My kid is the bully :(

[ktacserv]

Talking about Natalie.

Terrible twos? I am not sure. Truthfully I think this might just be her personality because she has been this way since birth.

She is really pretty mean. Both to adults and especially to other kids, particularly if they are younger or smaller. She taunts other kids, she takes their toys for no reason, pushes them down, throws things at them. She can play nicely too but only if she seems to think the other kid is "cool" enough. I can't really explain it, but think high school cafeteria behavior only at two years old.

If she doesn't get exactly what she wants...meltdown. She is THAT kid at the store falling out on the floor kicking and screaming. The littlest thing can set off her temper and she will kick toys, punch the walls, etc when she is raging.

She has many words/sentences and speaks a lot, but her words are kind of garbled and her pronunciation is off. I don't know if that's normal for her age because her brother has always excelled well beyond the avg kid for his age so I don't know what normal is. Anyway we can understand her because we spend enough time with her but strangers always have a hard time understanding her including other kids.

We talk to her about being nice, we do timeouts, we have left parties when she was mean to other kids, nothing makes much of a difference.

My side of the family smirks at her behavior because she looks exactly like ny great great aunt (have seen black ans white pics of her as a toddler - it is freaky). This aunt has carried a reputation for generations as the crazy one, a daredevil with a temper, don't cross her, etc. Obviously I never met her but everyone says old aunt Shirley has been reincarnated when they spend time with Natalie. Lol. I don't know if I believe in all that...

Anyway, anyone give advice? Empathy?

[tanyachap]

I can offer you tons and tons of empathy. No advice, however. DS2 (Matthew) who is coincidentally her age is very similar. He bullies younger kids and stands up to older ones. He speaks pretty well for his age but refuses to use his words in many situations. He used to be a vicious biter but that at least stopped. The hitting subsided and bulling is getting better. The only thing that works for him is countless repetitions and reinforcement as well as staying close when there is a potential for problems.

His tantrums and screaming could be ear piercing and quite dramatic. My mom asked me the other day if there was a medical reason for that LOL. I was like, yeah, it is called the terrible twos insanity.

[CorpsmanWife]

We had a neighbor whose son was the same way. He was a little older than your dd and had a very hard time communicating. Some days he was really nice to dd and others her was very mean. I always wondered if there may have been an underlying frustration. Maybe lack of communication? I don't know.

[axoknp1885]

We struggled with the same issue. Fortunately, we were already hooked up w/ a psychologist for some other behavioral issues related to an autoimmune disease that DS1 has. So, she has continued to work with us on all of the same behaviors that you list above. I don't know if your LO is just two or closer to 3. DS was 2 years old and 6 months when we started this work, and we have seem dramatic improvement- though he is regressing right now with the birth of his new baby brother 2 months ago, but we will get back on track soon as he continues to adjust.

We created nice touch rule which applies to people and things- meaning no hitting, kicking, biting, pushing, pinching, or throwing things other than balls outdoors. We would speak to DS1 about this rule during calm times (i.e. bedtime, wake-up time, on the way to school/daycare, etc). We would ask him to tell us what the nice touch rule meant and he would show us nice touches and explain to us what nice touches meant. We would be sure to recognize any nice touch that he did do by saying something like, "Gavin, that was such a nice touch. It makes me so happy when you follow the nice touch rule" including the "nice touch" language in our statements for continuity. And we would really get excited about that behavior in front of Gavin- make a big deal about it, tell your family, friends about it when you speak with them on the phone and are in hearing distance of your child.

When he would break the nice touch rule, we would use language like, "Gavin, you broke the nice touch rule and that makes me really sad. You need to take a timeout now" making sure to reference the nice touch rule. After the timeout, we would talk to him about how we felt- i.e. if he pinched one of us, we would show him the injury where he hurt us and tell him how much it hurt. More often than not, he would apologize for his behavior at that point.

Since he started regressing, we have now started taking away whatever he throws in addition to a timeout and he can earn it back for good behavior (i.e. following the touch nicely rule) in addition to the above methods.

The psychologist emphasized that with this behavior, you must be rigidly consistent and she also indicated that research shows that extinguishing this behavior before age 6 has the greatest correlation with positive outcomes as a teenager.

[axoknp1885]

Also, for DS1, the psychologist agrees that he has a VERY strong personality and that he feels his emotions very deeply which contributes to why he will act out so severely to what seems to us a small thing. She also recommended that we start using lots of feeling words around her to describe what we are feeling to model how to use that kind of language.

Lastly, our psychologist encouraged us to begin to recognize the earliest possible signs of impending anger, and try to intervene early by providing him with the words in addition to all of the strategies already noted in this post and in my last post. For instance, if we see Gavin starting to get frustrated b/c of how his movements are more punctuated, then one of us would go up to him and say, "you look like you are getting frustrated, if you need some help, use your words to ask for help." Intially, Gavin would still act out even after this statement, but the purpose of making such a statement is that you are teaching him to recognize when he is feeling angry or mad or frustrated. Over time as Gavin got older, he did actually start to mimick the feeling identification that we had been doing for him.

Best of luck! This is really hard work to deal with these behaviors and provide children with these behaviors with the rigid consistency needed to address these behaviors. So, be sure to take care of yourself and know that you are a good parent- as that is what we struggled with- feeling like we did something wrong that our son was behaviing the way that he was, but our psychologist reassured us that some kids just have strong personalities and feel their emotions more strongly than others. PM if you have any other questions.

[Ky'sMom]

Ky used to be kind of a bully. We jokingly called him "the caveman" he would grunt and push people down. We basically did with him what was suggested above. Made a rule about not being violent. I called it the non-violence rule. He came out of it around 3.5 to 4 years old and is the sweetest guy ever now. I remember worrying because he is and always has been a pretty big kid for his age and I worried he would be the big guy being mean to all the littler kids.

I have a girl cousin who was like that too as a little girl. I don't know if her mom did anything proactive about it though. She's my younger cousin and was just a terror IMO when I was a kid, she talked nasty about me and my brother because we were poor, she scratched up her "friends" faces on purpose with her fingernails (that was a favorite thing for her to do, grab someone's face with her fingers and basically make a fist and scratch the mess out of their face), push people (sometimes down stairs, I never let her walk behind me because she pushed me down the stairs once), brag about stuff she had and what you didn't have and talked about how her friend (or me and my brother) were horrible people.

She was just a terror. You would never know it today because she is really sweet now. I will admit though that since I was older, once she got bigger, I beat her up because she was talking about me being poor as we had to go over her house for a week to shower due to our water being turned off and I was already upset about that. She was probably 6 at the time and I was around 10 and I beat her up pretty bad. After that she never talked about me again to my face but was still mean to our younger cousins and her little sister. Her mom to this day doesn't remember her daughter being mean like that. Luckily, like I said, she just grew out of it. You would never know she used to be like that now. And "meanstreaks" are prevalent actually in my family, this cousin is probably one of our nicer family members now, I think she got all her aggression out early lol! But she doesn't let people walk all over her and is opinionated as an adult, just not violent and not braggy or anything like that anymore.

Erin

[RachelB]

This is a good thread, I too am looking for some advice for a spirited toddler!

My son is loving and sweet, but full of tons of energy and the idea that everything should go his way. He used to be the biter, but has thankfully grown out of that (knock on wood). Now his whining and hitting are making us crazy. He whines when he doesn't get his way, which is often. And he hits the air when he is first denied something, and as he continues to insist that he have x-y-z and is still being told no, his hand gets closer and closer to hitting me.

He is quite verbal, will tell you a whole story about how the monsters and dragons like to eat pretzels, or the like. But I don't know that he communicates his feelings. When I talk to him about being mad/sad/frustrated he tends to drop his head and clam up. The advice from pp about using feeling words around him sounds like something we need to implement.

[texaschic]

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Lastly, our psychologist encouraged us to begin to recognize the earliest possible signs of impending anger, and try to intervene early by providing him with the words in addition to all of the strategies already noted in this post and in my last post. For instance, if we see Gavin starting to get frustrated b/c of how his movements are more punctuated, then one of us would go up to him and say, "you look like you are getting frustrated, if you need some help, use your words to ask for help." Intially, Gavin would still act out even after this statement, but the purpose of making such a statement is that you are teaching him to recognize when he is feeling angry or mad or frustrated. Over time as Gavin got older, he did actually start to mimick the feeling identification that we had been doing for him.

.

Yes! My oldest is very intense in nearly every emotion he has, whether it's a positive one or negative. I see his triggers and when he is ready to get rough, I try to intervene before anything can happen. If I get there in time (for example, if he is getting ready to hit his brother), and physically stop him and get in his face and say "Stop" very calmly, he gets out of his 'zone' and says OK and then I redirect him somewhere else. His OT and I both agree he has some anxiety issues which can cause him to become stimulated more easily than other kids his age. It was also suggested that when I see him getting overwhelmed to put him in his own special place..not a time out, just a place he can veg out for a minute or two. And, supply that place with some big pillows and other comforting things for him

Because he is getting older and his tantrums become more aggressive, I've stepped up my game as far as becoming more consistent (something I will admit I wasn't very good at). Before we walk in the store or wherever, I go over our rules, ask him to repeat them, and tell him he will get one warning on his behavior and that's it. If he acts up, we walk out. I give him a choice that I can carry him kicking and screaming or he can walk out holding my hand. It took a lot of walk outs before he figured out I wasn't going to bend the rules.

Hang in there! I know it's tough!

[hotpinkmomma0811]

I can't offer any advice.

[MamaToe88]

My two year old was EXACTLY like that, but once he hit the 2 1/2 mark it has started to dwindle down. BE CONSISTENT with her "punishments". With mine, he gets 3 strikes at the park. Once he hits 3 strikes, we leave, no questions. He gets time outs for each strike. Some parents have had luck with repeating the behavior to your child. If your child takes a toy, take it from them, and ask "how do you like that? it isn't fun is it?", Or pushing back ((gently of course!)) to give them the hint that its not nice and it hurts! Mine was EXACTLY the same way though, he was totally the bully. I was always consistent. It took one kid at the park pushing him down pretty hard for him to finally realize what he was doing wasn't any fun. I think frequent exposure to other children will be a huge benefit, and perhaps a portable sticker chart for good behavior. Its normal for 2 year olds to have garbly speech. Mine has only recently started to speak clearly, and its wonderful. LOL. Just be patient, use a kind voice, and be serious when you need to be, but don't stimluate the behavior with any yelling or agressive tugging or spanking. Stay calm and let your child express her feelings, and then express yours. It will pass eventually.