re: Need a little encouragement. I have a difficult young son.

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He laughed in his teacher’s face when she threatened to send him to the principal’s office

And what did you do when you heard that?

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It’s been a couple of years, so I don’t completely remember. I probably sent him to bed even earlier. He was allowed to have books in his room, and he did a lot of reading that year, believe me. If you’re implying that I should’ve spanked him, I definitely wanted to. That’s how I grew up, and I don’t have any issues with how I was disciplined as a child. With that said, I’m not convinced that works for everyone. I tell my children all the time that words are just words. Sticks and stones. It’s hard to teach a kid that it’s not okay to hit someone over words when you’re doing the same thing to them. Some kids might not make that connection, but mine would and wouldn’t hesitate to point out the logical inconsistency. Spanking would have worked fine with my other two, but not that one. I also found out recently that particular teacher has a negative reputation even among her peers. The following year my son made perfect marks in conduct, and the teacher told me how much she loved having him in her class. (When she had issues with him she sent him outside to run. Smart lady.) I’m glad I didn’t spank him given what I know now.

Red Dye. Any dyes. Dig into this. You will be astounded on what these can do to a child’s behavior. My kid has done a complete 180 since we got this under control. Kids drinks, foods, candy. Loaded with it. A pretty good FB page with parents dealing with this. For your kids sake, look into this.

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Red Dye. Any dyes. Dig into this. You will be astounded on what these can do to a child’s behavior.

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I used to think this was probably nonsense until my son’s pediatrician mentioned it. This dude is in his 70s and definitely not the conspiracy theory type. If you want to skip childhood vaccinations, he will tell you to find another doctor. To hear him talk about the effect those dyes have on some of his patients really caught my attention.

You do not have a 4’ tall 3 yr old. Unless he has that same condition that Andre the Giant or the Big show had. Even still, that would be much more advanced than either of those two.

Also, you are p**sy

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The key is to find out what buttons to push with your child.

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Shock collar with variable intensity and separate tone button would be most effective, but could land you in prison.

Hedge limb switch on bare calves would get his attention. Belts, flyswatters, ect. aint shite on a kid like that.

A lot of people say to spank him. Don’t. My son was diagnosed ADHD, ODD, and he is a level 1 autist. He’s 10 now. I grew up disciplined by the belt and I wasted many years using that method to fix him before he was diagnosed.

Get him to a counselor as soon as you can. Ours told us that spanking does more harm than good. At 10, my son fears me. I don’t like that.

A good counselor will teach you how to deal with the issues that arise. And there will be plenty. Today, my son just decided to cut an expensive comforter on our bed. I wanted to grab the belt, but instead found an alternative method to punish him.

It may seem like it’s soft at times. But you are trying to raise an active member of future society.

Any fixation on figures/toys and lining them up? Like this?

We had a great day and a difficult night again. I have him signed up for baseball and I took him to the field to play. We played outside and he seemed to thrive with physical activity.

Tonight he didn't want me to get him dressed. He starter thrashing and hitting me. I told him that was unacceptable and he got disciplined, which caused him to go wild.

I held him for 20 minutes waiting for him to calm down and stop thrashing. His will power never quit. I just kept rubbing his back and telling him to calm down. Got to be honest, that didn't work. He still crying but down to a simmer...the boys got no quit.

I felt I responded with firmness and love. No idea what that did besides trying to get him to understand he won't get his way. I think this is abnormal though. Giving his whippins wasn't the answer. It just sent him into a tailspin.

He just can't roll with it. It's his way or complete distress. I'm a pretty, firm and stern guy. This isn't a kid styling on me. I think it's a mental issue at this point and this confirmed it. Who fights someone for 20 straight minutes?

I got a 3 year old daughter and the end of day routine is the hardest. I won’t say I can compare her to your boy, but it does get crazy pretty often. Bath time is our struggle. We finally figured out that adding music to the bath time helped a lot. Maybe find the sound track to his favorite movie and use that a reward for getting into bed and play it once before bed. Also I figured out that tossing a big volley ball with her right before bath time helped burn off a little energy, but my girl is tiny and that volley ball takes effort to throw for her. Maybe giving him something heavy to toss around or carry before bed might help. I even used to toss her onto the bed for a good 15 minutes to get her to laugh a bunch and burn the silly out of her.


The thrashing and hitting is normal at this age. Our daughter hits and flails on the ground when she doesn’t get what she wants too. Best thing we figured out to do is to stop talking to her and let her cry it out for a minute and tell when she’s ready to talk we will talk. When they’re in that mindset they can’t hear anything. Also, 20 minutes is pretty normal for a tantrum. We’ve had a few that went nearly 45 minutes that were god awful.

It’s frustrating as hell. The saying is terrible twos, but the twos ain’t got nothing on the threenager stage.

He's 4... whip his arse. Do it in front of the younger children so they'll know not to frick around. Let this be a teaching moment.