Do any of your kids have a bad habit that you hate?

My sons like to go play outside with little more than their underwear on. (Unless you count the cape that instantly turns them into a super hero) . I don’t hate it so much as I just wish they would put on more clothes first. XD

My 4yr old is in need of patience. He is easily frustrated when things don’t work “his way” right away.

Biting and chewing a blanket is pretty normal, like thumb sucking.

I sucked my thumb through 4th grade…

@RedPowerLady I sucked mine until I turned 13…I kept meaning to quit, but would always wake up w/it in my mouth. Heck, I never had insomnia until I gave it up!

Yeah, I used to suck on my blanket as well, but now the idea of putting fabric in my mouth is like nails on a chalkboard. shudders.

Oh, and I still bite my nails. :)

My son never eats his dinner until everyone else has already finished.

@SpatzieLover Well you have me beat. And I’ve never met anyone who had me beat. LOL. I had to stop at the age I did because my thumb got raw. I didn’t only suck it at night…

@dooj Now I could see how that would be bothersome.

@RedPowerLady I didn’t only suck it at night unless I was in the company of friends. I only sucked it at night at the age of 12, as I tried to give it up. LOL! I rarely meet anyone that understands a “raw thumb” issue. My son is now a thumb-sucker. The only thing I remind him is to wash his hands ;)

Yeah – they grew up and moved out of the house. :-)

Don’t sweat the small stuff!

Yes! One of my new stepkids asks to borrow significant sums of money, too frequently. It is understandable considering the circumstances, but, I don’t particularly like it. See ya….Gary/wtf

@SpatzieLover did you have to come up with a certain strategy to stop the thumb-sucking? I remember I replaced my thumb sucking with a specific doll at night for comfort purposes. It helped a bit.

@RedPowerLady First I got rid of my blankie, but as it was flannel and my sheets were, too I wound up waking up with those in my hands in the AM. I grew out my nails a bit, and polished them regularly which made my thumb less inviting :(

My 4 y/o bites her bottom lip. She puts it in her mouth as far as she can and holds it there with her teeth, so she ends up with a chapped red semi-circle halfway between her bottom lip and her chin. Trying to get a picture sucks.

@SpatzieLover that is so funny we both came up with a strategy of sorts. people always threatened to put Tabasco on my thumb but I don’t recall anyone ever doing it and I don’t think it would’ve stopped me anyway

@RedPowerLady Same here. I told them I didn’t care, I’d suck it anyway. Did you have a stressful childhood? I’ve always wondered if that’s why some kids do this for so long.

My son despises his pants or underwear to be near his belly button, so he constantly pushes them down, creating a rub rash on his tummy.

@RedPowerLady and @SpatzieLover I PROMISE NOT TO TELL ANYONE THAT YOU TWO STILL SUCK YOUR THUMBS! YOUR SECRET IS SAFE WITH ME!!!!! I got my daughter to stop sucking her “sthumb” at the age of six by telling her that if she could go a month without sucking her thumb I’d let her get her ears pierced (something that I was, and still am, pretty opposed to for children. But in this case I was willing to make an exception because her habit was affecting her front teeth pretty badly) I knew that it takes a month to break a habit, so if she could make it through that month we’d have it licked. It worked. We had that stopzit nasty stuff to put on her thumb, and she carried that with her and used it when she needed to.

@SpatzieLover I didn’t realize that I had a stressful childhood at the time but yes I did. My mother was quite young and a single parent. We were also very low-income. It certainly was a comfort for me. Did people ever ask you what it tasted like? I always said strawberries and milk, lol

@Val123 I’ve considered starting again when I went through some tough times, couldn’t quite get into it though, lol. As far as teeth are concerned I only have a small overbite so it didn’t affect me much at all. That is so cute you let her use the stopit stuff herself/when she needed to, i think that would have been important to me when using it. I know that for me I had to stop on my own terms.

Kids are oral little buggers! That’s the bottom line. That’s the first thing they ever did upon entering this world was try to nurse. He’ll grow out of it IF you don’t make a big deal about it. Maybe find someway to distract him when he does it, like giving him a Cheerio to put in his mouth to keep it busy, without letting him know why you decided to give him a Cheerio?

@RedPowerLady Actually, she was the one who came up with the Pierced Ears bribe! So in a way it WAS on her own terms!

@Val123 Aha! That makes sense!

@RedPowerLady Chocolate, is what I’d tell ‘em…and my parents divorced,we had little money & I had WAY too much stress! No teeth problems, and I wish I could suck it, but it doesn’t fit the same…I hate insomnia ;(

@RedPowerLady It was a long, long time ago, and I’d forgotten the details! I had to rethink it.

@SpatzieLover I hate insomnia too, i wish it still worked. Oh and chocolate. Yum :)
@Val123 hey at least you got it right, hehe :P did you ever ask your girly what it tasted like?

@RedPowerLady You mean the nasty stopzit stuff? I made a point of trying it on me before I tried it on her! It’s NASTY! I tried using it to stop biting my nails, but…well, I guess I really wanted to bite because I’d just peel the thin layer of dried film off and carry on! But if you REALLY want to change what you’re doing, nail biting, thumb sucking, kissing, eating, whatever, it’s effective. If you don’t, there are always ways around it.

That he thinks kicking and screaming will get him his way grumble grumble damn two year old

@Val123 No her thumb, lol. But gross about the stopzit stuff. Eating? Hmm.. now that’s an interesting use for it.

My son is two and a half and he is going through a phase where he stands in one place and screams this ear-piercing, blood curdling scream if he doesn’t get what he wants (which is everything right now). His face turns red and a big vein pops out of his forehead. It’s been draining me; I can’t wait for it to be over. I’m told that my husband did the same thing as a kid. Also, he’s a thrower. We have lots of broken objects from his throwing.

@ubersiren Oh my!! Um. Wow. What is your response? BTW, I really don’t think that he may be doing it just because your husband did it. I really don’t think genetics play that much of a roll. For example, before one my my grandkids were born, my daughter was 100% positive that the child would be ADHD because his dad was. I tried to dissuade her from that mindset, but was unsuccessful. Guess what…she made it a fulfilling prophecy. I watched it happening in the way they both treated him from the beginning.

@ubersiren I was babysitting a 3 year old who did that, and I said to him “I can’t understand a word you’re saying, please speak english” and he never did it again.

My sons and grandsons can’t seem to hit the target in the bathroom.

@ubersiren I’m thinking we should lock our boys in a cage together and see what happens. Maybe they’d give each other a taste of what we go through daily lol.

@casheroo : That’s a great idea! Let them drive themselves nuts and wear each other out. I’m thinking there would be blood.

@Val123 : I try to ignore him, but if it goes on too long I pick him up and lock him in his room for “time out” and it quickly dies down to where I can communicate with him. But, I don’t want to have to do that every time because A. I want him to learn to get over it on his own and B. I’m almost 6 months (as big as 8 moths along) pregnant and it’s difficult to carry his butt up the steps while he’s throwing his fit.

@2late2be With all due respect, the word “hate” to describe a baby sucking a blanket seems a tad overstated. And a three year old is still a baby, even if they like to think differently.

It might be useful for you to think about why this is such intolerable behavior, when it is really so innocent, and no big deal. I hope it doesn’t get you angry, but if it does, check out anger management—since a 3 year old will probably do lots of worse things, and you are the one who is grown up and you want to be a helpful and loving parent who can guide him and not someone who is thrown by a baby’s natural behavior. And three is nothing compared to four!

@ubersiren I do the same thing for my sons tantrums. I do the whole count to three, and give him a chance to calm down, it worked so well for so long! Now, nothing calms him down.

@ubersiren Um, well, just a thought. Try one way or the other, 100%. Either the instant he starts screaming dump him in his room (or do you have another room downstairs to put him in? A laundry room or something? A closet? JUST KIDDING on the closet.) OR find the strength and willpower to ignore it from beginning to end….(I remember locking myself in the bathroom while I hyperventilated in anger! I remember locking myself outside! Srsly!!) It just seems to me that it’s important to be 100% consistent in this….

Thing that I’m thinking about now is, I think you can get it under control in the next three months, but if you don’t it’s going to get 10 X worse, for you AND for him. For you, because of the stress and tiredness of having a new baby AND having to deal with the screaming from your older son, and for him from the stress of having competition in the form of the new baby. And even if you get it under control, it’ll probably flair back up when the baby is born, but if you handle it instantly, the same way you did “before” you should be able to get it back under control pretty quickly. Oh, good luck!

Well, I don’t just ignore it. I tell him that it’s going to get him nowhere except time out. I give him a chance and try to talk to him, and if he continues, then he goes to his room. I do this consistently, which I think is fair and creates a routine.

Here’s a book I highly recommend for all parents who have young children. It tells you what is going on with the child and how to best handle lots of difficult situations. It talks about the child’s undeveloped brain, and what is happening in the child’s brain when the child has a tantrum. And lots of other good stuff. I use it all the time with my parenting classes.

The Science of Parenting by Margot Sunderland (Paperback – Sep 1, 2008)

@skfinkel Thank you for the suggestion! I have never read a parenting book, but was browsing them the other day to just get some sort of help. I’ll look into that one!

So glad my son isn’t a tantrum thrower. It’s probably due to the fact that I won’t pay attention to him unless he’s “found his center” first. Crying and screaming = no attention from momma. @skfinkel You are so correct about 3 being nothing compared to four. Our son was perfection at 2…then AAaaaaaack! 3 came. Glad he & I made it to see 4! ;)

@skfinkel : Thank you! Definitely worth checking out.

@SpatzieLover I remember the first (and last) time my oldest tried to throw a full blown temper tantrum, in the store, no less. “Whatever” happened, and she FREW herself down on the floor and proceed to wail and kick and scream….my husband and I looked at each other in total amazement, and without a word we both turned on our heels and went around the corner, out of sight….and peeked around to watch her. It was SO freakin’ funny! At some point she opened her eyes, looked around, quit hollering, laid there for a moment, then got up, dusted herself off and shrugged, like, “Well THAT was certainly a waste of time, wasn’t it!” We were rolling! And she never did it again. (I thought it was cool that although neither of us had faced that situation before, my husband and I were instantly on the same page about “leaving” without a word being spoken!) Too many times parents feel like they need to address EVERYTHING. They need to do “something” in every situation. And it usually amount to a lot of ineffectual nagging.

@Val123 My sister was a tantrum thrower. She’d also hold her breath til she was literally “blue in the face”. My mom left her at a store one day. That ended it. They lived within walking distance, this was in the 60’s, and the store owner’s knew them well

I bet your daughter thought the same thing my sis thought “These people are crazy!”.

@SpatzieLover ROFL!!! GREAT story! Would that we could all give the store managers a heads up and walk out on the kid! It would solve a ton of problems! But…you’d go to jail today…

@Val123 you’d go to jail today That’s why I added the “in the 60’s part.

My son also once “screamed” in the grocery store. Now, everyone looks at you to see if you’re abusing your kid. We just let him get out the scream then said, “Did you want everyone to stare at you sweetheart?” He instantly wanted us to cuddle him. ;)

@SpatzieLover Both my sister and my oldest son were breath holders. With them, they experienced rage so strong they literally forget to breathe. My parents threw cold water on my sister once or twice to cure her, but I just sat with my son, and patted his back until he got over it. He decided it was not very effective, and quit on his own.

@YARNLADY My mother did the cold water thing, too…she was a young mom when she had my sis and the “blue” face scared her terribly. Glad to know my family isn’t the only one that lived to tell the tale ;)

@YARNLADY Yeah…the worst that could happen is the kid would pass out and then start breathing again!