The Roles We Play

How can I get my 3 year old to listen and behave? Lately he has been a little monster. I have tried the naughty chair, time outs everything I could think of. He is into hitting now, and I am getting frustrated. There is somedays I just want to walk

What I think often happens in relationships is that people fall into their relationship "roles". I think that in many families, kids take the role that is comfortable for them or maybe more correct they take the role that is available to them. If there already is an older "responsible" child, that role is filled. So, what's available for the next child is a role that will get a different label. This could be the "difficult" child role. Then, a baby comes along and they immediately get their own role that is protected by the parents (maybe the "coddled" role?), etc. 

After having my second child, I was continually amazed at how different my second daughter was from my first. She seemed to throw our family balance into a tailspin and demanded so much attention that everyone in the family was disrupted. With the help of my sage husband, I began to realize that the only attention she was getting was negative. I needed to do something differently. I was parenting her like I parented my first and since the two were different and our family dynamics were so different as well, I had to begin to parent her differently. That makes sense, right? My husband is really helpful in reminding me when I am continuing to parent her in a way that is inneffective. "It's not working" he'd say, "so you've got to try something different." In the heat of a blow-out with your toddler, that kind of advice isn't always welcome but when I would really think about what he said and considered that he had the best intentions to help me, I realized it was really good advice.

I had to start praising my child before she started behaving badly. I had to make a real effort to give her a different kind of attention. It takes a while for old habits to be broken. I have to re-navigate my parenting techniques all the time but sometimes the littlest shifts make a huge difference. The more positive attention my daughter got, the more she thrived on it. I saw a noticable difference her behavior. The way I am beginning to see it is that there is room in every family for lot's of well-behaved children. They will always be different,yes,  but the roles they play can over-lap one another. They don't each have to stay within the small box they seem to fit in, role-wise. Kids that misbehave don't like to misbehave, even though sometimes, it seems like they do! Behind every disruptive and difficult child is a child that is desiring our love and praise.

My advice would be to mix it up, try some new parenting techiniques and not just in the areas of dicipline (although that's not a bad idea as well). Don't forget adding extras in the positive areas. Dwelling on the negative can often bring more negative. Start to really recognize and verbalize anything and everything that your child does that is well-intened (even if he puts his dirty dish in the clean washer-at least he's putting it in the washer and not leaving it on the table or better yet, throwing it on the floor). Once you give your child a taste of "the good life" he'll want more of it!!

Good luck!