell by the wayside at our house too, haha-- but no hitting and no biting stuck, so I'm just as happy with that.

schoville, was there a recent upheaval or major change that would have triggered this behavior? I know it's incredibly exhausting to correct violent outbursts while still remaining calm (and safe) yourself. The repetition and sudden onset of the outbursts makes me wonder if perhaps he's reacting to some high-level emotion inside from another ongoing issue-- an "overflowing backpack" of feeling, as my therapist used to say. In my experience, kids usually don't act out to these extremes out of choice.

[Elijah1]

Two reading reference - Russell Barkley's Your Defiant Child and Ross Greene's The Explosive Child.

[Aspen797]

So many great ideas above! When our son was younger we would go through cycles of behavior liked this. For us, it was often triggered by our son being corrected a lot (at school as other posters noted, or at home) or getting alot of negative feedback. What helped was mentally dedicating specific time each day to follow his lead/listen/engage/play/openly enjoy without steering, guiding or correcting. Focusing on only one or two non-negotiables (kind words/kind body) and having a pre-agreed upon consequence. Using first this (Chore/homework/morning routine before school), then that (preferred activities) as part of daily routine. Establishing a marble jar that we had our son put marbles in for doing as asked the first time, using a kind tone, helping out, anything positive. When the (small) jar was full he could pick from several fun family activities (bowling, movie, arcade). We still do this. For me, it was really important to learn to pick battles, not engage/get into a back and forth, practice reminding myself that I don't have to address every bad behavior in the moment, that I could go breathe, take time to plan how we could structure things to prevent bad behavior in the future. On that note, the Tilt parenting website offers great ideas for reframing the internal parenting dialogue. Check it out. Also, the book How to talk so kids will listen, how to listen so kids will talk and anything Russell Barkley or Ross Greene as others already noted.