hating my child! :(:(:(

I feel extremely terrible for saying this but i have to get it out! - Im hating (ok maybe a bit strong of a word but...) Bailey right now!!
I have never felt like i have any kind of bond with him and iv noticed things going from bad to worse lately so i have been trying to make a big effort to form something but its really hard when hes such a punk!!!!! - he swears at us!! yells at us, throws a mega tantrum for EVERYTHING!! from going to the toilet, getting dressed, listening to us, being nice, he never eats his tea and its a 3 hour battle every night!! , he doesnt like his brother and its always hurting him by pushing him over, kicking him, hitting him, he wont let Astin play with ANYTHING (not even astins own toys!), hes even been telling the teachers at daycare that we dont feed him, we dont love him because he has to stay in his room all the time! (he has time out in his room) a few of our friends are his teachers so they pick it up straight away and tell us....some days can be good but the minute i do something like change Astins nappy - Bay spazes out and starts throwing things and swearing!!, his fav thing is to yell horid things as soon as he sees me on the phone!!! ...

Of course i LOVE him!! to bits!! hes my baby boy!! but i really dislike him right now!!!....will his mood end!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! its started around 3 and has progressively gotten worse!

I don't have any good advice. But I sure wouldn't sit there and battle with any child for 3 hrs to get them to eat their dinner. I like Deb's idea of just getting him to sit nicely at the table. Plus if he's hungry he will eat.

My daughter has stopped eating much at dinner time and she just doesn't get anything else - she can eat the dinner if she gets hungry later.
I figure that she eats enough during the day, and with daylight savings, she is getting tired by dinnertime (I sometimes feed her earlier, but it is a pain making two dinners).

Does Bailey take his lunch to daycare? I put all the veges and fruit in DD's lunchbox and she'll eat them. Some things she likes atm are mandarins, half a banana, grapes, celery with peanut butter or cream cheese, mini muffins, bits of cheese and pineapple (on sticks). If we have schnitzel, she will have bits of cut up meat too.

meow wrote: Does Bailey take his lunch to daycare? I put all the veges and fruit in DD's lunchbox and she'll eat them. Some things she likes atm are mandarins, half a banana, grapes, celery with peanut butter or cream cheese, mini muffins, bits of cheese and pineapple (on sticks). If we have schnitzel, she will have bits of cut up meat too.

no they cook the meals for the kids and we just check the food chart to make sure we agree with the food> Iv spoken to the teachers about his eating and they all said that although he is a little on the fussy side and they have had some battles with him - he is otherwise good and eats his fruit and veges!!

Ooooh, charming child! My Maya has her moments like that too, and it is sooo hard to stay objective! I must confess I did have a wee giggle at the "Astin's too fat" comment - that must be coming from daycare. It's funny the things kids talk about amongst themselves, Maya came home once and told me "X isn't my friend coz her breath is smelly". Delightful, how did I raise such an awful cat!
Sounds like you are doing the right things re: consistent consequences, but I agree with Teresa - these are battles you need to work thru while he is a preschooler coz the older they get, the smarter they get and they figure out that mum and dad don't know everything. I think just keeping on with the consistency is the important thing, but there's something to be said in picking your battles like Bizzy said too.
Maybe think about what things REALLY matter (ie. hitting, physical violence, swearing?), what things matter a little (ie. maybe getting dressed etc.) and the things that don't matter so much. Then focus on the ones that are most important so he doesn't feel like he's constantly being told off/put in time out coz that can be demoralising for a child and instead of encouraging them to behave better, it makes them feel like they'll never be able to behave well enough so they might as well not bother.
The things that really matter, where safety is concerned and where you really want to stamp out unacceptable behaviours like throwing things and swearing, use time out every time without fail. The things that don't matter so much, maybe look at other ways of approaching them, for example:
agree that meal times don't need to be a battleground - you choose WHAT he eats and WHEN he eats it, he chooses IF he eats it and how much. After a couple of nights of refusing dinner and being pretty hungry by breakfast you might find he starts eating a bit, then more.
With the getting dressed, again, not neccessarily worth the struggle. I took Maya to daycare in her pyjamas once coz she played up about getting dressed, she thought she was the coolest coz she 'won' - till we got there and all her friends were like "why is Maya in her PJ's, that's just silly!" Never had that problem again funnily enough!
And the little things that don't matter so much, let them go. You can't sweat the small stuff, you'll go mad!
Anyways, hope this helps, it's not much different to what anyone else has said, but having survived the preschool years to tell the tale with Maya the only other thing I can add is hang in there, coz this stage will pass eventually too, its just making sure you get thru it without letting him form any lifelong bad habits!

oh Emma!! im soooooo doing the "going to school in pjs thing"!!!! especially bcos he usually gets down to the undies and then the screaming begins so undies to school!! or the prospect of it might be great

when I'm having clothes problems (more often than not lately) I find letting him choose helps, like Biz said, except I am an anal control freak, so I pick two things and let him choose one, IE 2 pairs of undies, then 2 tops, 2 pants etc. he likes that. Jake that is. He likes that.

Maya wrote: I like it Amber! He'll only go to school in his undies once!

Bahaha! i dunno - Bays one stubborn child if ever there was one! lol

Deb - yip we let him pick his clothes because like you said - it really helps!


We had a very BIG PROBLEM today that im not sure what to do!!! - i left the room for a bit to do something while Bay and Astin were playing then heard Astin making a funny noise and went in to find Bay on top of Astin holding Astins nose shut with one hand and the other hand tightly over his mouth!!! i quickly told Bay to get off him and asked him what he was doing but he just babbled on!!!!! WTF!!!!....We went shopping an hourish after that and DH and i made a huge effort to get him to help us choose the groceries etc and bought him a big boy bottle because of course hes feeling left out but WOAH!! what do i do!!???

amber, gabriel has tried to choke not only his brother but also his dad!!! and they are prob close in age...so could be related to that.

it sound like it to me... we have a very aggressive child here at the moment...lots of NO, not listening, hitting, throwing toys, caught him the other day with a big stick poking it at edens face!!! (not sure if he was trying to get her with it or the hood on the capsule tho)
its hard but i think being consistent and picking the main behaviours to concentrate on help.

how did your dinner go the the other day?

Edited by Bizzy