Cookie Monster

I feel for you, I have a 4 year old that has some pretty bad habits, and am waiting to see if he grows out of those too. I know by experience that some of those things that you think will blow over, sometimes don't and it is best to nip it in the butt before the habbit realy sets in! I would sugest making him clean up the mess he makes. He is deffinately old enough to get on the floor with a towel and wipe up a mess. Just a suggestion, hope maybe it helps, it helped me!

Hi K.,
The book "No David", by David Shannon, helped us a lot to curb our son's habit of picking his nose. And it has a page about shoveling food in your mouth. Both my sons get a good laugh seeing David doing many things they are not supposed to do and they tease each other about being David when they relate to any of the behaviors in the book.
Hope that helps a little.
A.

My daughter has always taken her time chewing her food, especially meats, and when she was younger (1-1/2 to 2) she would get down from the table with food in her mouth and eventually get tired of trying to chew it or don't like the taste/texture anymore and just spit it out. We got SO tired of picking up sticky, wet, half-chewed food, or accidently stepping on it w/o shoes! EW!!!! I started making her clean it up. She hated the feeling of it in her hands just as much as we did and stopped very quickly. I had to guide her hand since she was still too little to understand just me telling her to pick it up. If she doesn't want something she can spit into a napkin or into the garbage can. Also we instituted a rule that says the kids (there are 2 - 9yo boy and almost 6yo girl) must ask permission to be dismissed from the table after they are done eating. If they get up before they're done, their plates get cleared (we are still fighting her on this one...she is stubborn).

Oh, and with older siblings it is common for kids to take their time speaking. Why talk when big bro/sis does it for you?....If he is saying words, just not speaking, I wouldn't worry. If he hasn't even said one word then maybe consider having him evaluated.

I'm sorry to say that I don't have any suggestions - except to say don't send any hate mail to Sesame Street. (Cookie Monster would probably file an anti-harassment suit and write a book. Big Bird would go into therapy because he'd feel ignored. And Grover would probably start stalking you!) [smile!] (Thanks for providing a good Saturday morning chuckle. It's nice to know there are other SAHMs out there with similar situations!)

My oldest was pretty slow to talk, too - but he's now four with the vocabulary of seven year old. And I think I'm going to have an early talker AND a late talker with my sixteen month old twins. And one of the twins thinks it's great fun to chuck food. (My dog is getting fat and my mop is ready for its 1,000 mile tune up!) I just keep chanting: It's a phase. It'll pass.

Hi K.,

yes, I'm sure the cute factor must be wearing off by now. I as well have a (almost) 2 yr. old who enjoys being messy at the table.
I think it is because he is getting a lot of attention from his 7 year old sister. I have found that the less attention you give, the better. Try an abundance of praise for the smallest manners he uses and ignoring the funny but very piggy show. Also give his sibs lots of extra praise and attention when they use their manners and eat nicely. He'll get the connection. If these don't work, are you opposed to removing him from the table if he refuses to stop?
Hope this helps!

well, that seems like a tough one doesn't it. start giving him rewards when he uses manners, stickers are very good ones! i did sign language and taught my youngest, its never to late to start miracle if i ever saw one. using the basic signs can help stimulate his brain and learn the words at the same time, its a shot. maybe kids grow out of it, but i think reinforcment is where to start DONT laugh and dont make a game out of it, im sure yoiu dont , but maybe the older kids do? start doing time outs and acting very serious, it gets the point that mommy does not like what your doing! i wish the best of luck to you.
good luck

ok so obviously no more sesame street. I actually wouldnt let my son watch it for almost a year after an episode where elmo and zoe fight with a "no" "yes" back and forth. I thought, no way do I want him picking this up any sooner then he has to! There are so many other programs out there that are always positive!
I dont have a solution for the cookie monster but for the talking I do! I taught both my children sign language and they both picked it up super fast. Nothing fancy, just "eat" "drink" "all done" (for use with eating or other projects) "diaperchange" and "milk" (which I used for bottle and also ment bed because thats the only time they got bottles). This really helped alot! They could sign "all done" instead of throwing everything on the floor, or sign drink instead of throwing a fit. These signs are easy to learn and remember and I just used them whenever I asked if they were ____ and then helped them sign it before giving them what they asked for. Its been amazing and they enjoy the power of asking and getting. It took my son at 9 months about 2 months to sign back and my daughter at a year about 2 weeks. Good luck, Jen

I would tell him that at first this seemed funny but it's no longer funny; is in fact inappropriate and if he continues he'll be removed fromt he table when he does it. He can return to the table when he's able to say he's sorry that he caused this mess and that he will use good manners for the rest of the meal. If he's not able to say that then he waits until the next snack/meal time for food. This may sound harsh but it's important that he learns appropriate mealtime behavior. You tell him to stop it over and over but he apparently won't learn to stop until there is a consequence.

I HAD to respond because my son who turned 2 in October went throught the exact same thing. It was soooo frustrating! The only thing that broke him of it was to tell him if he did Cookie Monster at the table we would take his food away. After going through the process a few times he got the hint. We also showed him it was ok to pretend to be Cookie Monster with his fake food from his kitchen. He still gets the urge every now and then and we have to remind him we don't do that with real food but he seems to have gotten over it. Good Luck!

I simpathize, I had to deprogram my oldest from Seasame St. She is dyslexic and SS is the wrong kind of learning for her brain...sigh. As a new mom learning stuff as my kids did...what do you do. I pretty much stopped them from watching it, and any other of the *learning* toons of the time that *Threw* learning at kids. I was a single mom as well and in a very small town, needed to figure out what to do to make a differnce so that she could learn to read without feeling stupid. Its a tough challenge.
But we did it...and now I think she reads about 5 or six novels a month and has her own brand new baby....
You will prevail...and he will too, you may have to show him that behavior isnt funny anymore, and take away the thing that he needs from it, *turn your back so he cant see you laugh* cover your mouth. I know I had a clown and that was what I had to do to not encourage bad *funnies* if its really tough leave the room if you can.

You sound kind of done with this...I wish you well in helping him move on.

grama J

Ok I stopped laughing. I know what you mean about letting a stage go by. But this isn't a stage anymore it's routine. You probably should have let him get away with it a couple times in the beginning, but that is hindsight. I would feel like it partly my fault, so I would try to find a way to make him stop that isn't to bad. I would try telling him he can only do it at breakfast, or at snack time. If he does it at an unauthorized time maybe put him in a short time out. Maybe if he isn't doing it so often he will eventually grow tired of it. Some of the cutest things our kids do we learn to regret.

My son didn't talk until he was almost 3 either, but he understood! Later in life, when he would repeat something that heard on tv that was inappropriate, we would explain to him that it was inappropriate to say that kind of thing and if he said it again, he would no longer be allowed to watch that show. Sounds like it's time you banned Sesame Street from your house until it passes. My son is still banned from watching Cyberspace because they call each other names (well at least the bad guy does) and we don't allow that.

No laughing here, honey. I am more concerned about him not speaking. Call your local school district (their early intervention program) to find out where you can have him evaluated for a possible speech delay. The school district probably can't do it because of his age, but they should be able to point you in the right direction. You can have this evaluation done for free through a federally funded program, if the early intervention department of the school district can't help you, find the number for your local Head Start school program, they should be able to refer you to the program that works with 1-3 year olds (here in Alaska it is called FOCUS, Inc.).

Get that figured out first.... you may get some clues to his behavior through this process.
Since he seems to be doing it when he thinks no one is looking (or at least you think he thinks no one is looking.. kids are so much smarter than we tend to give them credit for!) I might rule it out as an attention getter... perhaps if you can establish a rule that he can only do this when he is at the table with cookies only - that might help reduce how often he does it. It might take a while for him to get it.. you may have to put him in time out each time he does it when he is not allowed (he's not too young for it.. and you may have to stay there with him) but he should eventually get the idea. Since he has been doing it so long, it may take a while for him to break this habit.. unless there is something else that can explain his behavior... so first get him evaluated.. remember you can have this done for free - does not matter what your income level is. If he has issues that need to be addressed.. the earlier they better, that is why there is the Early Intervention program available through the school.

Best wishes

You may have already tried this, but I think for starters, you need to make sure and let him know that this is unacceptable behavior. I know he's only 3, but it sounds like some discipline is needed, like maybe time out for 30 seconds on a specific seat in a specific corner. And while its hard, because I find myself laughing at my own daughter- don't laugh if you can help it- this will only afirm the behavior. Good luck. Habits are harder to break than they are to start.

I don't have a 3 year old, but if I did I wouldn't let him do this. Before your next mealtime I would tell him, "I know that you like to do the Cookie Monster game when we're eating and I think it's funny also. However, I've noticed that Cookie Monster only does this with cookies. So, today let's start to work on doing that only when we eat cookies. Let's eat our food without playing the Cookie Monster game and then if we can get through the whole meal without playing the game, we'll play it together with cookies after our lunch is over."

Gradually we would hope that the behavior stops. Part of the problem is that your son doesn't know this is wrong (from your posting) and the expectation hasn't been set for him to do anything else. You need to start setting that expectation for him now. If on occassion he does go back to playing the Cookie Monster Game during meal time re-explain to him that we don't do that during meal time. If he does it again I'd say, "Okay, lunch (dinner) is over. Time to clean up." Then clean up-don't give him another chance. You may have to do this a few times as this is now a learned acceptable behavior for him.

Good luck!

well thats the problem with them watching tv. Its like monkey see, monkey do.
Maybe if you try Its funny with cookie monster but not you because we need that food for our tummys and Ask him if daddy would of liked to eat that bannana instead of him wasting it just be to funny.
Maybe tell him that sucks he did that because now you have to clean up his mess (maybe get him a washcloth to help) and how you would of enjoyed eating that instead of it being all over the floor. While your doing it maybe you can say you know whats cool? is drawing cookie monster with sidewalk chalk or the bathtub chalk