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Similar question – what to do about boy's destructive play
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The question of the young girl’s “boy talk/play” has brought up a question…
I have a similar but different problem when my grandson is here (now once a week) – he is all about destruction… So is into games based on war, monsters, etc… will make a Lego gun and shoot at people (or a stick, etc)… Into transformers etc… how he wants to play i setting up lego things and throwing stuff at them or picking them up and droping them etc. On rememberance day we went to a ceremony / parade, then visited the regimental museum… and he was pulling the triggers on the rifles etc mounted on the wall and was disappointed the rifle didn’t fire…
Quite some time ago now, he broke my son’s Lego game… not permanantly but it took a long time to find most of the pieces and put it back together. If they are playing outside, he is tying things up, or chasing my kids with sticks (they chase him back, mind you) He is all into various things, including Lego Ninjagu… and now my son is always talking about Ninjagu etc.
He was after my daughter the other week when we went to pick him up from school because she “embarassed” him by rolling on the ground a couple of times.
🙂
I can sympathise with you. Some may label him ADHD or with some disorder. Some people think it is normal. Some say he has been watching to much TV. It is a hard call but all options need to be looked at along with his diet. What is he eating is another thing that may make him like that. All things seem to work together and yet can be destructive it seems at once. Good luck and if none of the above works. sorry, there really isn’t a cure for being an over active boy. 🙂
Well it is my grandson so I have no control over food or tv etc… Just want to minimize the influence.
I say set specific rules for your house and enforce them. For example, we do not shoot at people is an enforceable rule (remove item they shoot with or isolate them in a chair for X amount of time when they shoot at people). We do not throw toys in the house (thinking of the Lego example you mentioned). Again, enforceable – remove what they throw with and what they throw at, isolate them in a chair for a period of time.
With the sticks, that’s really something you have to decide if you’re okay with it or not, and not allow exceptions. If you’re okay with chasing each other with sticks then you can’t expect a little boy to understand when they cross the line to “too much”. Some children always take play too far, they can’t seem to find that line of “this is okay with a stick, this is not”, for ex. At our house sticks can only be used as walking sticks. The minute you choose to hit, chase, swordfight, etc the stick is lost and you sit on the step for time out.
I’m sure it’s not easy, especially with it being your grandson, but if you have kids he’s playing with you just have to set the rules for everyone and let them know it’s new, but it is important enough that you decided to make a rule, and go from there. Good luck!
Yeah, It isn’t easy. And I have to admit that part of it is I’m so tired a lot (other issue) and so I don’t feel like dealing with it. So the kids will be outside playing, and I notice them getting into things…. If I just get after them, they are likely to do it again… yet I needed them outside so they could burn off some of that energy (especially iwth him) and well, bringing them or him in is then tiring. I’m not always aware of him breaking the lego stuff, as “searching” for Lego in the box can sound similar (but sometimes it is obvious.)
It is more a problem now because he is here every week so that he can do Cubs. I pick him up after school, they go to their cub meeting, he stays overnight, and I drop him off at school. Some of the problem is happening while they are supposed to be sleeping… but I don’t have much other options at that point. I don’t have the car by that point so I can’t even pack everyone up to drive him home, and there is no place else for him to sleep.
Or the talk will happen in the car – we will be in the car and he will be on and on about something, and I say “… we don’t talk like that” – but he will continue on. How many times can I pull over the car? Again, by that time, we don’t have time for me to say “ok – I’m taking you home…”
So, I guess I’m just trying to figure out how to handle it. We made these arrangements so that he could do Scouting, which is something my dh and I feel is important. It costs us gas money to pick him up and drop him off, it costs us to feed him supper, breakfast, and send a lunch to school. It costs us extra bus money to get home from the cub meeting. That is all things that I’m ok with…. but add in the extra exposure my son is getting to things I’d rather he didn’t have exposure to……..
Just a thought. Maybe next time he says something out of line ( Maybe a time when you know the next week will be a full one.) Say to him,” if you say something like that again, we will not be picking you up for scouts next week.” That way you get a break and he gets the point. My kids shutter when I mention not going somewhere after this has been done. 🙂
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