Five Year Old Scratches Sister
QUESTION:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I would so much appreciate your advice. I have a five-year-old son and a 14-month-old daughter, and a baby due in late June (another boy). My five-year-old has been showing jealousy to the baby and doing her harm. When I first put her in a sling to go out shopping, he deliberately took a run at her from a distance to build up speed, and slammed into the sling, trying to squash her before I could understand what was about to happen.
Thankfully, I still had a "jelly belly" from after the birth and she was unharmed. I reacted automatically, without thinking, and hit him twice on the side of the head before I had time to think - I was furious with him because I understood what he had wanted to do to her. He has gone along since, sometimes normally, but most of the time I have sensed that it isn't genuine. The baby is very beautiful and has got a lot of attention from people whenever we go out, which she laps up - while her poor older brother goes unnoticed. Two weeks ago, my son scratched my baby daughter across the forehead with his fingernail, drawing blood - it is a deep scratch and I fear it will leave a permanent scar on her face. This has ruined the way I feel about my son.
We are going to the doctor in the next few days and will ask him about the possibility of the scar healing completely - or not - and of what we can do about our son. He wants attention all the time, constantly plays and messes about and generally makes life more difficult for everyone, is lazy, and constantly over-active physically near the baby, and repeatedly doing things he knows
He is not allowed to do generally.
We have tried time outs and privilege removal, and I have been very consistent with it, I have tried explaining to him that he is still loved etc, and we followed all the standard advice when the baby arrived (home birth) to avoid jealousy - none of this appears to have made the slightest
difference. He is intelligent and had been perfectly well behaved from babyhood right through to a few weeks before his sister was born - he never even had toddler tantrums. He is homeschooled (since just after turning four) and has a reading/math age of about 7-8 despite doing far fewer school hours than most children in school. A lot of the time he is very good about doing what he's told and retains much of his previous good qualities.
My problem with him is I need to be able to stop him from doing what he's doing to my daughter, and don't want to see him treat the new baby in the same way. Honestly, if there was a boot camp for five-year-olds where they could be magically transformed into good, caring children, he'd be in it now! I feel so very responsible to see that the tiny siblings don't get hurt. His brother will just be a newborn, and his little sister is only just over twenty pounds and still doesn't walk without holding on to things. She is not at all discouraged by the incident - she's very brave and loves everyone - and often tries to get him to come over and play with her. I can't understand why he can't love her or what's going on with him, how he could change from being such a lovely boy into this.
He has also slammed down the metal spinning top on her fingers (about five or six months ago) - leaving her with two bleeding fingertips, and likes swinging his feet about near her face, walking round and round her playpen aggressively, and about three days ago, I caught him in the car (where the scratch incident happened) with a loose fingernail he'd picked up from somewhere, about to scratch her in the same place again. What on Earth can I do? I have searched around the net for info and asked other mothers etc, but haven't had any advice back. I've also had almost no advice on how best to try to make sure my daughter's scar doesn't become permanent. If it does become permanent, it will most definitely continue to affect the way I feel about my son, which is almost as bad as the way my daughter may feel when she is old enough to realize her beautiful face has been spoiled. What can I do about this? Please respond,
Brionne
Dear Brionne.
My name is Penny Davis, and I am one of the Positive Discipline Associates who answers questions sent to the website. I have been a parent educator for almost 30 years, and am the parent of two grown daughters, and the grandmother of two boys (4 and 3) who are my step-son’s children.
You are not alone in your concern about what is happening with your little boy. Most parents who have had more than one child, know exactly what you are feeling.
What might help is to first try to understand your son’s world prior to, and then after, the birth of your daughter. For approximately four years he had you and dad/your partner all to himself. His world involved ’we’ meaning the three of you. He was used to being the center of attention. (This is not a bad thing – just the way it is for ‘first born’ children.) Everyone has tremendous excitement over every accomplishment, and if, as you indicate, your son is intelligent and was generally well-behaved, he likely received lots of positive feedback and encouragement. This was his world, and he spent his first years with a great sense of belonging and importance, which is a profound psychological need for all human beings.
Then, all of a sudden, his world shifted dramatically – suddenly he had to ‘make room’ for another person in the family – a little one who was now the focus of everyone’s attention….all the ‘oohs’ and ‘aaahhhs’ and excitement became hers.
One way to understand this would be to imagine having one child, and your partner coming home one night and announcing to you that because you three are so happy….he/she has now chosen to bring another mother into your family – think how you might react to this? Would you be particularly welcoming, kind and loving towards this person?
The above does not mean to imply that you are no longer giving your son ANY attention….but from his perspective it likely feels that what he once had is now missing. The fact that your daughter is beautiful and gets lots of attention even from strangers probably doesn’t help. Young children think that love is finite – that there may not be enough to go around.
I also think there may be another dynamic at work. In your letter, you indicated that you have used time-outs and removal of privileges, and that you had also hit him (which I can certainly understand at that moment of fear for your infant). When these methods are used they most often result in our children feeling hurt….and if you can think for a minute – when someone hurts us, what is the first thing we want to do? We want to hurt back. Time-outs, taking things away from children and physical punishment leave them feeling hurt, humiliated, and vengeful …. and they are learning that ‘big people’ can do hurtful things to little people. Since he cannot hurt you back in the same way, he has indeed found a way to do so – by hurting his younger sister.
Underneath his behavior is hurt.
So, now – onto the tools that might help you, and help him.
- Acknowledge his feelings by simply saying, ‘Your behavior tells me you must be feeling hurt. Can you tell me about it?’ or ‘It’s really hard to share me (us, toys, etc) with someone else, isn’t it?’ or ‘Gosh, it must be SO hard for you sometimes to have everyone fussing over the baby’. Encourage him to tell you about any/all of the feelings he might be having at the time. Just listen, without judgment, or trying to ‘fix’ things. He needs to be able to share what is happening internally without fearing that he will lose your love.
- Make sure you have some special time just with your son, without the baby. It doesn’t have to be a long time – even five or ten minutes each day, to read a book, go for a walk, etc, that he can count on that are just his, are so important.
- At a time when you and your son are together and feeling good, talk with him about how everyone feels angry, frustrated, mad, sad sometimes. Ask him to help you get a ‘space’ ready in your home that will be a place for him (or you) to go when you are upset. Involve him in choosing what should be in this space that would help him calm down, feel better, get control…..he might say things like – a stuffed animal, soft music, crayons and paper, play dough, etc. Then have him decide where that space should be – his room, an area of the family room or dining room, for example, and what to call it. Many children choose names like the ‘feel better place’ the ‘calm place’, the ‘cozy place’. Now, when he is ‘mean’ to his little sister, you can say something like ‘I can tell from your behavior that you are mad right now – I can’t let you hurt the baby. Would it help for you to go to your cozy place until you feel better?’ This now empowers children to learn how to control themselves (as opposed to regular time out, where the parent is the one in control).
- When it is NOT an issue, talk to him about what kinds of things he can do when he is feeling angry at the baby, or feels like hurting her. Help him come up with some solutions – can he do an angry dance, run around the back yard, etc. When my first born daughter and I had this conversation, her response was that ‘painting’ the patio or the steps outside would help her. I had visions of the outside of my house looking like a circus …. we talked further and she agreed to use water. I could always tell when she was frustrated with her younger sister – there she would be with a big paint brush and a bucket of water, furiously painting the patio.
- Rather than telling your son what to do, ask what we call ‘curiosity’ questions …. ’What were you trying to accomplish?’ ‘What can you do differently next time?’, “How can you calm down?’ This also works in helping children learn decision-making. (What do you need to do with the toys before bath time? How can you help me get ready for dinner?).
- I highly recommend reading one or more of the Positive Discipline books by Jane Nelsen – there is one called Positive Discipline, the First Three Years, and also Positive Discipline for Preschoolers, both of which I think you would find very helpful. Jane also has a wonderful demonstration that can be used to help children understand the idea that love is infinite on ‘YouTube’. Type in Jane Nelsen, and scroll to ‘All My Love’.
- Lastly, don’t forget to enjoy each of your children…the years go by so very quickly.
I don’t have any advice about the scratch, but just to put it in perspective – I have a small ‘pock mark’ in my cheek right below my left eye, where my brother pinched me so hard (he was 3 and I was 6 months) that he gouged out a piece of skin. It’s a piece of our family folklore that has resulted in much humor over the years.
Good luck to you – you will have your hands full with three children under six years, but you sound like a caring, committed parent, and I have faith you all will get through this phase and come out the other side as a strong family.