My 8 Year Old Son

My stepdaughter went through the not wanting to take a bath stage at age 7. She fought like there was no tomorrow! We tried everything from rewards to punishments. We used to play games if she got her bath done, but even that didn't work all the time.

Finally I realized that bath=playtime over=bedtime soon. What child wants that? So I switched her to morning showers. She's okay with showering in the morning because she knows it means the day is starting and there could be lots of fun stuff ahead.

If getting up early doesn't work for you, you could try bathing after school. That also worked for us as well because there was still a lot of fun left in the day after school. It's easy to think of fun rewards after bathtime when there is a lot of time left!

Good luck!

I have to agree with the others here that taking away things they like is the BEST solution. I have yelled/screamed/punished/grounded and everything in between but taking away the things they like is so much easier and it will change their behavior pretty quick. They can't go without a DS for long

In our house we have realized we do not like to be asked to stop what we are doing aburptly, we do better if we can be given a few more minutes..

Like "in 5 minutes, you need to take your bath". "In 5 minutes I need you to wash your hands so we can eat dinner". In 30 minutes I need you to be ready to leave for the store", church... Whatever..

Sometimes I even build in a little extra time for my husband since he never seems to be able to move to the next activity unless it is his idea.

A. ,
I haven't read the other posts so I may be repeating ,sorry,...
What I did with my kids was get a sheet of paper and have your child tell you what his 3 favorite things are, list them on the paper. You can have him put them in order of best fav and so on. When he chooses to misbehave, let him choose which one he's going to give up , he will eventually teach him that he made both choices, (to misbehave and the consequence) . It may take a while (and in some cases he may have to choose 2 or 3 things, depending on how many times he misbehaves and/or says no. You may even have to add to the list , I would always add :for each time the child was told to do something and they didn't ,they lost 30 minutes of TV, playing whatever. Sometimes it meant mine would be in bed by 6:30 or 7 instead of 8 or 8 :30. It worked really well because they knew I meant it. BUT, DON'T GIVE IN. STICK TO YOUR GUNS ,IT DOES WORK. Another thing that works is telling him if he doesn't get in on his own, you can give him a bath, but, you have to be willing to follow thru and put up with a possible physical struggle. That usuaLLY BREAKS MY GRANDSON, WITH A QUICKNESS, LOL

Good Luck, it does pay off ,you just have to be consistant and actually mean what you say !

C. S.

Isnt it amazing how they get all worked up about us asking them to take a bath?? I am a little concerned that you say he will yell at you and push you. I hope you know that is just not okay and should never be tolerated.

I encourage you to check out totaltransformation.com

Hi A.,
You have two issues here, one discipline and the other disrespect. Let me tell you I have an 8(girl), 10(boy) and an 11 year old (boy); when I tell them it's time to shower they all give me attitudes! But they don't push me and they don't touch me! Obviously, it's a 'shower or bath' problem :) they will cry, stomp, fuzz, moan and complain about it but they do it! They know better, and if they yell at me they get punished. I'll take the computer privileges, the tv, wii, cell phone, play station, even toys away for two days, sometimes for a week; and sometimes they've gotten a pop on their mouth for talking back or being disrespectful (such as yelling back at me).
You can't lose it girl! but you need to be firm, when they get mad at me and tell me that I am being mean for telling them to shower, I breath, smile and tell them that I could most definitely show them what "real Mean" is if they want to; then they hush.
He needs to know that you are in control and that you are the parent and he is the child. You need to be consistent with discipline, if he sees you backing down, you'll loose ground.
Usually after they get all the drama out and they are all clean, we'll sit together and watch something on tv, and spend some time together :) Or after dinner we'll bake something. Praise him for the good attitude, don't forget to do that!!!! that is very important, so he can see a balance in your relationship.
The one thing I don't agree with is to let your child chose the punishment, you can ask your child what punishment he wants, I did that once and I learned, I said "you want a spanking or privileges taken away" he answered "a spanking, cause the pain will go away quicker", so what did I do? :) you know it, I took the privileges away instead :)
So, you can't let him chose, but you sure can ask :)
Just remember, you are the mother and he is the child. Don't lose it, specially not in front of him!!! take a deep breath, turn around and walk away, think things through and then come back and let him know what the consequences to his behavior and disrespect are. And remember, you are not alone!!!!there are a lot of us out here going through it as well!!

Because of his age you need to try a different approach. super nanny has some great ideas. http://www.supernanny.com/Reward-Charts/-/8-to-10-years-p...

One idea was to get a pack of spiral board index cards and write the numbers 60-0 (decreasing by 5 each page - 60, 55, 50, 45, ...0).
then pick the activity he enjoys the most that he does each day (e.g. watch TV, play on the computer, anything electronic works best). Every time he disrespects you, you take away 5 minutes of his time on "electronic" (he can't say fine if i can't watch TV I’ll play on the computer - the time he has goes for all electronics. if he has electronics in his room (e.g. computer, tv, etc) remove them so he can't watch it when ever he wants.

Another thought (courtesy of super nanny) is a thought box. http://www.supernanny.com/Advice/-/Supernanny-techniques/...

“It's easy for tension to build in a household where children and parents have stopped talking to one another. The thought box can help encourage communication, particularly when one child feels unfairly blamed in battles of sibling rivalry.
It works well on older children who can write down what they're feeling and you can continue to use this till they're in their late tweens/ early teens. After that check out the Video Diary Technique as this uses more grown up skills (and will be more fun for an older age group, so your kids are more likely to do it!)
To use the thought box:
• decorate an empty box or buy a special chest for the purpose.
• give your child a special pad and pen to make a note of things that went well or that made her upset or angry during the day. She can use words and pictures to express herself.
• She then posts these 'thoughts' into the box.
• In the evening when her siblings are out of the way, the two of you sit down and go through the box together. You can do this every evening, if you think this will appease her, but every two or three evenings is also fine. Important is that you are giving her regular one-to-one time.
• Your aim is to give her a less threatening way of telling you her thoughts than in a stand-off situation. Take each 'thought' in turn, be patient and don't get angry with her, but show her you're treating her with respect. Discuss what happened and make sure you both agree on what should happen next time, if the situation arises again.
• If it seems like you're sprialing towards another argument, explain that you need time to think too, and put the 'thought' back in the box until tomorrow. If it helps, limit the time for discussing each 'thought' to ten minutes.
To ensure you make time to review the Thought Box, why not schedule it into your Family routine? “

Good luck!

Dear A., I am sorry for what you are going through.Your son is lucky to have you as a mom that cares about her relationship to her child. I am only a mom to a small toddler, but I recently read two great books that I highly recommend: Dr Sears "The Discipline Book", and Elizabeth Pantley's "The No Cry Discipline Solution". While both books focus on smaller children, I humbly believe that there are some good ideas that carry through to later agaes as well..

Best of Luck.

I send warmth and support.

The book New Kid By Friday might help. The author is Kevin Leman.

Does he say WHY he doesn't want to take a bath? Is it because he thinks he's too busy? Does he hate the feeling of water? Is he waiting til he's too sleepy? Is he wanting more privacy? Does he act this way when you tell him to do other tasks such as brushing his teeth?

We have tried a checklist of all the steps to get ready for bed. I will give my son a choice of which thing he wants to do first. Or a choice of a bath or shower. Or every other day just clean up with a washcloth. If he's too busy playing with legos, I send them in the bath with him. If he's too cold, I put a small heater in the bathroom. We keep it interesting with music, toys, or a favorite washcloth. He uses a squeeze bottle to wash his hair without getting water in his eyes. I will sit in the doorway and set a timer so he'll know when to get out.

The only post I agree with is Tracy - ask him why he doesn't want to take a bath. Perhaps the shouting and pushing is his way of communicating with you about his frustration/anger/fright/whatever of taking a bath. Since you say that he is good in all other ways, then I would suspect that it is something about the bath that is bothering him. Maybe he thinks he is too little for a bath now and would rather take a shower, maybe he wants privacy now when he takes a bath, maybe he just can't articulate to you what the issue is. I would sit him down nicely and say that you have noticed that you both are arguing about taking a bath and you know that it is hard on both of you. Ask him if he can come up with any solutions on how to make this stop. Maybe he really is just hating baths/showers so you might agree that he needs to take one only every third night (or whatever), and on the other nights he just has to wash his face. This has turned into a power struggle between the two of you. You feel he is not listening and he feels he has no say in th matter, so sit down and talk about it rationally. He will feel happy that you are listening to him.

hi
what finally worked for me was when my son lost certain privileges.. He too would act out but when he got in my face, that was enough.. so he lost his WII privilege.. best believe that straightened up his attitude and then some... now, when he does go overboard, I say, want to loose a privilege again.... Prior, I would ask him to settle down or please not do this or not.. but it stopped working... It was hard to stick with the losing privilege thing because once he lost a privilege, he would then begin to act nicer and I would find my guard weakening, but I didnt... I stuck to my guns and if I said, you can't do this or that for a day.. then so be it........ so IF you do begin to take away a privilege, don't waffle... stick to the plan and follow it through..
see if this helps..

Hi... I used to work for the Simon Foundation for Continence. Bedwetting is called "enuresis". I wrote their online directory, and they have a ton of great info about this condition. Visit here for the info and then click on "Enuresis": http://simonfoundation.org/About_Incontinence_Types_Incon....

Good luck!

J.
www.UrbanSuburbanFamily.squarespace.com

Some 8 yr olds are that way, I cured my child probably not the way parenting mags would say, but it worked. He wanted to be a magician and he said he could slip knots, so I tied him spread eagle to 4 trees, he could not untie himself. He asked to be helped and I helped him with the garden hose and told him this was how he would take his nightly baths and then soaked him. Because it was Sept. in mid state of WI, cooling off to about 60 degrees he decided that baths in the house were better.

My son will be 7 on Sunday, so he's younger but what I have ound to work for me (us) is to hit 'em where it hurts! This means: to remove the opportunity to whatever he is obsessing with doing that week.
Right now with my son, it's catching football and playing Hot Potato before we get in the tub. He is über-cooperative when I say "if you don't get upstairs for a bath right now...there will be no Hot Potato tomorrow....."
I also casually mention that I'm happy when he does do it right away when asked...not gushing over doing as he's told, but, you know "catching him being good!"

Behavior modification, seek professional help. There are children that
an outsider to be the liason between the parent and the child, specially
in your case.

I also have an 8yr old son and I donot go through this what u can do is sit him down and ask him what is the matter why does he act this way towards u listen to what his responce is gonna be and also ask him to help u make cookies or buy play do and tell him u have a project for work and u needs his help his problem may be seperation and he is playing on ur quality sense u have to stand tall and show him ur strong stand and let him see that theres no altumatums or choices its what mommy says and also prey at night with him and see what means the most to him sweety u would really be surprised to learn whats in his heart to show him different times of the day with ur body motions he will began to pick them up and every one take a bath 1 by 1 in the house and put cool toys in the water and also googles so he can see underwater he will enjoy it good luck mom

Check out www.oneweekparentingmiracle.com. I think it will really help you. It is a program specifically directed at pre-adolescent youth. It teaches parents some skills about first, what to do when their child completely loses control, and second how to get them to a more mature understanding of right and wrong. I've had some in depth training on the program and use it with my own two kids. I feel our house is more peaceful and I am more in control, temper in check, etc. Hope this helps!

E.

Lots of good suggestions here, but one thing that really works for my 6 year old is a REWARD instead of a punishment. You could make a chart and keep track of every time he cooperates. After 3 no-complaint baths, he gets a treat. The treat could be something material that he loves, some activity that he loves, or just some special time with you. The suggestion about the 5 minute warning also really works. I mention the bath when she gets home from school, then before dinner, then 15 minutes before, and 5 minutes before!!

I would put my foot down now about the pushing and yelling--absolutely not tolerated! Pushing/yelling means loss of privileges immediately, on the spot. I would use an immediate time out and then loss of privilege. He needs to know early in his life that this is not an acceptable way to handle his anger. And be fair with him by not using yelling yourself. Keep the drama down on your side, be firm and use a low voice, and he will begin to model your behavior.

Good luck! This parenting thing is not for the weak of heart!