Do you have a difficult child and how do you define one? Not special needs. Just difficult.
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Anonymous
What were your learning disabilities? |
Anonymous
It’s ok. It’s crossed my mind that there is more to his issues than we realize so it’s good to consider PP’s point. I agree w your 2nd point about stopping him from acting out and we do try. However, I don’t know that we really can stop it completely. Not sure if you’re a parent to a similarly difficult kid or not but it’s not easy to reason w him or get him to listen/follow instructions. We don’t believe in corporal punishment and time outs don’t work. How can we make him stop stomping and slamming things (we do have door bumper thing on his bedroom door already so he can’t slam that at least but he’ll slam anything else in sight when he’s angry). I’m not being snarky, genuinely interested in suggestions on how to change this behavior. |
. It does make me think about my own son. We've thought before he may have something more going on that just being a difficult child. He was a very easy baby and toddler and the challenging behavior didn’t start til about age 3. He has always done well in school settings but then this year due to the pandemic he’s been homeschooled and I think that has caused some significant setbacks. We are hoping once he’s able us go back to “regular school” he will be a happier kid. But I am worried about him. Can you tell me a little more about your son’s “nightmare stage” that led you to diagnosis?
Anonymous
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I was the difficult child.
1. I was an extremely picky eater from infancy. I wouldn't eat meat, anything soft and mushy (so no oatmeal, ice cream, mashed potatoes, etc.), or anything that touched butter, ketchup, salad dressing, mayonnaise, cream cheese, or pretty much any other condiment. I also, from infancy, refused to eat pancakes, cake, and bread. 2. From infancy, I willingly refused to eat for up to 72 hours if I was not given access to my "preferred" foods. 3. I had severe issues with insomnia and restless sleep beginning during my toddlerhood and thus spent hours each night sobbing because I wanted to sleep but couldn't. 4. I was extremely sensitive and frequently cried because I thought everyone hated me or was mad at me. 5. I couldn't stand being outside in the sun and would complain non-stop about the headaches and rashes I would get when in sunny environments. 6. I despised wearing pants and would throw fits about my clothing choices from the time I was a toddler. 7. I was a perfectionist and spent countless hours fretting about my errors. 8. I was hyperlexic, and argued about EVERYTHING from the time I was about 18 months old. 9. I was allergic to so many things that I was almost always complaining about rashes, hives, swollen lips, etc. 10. I didn't get sick all that often, but when I did, it was very serious-- double pneumonia a few times, scarlet fever twice, and sepsis after a bout with chicken pox. 11. While everyone else in my family was very athletic, I hated sports and complained incessantly about being enrolled in team sports. 12. I was extraordinarily finicky about colors and textures of clothing, fit of shoes, hairstyles, music, and smells. |
Anonymous
It's easy to decide no kid is difficult under the age of 5 when your own experience is with kids who are either typical or easy. You certainly were blessed to have such an experience. Those of us who have experienced the easy kid, the typical kid, and the difficult kid know that there are extremes on both ends and that there are real differences among children. You just haven't experienced it yourself, so it's hard for you to imagine what others are experiencing. I personally thought all the child rearing books were garbage while rearing my first child, until I had another child who responded the way the books promised she would to the exact same things my first child did not respond to. Those books were not written for someone like my first child. |
Anonymous
You have to be consistent and follow through. You don’t need to hit to get your point across. Time outs can work but you need to make them work. Sounds like you have good intentions but have given up. We stay on top of everything. Maybe they don’t understand the instructions and need a hearing check and speech or other evaluation. |
Anonymous
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I don’t see how you can physically stop someone from stomping.
I’ve got a difficult kid and a much easier one. If you haven’t lived it, then you don’t know. Your advice comes off as patronizing. |
Anonymous
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In my experience, it might be impossible to determine which difficult kids are special needs.
I was a difficult child. When I was around 3 months old, I presented with several health issues that could not be diagnosed. Then one day I just grew out of my illness. Years down the road, I developed weird behavioral issues. By 11, I was diagnosed(misdiagnosed, but that is a story for another day) with an anxiety disorder, and I went on to develop neorological symptoms in early adulthood. Fortunately, I can manage almost all my symptoms with diet and vigilance. My parents look back now and see that the infanthood issues never went away; my body found a way to adapt, and the issues were expressed outwardly through behavioral outlets. As a child, I couldn't tell them what was going on inside me because I did not know what "normal" was. I know the difference now because I have experienced life without some of my symptoms. If I could go back in time, I would. I would hug myself, my parents, and my teachers for the hell that we all went through. I am extremely grateful for parents, godparents, teachers, friends who loved me in all my difficult ways. I was probably easier to "love" than some difficult kids because I was rarely phsical(did not hit, bite, push etc). And I was extremely "book smart" (that's how my mother called it -- good at taking tests 
I am a much easier adult now. I think I am happier than most people because I have been through some stuff so my perspective is different. And I am better at communication because I am less anxious about conflict than most adults (I spent my childhood welcoming conflict at home and in school
If you have a difficult child, be consistent with discipline. However, watch out for possible signs of some health disorder. Unfortunately, no matter how vigilant you are, there are still issues that you will never catch(my parents took me to all kinds of specialists). Be loving and your child will be grateful one day. |
Anonymous
| I agree, the patronizing PP sounds insufferable. Please reserve your judgement for threads where people actually ask for advice. |
Anonymous
PP...such a nice take. Love your kid for who they are, not who you wish they were. Seek help and think outside the box about what success looks like. Read Greene and Kazdin. Let go of society’s BS expectations. |
Anonymous
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Makes me think... I know a difficult adult - very negative and stubborn. I wonder if she was a difficult child. She doesn’t get along with her parents too well but I thought it was more about them.
Do difficult children ever grow out of it? Barring special needs. |
Anonymous
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My DS1 was a difficult child. No diagnosed SNs and not unhappy but difficult to parent and teach. Basically was born thinking he was an adult and did not want to be told what to do. He is very bright, very confident, very comfortable in his own skin. Never cared what anyone thought of him. These are not bad qualities (in fact, they can be great qualities) in an adult. They are not easy to deal with in a child. For us, 3rd and 4th grade were especially difficult, but 7th and 8th were pretty bad too.
Things were easier once he got to high school and he had more freedom at school. We never worried about peer pressure driving him to bad behavior because he was impervious to it. But it was very hard to get him to focus on subjects that didn't interest him because he did not care about grades at all. But he wanted to go to college, so that was a motivator, and we were able to use that. (When he was a sophomore we had a conversation where I told him he needed to find an extracurricular activity and we argued about that--he maintained that there was nothing that interested him-- and I told him, "Colleges want to see that you will be a contributing member of the college community." He replied, "But I'm not going to be." And I said, "Then your job is to trick them into thinking you will be." And that actually got some traction lol.) Anyway, he did go to college, where he eventually did get deeply involved in a campus club, and he took the classes here wanted to take, and did brilliantly. And though it took him a while, he made some good friends. And now he's out of school and working and seems to be doing very well there. He's very personable and curious and funny. No one would guess how hard it was raise him. Raising my other kids has been a breeze in comparison. |
Anonymous
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MIL always says if she'd had her 3rd child first it would have been one and done.
Nothing wrong with my younger SIL- she's just stubborn and independent. Had her own ideas about things and would follow through. She's a kind, well adjusted, adult with a job. But she is still fiercely independent and has her own fashion and hobbies that are unique. |
Anonymous
Grow out of what, specifically? Some kids are difficult because they are very independent and opinionated. Those are qualities that can serve an adult very well but can make for a very challenging 8 year old. Likewise, an 8 year old who does whatever she is told and knows how to accommodate others is an exceedingly easy child, but might have huge issues as an adult if she doesn't learn to assert herself or to question whether every rule needs to be followed. A difficult kid isn't a "bad" kid. Precocious kids are often difficult because they behave and want to be treated like small adults, and that's not only counter to how our society thinks about children but it can also be illegal. So to say you know a difficult adult... it may have no correlation whatsoever. If she is negative and stubborn with you, that reflects your relationship with her. A lot of the challenges of difficult kids stem from the fact that as their parent or teacher, you are an authority figure and that places you in opposition to a child who is determined to be their own authority. But it would be odd to have that relationship with a fellow adult unless you are their boss, and even then your authority would begin and end in the workplace. It's possible she was a difficult child whose parents never figured out how to deal with her independence or individualism. That could lead her to be stubborn and negative as an adult because that was the dynamic she was raised in. But that would still be a product of poor parenting. An adult can be difficult to get along with, but that's a distinctly different issue than having a child who is difficult to parent. If you don't get along with an adult you can just distance yourself. That's not an option (or shouldn't be an option) for parents. |
Anonymous
The biggest regret of my life is reading the parenting books and following that advice with my first child. I was a terrible mother to him when he was little. I would put him in time out sometimes 30-40 times a day. I didn’t realize until I had my other children that the behavior is supposed to extinguish after a few time outs, and you are only supposed to need them a few times a week. Eventually, I found other things that worked for him when he got older (mostly just explaining everything, every rule, every reaction, etc). But I wish I had recognized that things weren’t working much, much earlier. |
Anonymous
Did you ever get a diagnosis? |