What to do about a good but wild child
Find a Conversation
| Mon, 06-06-2005 - 12:00am |
Hi, Sorry I am new here but am desperate. This evening has led me here to ask for advice. I am a 27 year old stay at home mom of two boys. One boy is 6 and my other is 15 months. The problem I am having is with my wild 6 year old. He is a good boy in general but I can see it seems he is starting to adapt some rude behavior and wildness he hasn't had before. At one time when I was stricter with him he was nice and polite, but since I've tried to parent better it seems I've only ended up parenting worse.
This evening we invited a mom and her daughter over for dinner and the kids played. I don't even know how to explain because I've been made to feel that I am unreasonable and horrible to expect "kids" to not "run and play" But this is all inside our house/apartment. We don't have neighbors yet, but the two 6 year old were running, screaming and wrestling wildy. I am bothered by kids running and acting wild inside. I've told my son many times to take it outside but he just doesn't listen.
I really dont' know what to do when we have company and I am trying to talk to the other parent and have conversation when the kids are right here in the living room going nuts and being so loud. I usually just sit there and try to tell my son to calm down or bring it down a notch and he is so caught up in his play that he doesn't pay any attention to me and they kids are out of breath and red in the face from being so wild.
I've been made to feel that my expectation for the 6 year old kids to sit and play quiet games and things inside is an unreasonable expectation. My husband usually says, what do you expect kids to sit down and and not say a word? But that isn't what I expect, I expect them to not run, jump and scream inside while I am trying to talk with the other parent. Please help and tell me what you think.
What should I do, because I am really on the verge of not inviting anyone over anymore just so my son doesn't get insanly wild while playing inside with the other child. The noise and craziness affects me to where I can't think to have a conversation.
What should I do, how should I handle the children going wild inside playing?
-clover

Hi,
I agree with you.
Thank you so much for replying. I really feel like such a horrible mom because my 6 year old's screaming and running through the house flipping about, bothers me so much. I would like to teach him that being inside is for doing quiet things and being outside is for running, jumping and getting loud but I don't know how to do this without seeming like a party pooper to the kids and other parents. I have no tact generally, and with being exhausted most of the time I find it hard to be a creative parent which I'd love to be. So I feel like such a horrible mom.
Clover
Clover,
I hope this doesn't sound strange coming from someone who only has a one year old...lol...but I have a friend who runs a daycare out of her home and has been doing this for 6 years almost 7. She has the BEST behaved children and I've watched her in action. Two main things she implements are time-out and also, before it gets to that point and if it's just an aggravating behavior, she calls the child over, gets down to their own eye level and calmly, quietly, but firmly says "Emily, you need to calm down...you are being too loud for inside." She does this ONCE (she's had to work to that, believe me), and the problem is over, because TWICE means time out. Also, a nice lady on this board mentioned the book 1-2-3 Magic...you can get it online through Amazon.com or get it at Hastings like I did. It's for disciplining children ages 2-12 and it's a time-out based discipline method. It looks really GOOD for this type of thing. I can't exactly use it yet, but I plan to implement this type of thing.
As for feeling horrible, let me say this. It is YOUR HOUSE, you have YOUR RULES, and you have YOUR CHILDREN. As long as you aren't beating your children, your business in how you run your home is YOURS, and who cares what anyone else thinks. Are they raising your kids? Do they have to tell your kids what the limits are? NO! YOU do...so that's all I have to say about that.
I hope this helps...mainly, I did want to make sure I told you about my friend stopping the behavior by getting the child right in front of her and talking eye to eye, face to face...not by calling out from another room..it's much more effective when they are standing there having to take time out from their "fun" and go stand in front of you.
Debbie
Clover