Topic : General Advice

I am grandma to a sweet,sensitive,caring 5 yr.old boy. His momma & daddy divorced shortly after his birth. In the last 5 years he has seen his dad maybe 10 times. In spite of the infrequent visits he remembers him very well. Since starting kindergarten he has begun talking about other boys' dads, and tells them that his dad will probably visit soon too. I know the dreaded question is coming soon. How does momma tell him why his dad doesn't visit or call often without making him feel he isn't important to daddy? We don't want to break his heart or spirit. Any help will be appreciated. Thanx!!

Hello.  I need some opinions.  I am a mother of 4 children  9,6,4 nd 3.  Yes i know it sounds bad.  But recently in the past few yrs has been hard for us.  Jan 5 2004 my mother passes away with out warning, Jan 5 2006 my hubby Neal is diagnosed with stage 3 cancer of the throat.  then Jan 31,  2008  my house catches on fire.  And well one more thing I have kidney stones...

 

Now u know what all is happening to have things the way they are.  My hubby and I have a happy marriage.  I work 2nd and he works 1st. My 4 yr old son is my problem.  When he was born we WAs very happy that we got a boy.  Time moves on,  he is now 4.  when he was 2 things started to change.  my son had become more hyper he was in preschool.  the teachers and us was working on all the behavioral issues not sitting still  cant think real clear and  hes sweet and loving. 

 

My son  has some anger issues now`today he said to the sitter "i don't like u,  daddy or mommy"  I want to burn down the house.  i hate u  he has spurts every now and then of theses.  i think he can sense when stress happens.  we have been thru therapists-a few sessions.  we have also done positive reinforcement.  i can only keep my cool with him for a little while.  the constant ups and downs are making me sad, hurtful and well frustrated.  I feel i have not succeeded as a parent.  my other children relationships are suffering from me being stressed.  my hubby is all part of this too, he has the cool but wants to do something about it also.  help us someone.  plz....

 

ty- 

I raise my 5 year old nephew, Anthony, after his mom left him shortly after he was born.  She used to come by and visit or call, but for the past year we have heard nothing from her. She didn't even call him on his birthday. The last time she called she said she didn't want to deal with him anymore. HIs father, my brother, is having to work a lot to support the 2 of them and is doing the best he can.

 

My problem is Anthony is always so angry. He is always hitting and yelling and throwing fits. His teacher is really concerned because he is spending a lot of time in time out for hitting other kids. I've tried everything to get him to stop. Positive reinforcement, talking to him softly, time out, taking away toys, no snacks, even spanking. Nothing is working. He is still always yelling and throwing himself on the floor.

 

He has a huge loving support group of  aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents and he even calls me mom, but I don't know how to handle this. I'm open to any suggestions you may have.  Thanks.

I was wondering if anyone has had a similar situation and I was looking for some advice.  My 3-year old daughter was going to a babysitter (family friend for years) a few days a week and now 1 day a week.  Last week when I talked to her about going to the babysitter she began to cry.  I tried asking her about what made her upset when we talked about going there and she really didn't say.  I told her again tonight about the need to go there this week and she began to cry again.  This time she told me that the kids say not nice things, like bad words.  So, I'm not sure if I should not send her to the babysitter or somehow get her through this.  It's very hard when she's crying to decide to send her anyway to the babysitter, but I know she cannot make the decision either.  Please give me any advice you may have.

Thanks.

i am a mother of four children. 3-boy,7-girl,7-boy,and a 8-girl. we are a blended family my problem is i have a very stressful job long hours but good money for not having much of an education but my family is a disaster. my 3 year old is out of control.always getting into everything making messes everywhere! my 7 yr old girl has developed an additude and is always getting in trouble in school for being disobeniant. my 7 year old boy is always just doing what ever he wants to do. he calls his great grandmother bad names and acts in violent manners agianst the other kids. everything just feels out of control. i have been trying different methods of diciplining my children but it doesnt seem to work and it kind of makes me feel like the bad guy all the time because i have to be the reinforcer. my husband does the playing with the kids and stuff like that. even though he has been trying to help more lately it seems that he doesnt have the patients to deal with them a lot of the time. i just need some advise on how to get this under control.to make my kids behave in a manner that is appropriate and keep my sanity at the same time. help help please.

Your husband should not have the choice to not enforcing rules/boundaries with the children. He needs to understand that by allowing their bad behavior to continue, he is setting them up for a lifetime of disappointment and troubles. If your children learn at home that there are specific rules/boundaries in life, they will go out into the world knowing what to expect. If they do not learn about rules and boundaries at home, they will go out into the world, expecting to do whatever they want to do, whenever they want to, and that is where the disappointment will begin.
You and your husband are the strongest role models that your kids will ever have. They are looking to you to teach them what “normal” is. Right now, you are teaching them that it is ‘normal’ to allow their behavior.
You said that you’ve tried different ways of disciplining, and none seem to work. You’ve got to choose ONE method and be 100% consistent with it for at least one week before you will know if it truly works or not. Just trying a method here and there isn’t a good indicator of what works. Dr. Phil says ‘hit ‘em where it hurts,’ meaning take away what they like the most. (this method works the best with my own children. When I say, ‘you have three minutes to get your dirty dishes out of here, if you aren’t done in three minutes you’ll lose your DS for 3 days…’ they really get to moving.) All kids are different, so you’ve got to figure out what their currency is for each.
I wish you the best!

thank you for your response. that realy helped. I really didnt know what the time frame was for "trying a differnet method. the older kids are  little easier to find out where to hit them where it hurts. the three year old on the other hand seems like he just "dont care" just to say that loosly. he just does and does and does everything he knows he should not. like he is testing all the boundies. he tells my husband he hates him, calls me mean all the time, says inappropriate things. hes a little more difficult. but this gives me hope on trying different things with him a week at a time untill something works. thanks agian.

I have a 7 year old daughter that is lying constantly about anything and everything.  She lies about what she has touched in the cupboard to things that she has done that she has blamed her 5 year old (very mildly) autistic brother for!!!  We are at our wits end, we have tried to punish her from taking away favourite toys for periods of time to grounding her to her bedroom for a week at a time when she lies, in the last 3 days we have had 1 lie a day - even though she is already grounded.   What to do.  Her Dad and I have both explained to her NUMEROUS TIMES that this behaviour is unacceptable and she will always get punished MORE for lying and not telling the truth......she does tell the truth, it's just usually when she has absolutely no choice because we know she is lying.  Please help.......

My son in law will be sentenced soon, if he goes to jail, what should we tell his 4 year old son, who adores his daddy?  The crime could be 4-7 years.  My grandson will be devistated.

that little boy needs to get some steam out. You need to talk to him, when children are around the age of 5 they go through a stage like this if they dont have a biological parent around. He needs to know exactly what is going on with his bio mother. But with that you need to explain that to him in a very simplified and positive manner. If his mother is going to call him and tell him stuff like that, that is just going to make the situation worse so you shouldn't let her talk to him unless she is going to be nice. With her saying that she doesn't want to deal with him anymore, thats just going to make him think that this is all his falt and he is going to resent himself for that and he is going to be a very angry child. As you probably know, there are so many stages of loosing someone, the first stage is denial and the last stage is exceptence but in the middle somewhere there is anger and he cant get out of the anger stage. He needs to know that its not his falt and he is a wonderful little boy. Everything he does right you really need to let him know that you are proud of him and every now and then you need to do something with him like painting or drawing or something along them lines, and when you do that you should ask him some questions about how he is feeling about some things and make sure he knows that there is no right or wrong answer to anything that  you ask. So you just listen and let him get some things out that way he sould reach the exceptance stage and be happy with what he has. ALLWAYS REMEMBER THAT POSITIVE PARENTING IS THE KEY!