HELP! An Alien has Abducted My Son!

At least that is the best explanation I can come up with for his recent behavior. My son has been a darling child for the majority of his young life. He seems to be well liked by his peers at daycare and his teachers love him. But recently things have starting taking a turn for the worst.

For some reason my son seems to think that hitting is okay. At first I was chalking it up to him being “heavy handed” and not really understanding that his taps were hurting the recipient. But I think he is actually hitting. He mostly exhibits this behavior with me; somehow his father is able to keep him in check. I think it is the bass in his voice. I on the other hand might as well be talking to myself when I am trying to discipline him. Most times he looks at me and laughs.

I was somewhat willing to accept that it will take some time for a 14 month old to understand reprimands and the concept of timeout. But today when I went to pick him up from preschool he received a bad report. Apparently he was bullying the other children by taking their toys and he slapped a little girl. This was shocking to me because has only received stellar reports over the eight months that he has been in daycare.

Can you imagine my shock and disappointment in this report? Yes, he is only 14 months old and this is the first time but we all want our children to be perfect angels. I do know that this is not a realistic expectation but I thought we could make it to the 2 year mark before I started to hear about “terrible two” behavior.

I am hoping that this is just a phase that he is going through. I have to admit that I've considered calling Super Nanny because I want to nip this in the bud before it becomes a real problem. That however is only a fleeting thought because I know Super Nanny will not be visiting. My son is generally a good kid and if you have seen Super Nanny you know those families have serious problems! We are nowhere near that level of insanity and I know my husband and I are committed to never getting to that place.

So, I wait. I wait for the aliens that abducted my sweet child to return him. I am sure they will. Soon. I hope.

Comments

LISA VAZQUEZ said…
Hello there...

Welcome to the blogosphere!

Your little darling is 14 months, right? Okay...

You are concerned...yes...I can understand the alarm...but he's 14 months...how hard can a 14-month old slap another baby... really?

I understand the daycare reporting him for his "domestic battery charge" but really.... it's not THAT serious... it will pass... babies test the boundaries...

Peace, blessings and DUNAMIS!
Lisa
Oh they will. I promise. At least they have with all of my kids. :)

I've really enjoyed your comments on my blog and I look forward to returning and reading more.

Thanks so much for taking the time to visit my blog and I hope to see you again soon.
Amazing_Grace said…
Yep, it's the terrible twos. I think they get most of it from watching other kids or the bad kids doing it to them. Time Out seemed to work for my kid (one minutes for every year of his age). We had a certain chair that he had to sit in. I got tons of parenting books and they really helped! Good luck! :)
Heather said…
I've found that consistency is key. Explain to him that you can't let him hurt other children, but for the most part he'll grow out of it. He's just as "that" age.
Carrie and Jim said…
I'm really sorry you are going through this right now. As one mother to another I don't think we will ever fully understand our kids. It seems like just when we figure things out they change again. I hope things get better for you. Hope you have a good weekend.- Carrie
LiteralDan said…
We went through this with our perfect angel as well, when he was 2. I don't know if whatever we did and the daycare did worked, but he eventually stopped having so many issues with kids.

I'm still not sure if he was just responding to kids who were better at hitting without getting caught, but like you we found it baffling that he could be so Jekyll/Hyde.

Hopefully if you stay consistent with whatever you're doing, he'll figure things out and outgrow it, too.
Anonymous said…
I think "terrible twos" is a misnomer...I seem to remember that stage at around 15 months with my kids--they became a little mischievous! It will pass--I promise! It's cliche, but I think Dan's right--consistency is the key. :)
Erin said…
Definitely a phase! My 17 month old is going through the same thing. We've noticed that the hitting seems to happen when he gets really excited, so we try to intervene before it happens.
As for taking the toys, it's likely that he's mimicing what bigger kids did to him at Daycare. I know when my son was the little guy at the sitter's house, he got toys taken a lot.

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