How can we discipline a strong-willed, misbehaving 5 year-old?

Question

My 5 year old son receives and fears punishment but repeatedly exhibits the same unacceptable behaviors. He's always been strong-willed, and is usually the kind to view a statement like "Don't do that" as an open invitation to do it. We've tried redirection or distraction tactics, but he is still so narrowly focused on doing the original behavior. Even worse, he will typically do the prohibited behavior and flagrantly tell us or show us that he's done it. Repeatedly, even after punishment. (He's in time out right now for this very thing). He's consistently punished, yet he continues down the same self-destructive path each time. When he is punished, we explain what he did wrong, why he's being punished, and why he shouldn't do what he was told not to do. Sometimes he'll even tell us first why he's in trouble, so it makes me wonder if he's acting out for the inevitable negative attention he gets. I think he gets plenty of love and positive attention- he's an only child and stays with a relative during the day. We're trying to give him a good, fun childhood, but we need to figure out how to effectively discipline him.

His repeated misbehavior includes:

• Yelling at the top of his lungs in public (stores, friends' houses, etc)
• Running away from us (at parks, stores, parking lots, etc)
• Talking back and disrespecting authority figures
• Hurting animals even after we explain why it's wrong
• Repetitive nuisance behaviors (repeating himself, banging his fists, kicking walls, intentionally crumbling food on floors, etc)
• Repeatedly asking us why he can't do something even after it's been explained to him
• Basically, most bad behaviors that young children may do, but repeated over and over again, even after discipline

He gets a warning to stop the behavior, then depending on the severity of what he's done (and where we are), he'll either go to time out or lose a privilege (such as taking away a favorite movie or missing out on an activity). Going to time outs and losing privileges really upset him, but still do not ultimately deter him from the bad behavior. It's like he can't help himself.

My spouse and I are getting worn down. We try to model good behavior and encourage him to be well-mannered and respectful. This behavior mortifies us. It seems we can't even enjoy life as a family because our son is so disruptive and unresponsive. Most public outings have to be cut short or eliminated because he consistently misbehaves and doesn't respond to our discipline. After he's misbehaved, when we try to have heart-to-heart talks with him about his behavior and why we expect him to mind us, he usually has a little trouble expressing himself, and a lot of times we get the same nonsensical responses from him (Us: Why did you do [bad behavior]? Him: Because I didn't want to). He also doesn't like to make eye contact. We don't usually feel like we've gotten through to him.

Is there another discipline tactic we could try? Or does it sound like we need to see a professional at this point? We're at a loss, and don't want things to spiral further out of control as he gets older (and even begins school). We just want him to understand that his behavior isn't always acceptable.

Thanks for reading.

Update (from comments below): My spouse and I disagree on spanking, as we had different experiences with it. He feels it's necessary sometimes. Since our son failed to improve after time outs and taking away items/privileges, I grew to agree with him and we used it for select bad behaviors. It didn't work any better. However, when he was spanked, he was always told why. I didn't mention that we have used it because I was afraid it would distract from the original question, but since it has already come up [in comments], yes, it has been explored, but with no better results than our other tactics.

Answer 1

I'm glad you are concerned with your son's behavior, it shows you are on the ball and caring. I am an elementary school teacher (32 years), a parent and grandparent and suggest you seek professional help. Two of your comments are especially concerning: The fact that your son, at age five, has difficulty making eye contact can be an indicator of issues which need to be addressed sooner than later. The second is the fact that your son continues to hurt animals (this is NOT something that most young children do), although you do not say how he hurts them this is a big red flag when working with/caring for children that there are concerns. I believe you should begin with your pediatrician, be honest with them and they can refer you to a specialist.

Answer 2

Have you tried connecting with your child and developing a positive relationship?

All I can hear from your post is that you've tried hurting him - from taking away privileges to the physical. If all you are teaching him is that when you are bigger you can hurt somebody smaller, is it any wonder he hasn't yet developed empathy for things smaller than him? (For the record, I don't think holding animals too tightly sounds particularly a-typical, I just don't think you've done anything to teach him otherwise).

Instead of teaching him how to hurt people smaller than you, teach him social-emotional skills by role-modeling them. When he experiences respect, trust, listening, empathy, compassion etc he will be able to develop them himself.

Instead of punishing him, ask him questions (with genuine curiosity and respect!):

"what was happening for you [in this situation]?"
"do you feel like people hear you better when you yell?"
"what happened that made you leave the park today without telling us?"

Also, try using nonevaluative "I notice" statements to help him learn to reflect on his own behavior without relying on others judging him (who's going to punish/praise him when he's 25??) and it will help him feel seen and heard!!!!!

"I notice you tried using an inside voice first at your friend's house today" "I notice you seem pretty upset today" "I notice you didn't eat much today" "I notice you are working very hard to build that lego structure"

I recommend Positive Discipline for being able to foster a home environment that is kind and firm. It will teach you how to teach him social-emotional skills necessary for participation in a mutually respectful, peaceful family environment and will equip you all as he enters school and beyond.

Positive Discipline is grounded in Aldlerian psychology and believes that all children (and adults) seek a sense of belonging and significance. Are you providing opportunity for him to feel like he belongs in your family? And, are you providing opportunity for him to feel important? (special jobs, asking for his help, etc)

For what this looks like in a family, check out the following blog (her son is around your son's age too and is also particularly spirited): Can We Hug It Out. Its fun and quick to read!

I have worked with kids in gangs, refugees, kids with special needs, kids everyone else 'threw away' and the number one way to make a difference is stop seeking control and start seeking connection. A strong-willed, spirited child is a gift.

Answer 3

I just would like to mention some notes from the book Nurture Shock. Their review of relevant research on spanking suggests that it is harmful when it is used as a special, last-ditch punishment. I know that your question is not primarily about spanking, but I hope this information can be helpful to you as you decide whether and how spanking will be part of your disciplinary style. Here is an excerpt (emphases in original):

In a culture where spanking is accepted practice, it becomes "the normal thing that goes on in this culture when a kid does something he shouldn't." Even if the parent might spank her child only two or three times in his life, it's treated as ordinary consequences. In the black community Dodge studied, a spank was seen as something that every kid went through.

Conversely, in the white community Dodge studied, physical discipline was a mostly-unspoken taboo. It was saved only for the worst offenses. The parent was usually very angry at the child and had lost his or her temper. The implicit message was: "What you have done is so deviant that you deserve special punishment, which is spanking." It marked the child as someone who has lost his place within traditional society.

It's not just a white-black thing either. A University of Texas study of Conservative Protestants found that one-third of them spanking their kids three or more times a week, largely encourage by Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family. The study found no negative effects from this corporal punishment—precisely because it was conveyed as normal.

The conclusion was:

Children key off their parents' reactions more than the argument or physical discipline itself.

You can read the whole section directly in Google books if you are interested.

UPDATE

Since writing this post, I've had several more years parenting experience, and that as a far-less-than-perfect parent. In that time, I've concluded that despite my best intentions, spanking was harmful to my own child, and it is not used in our house currently—and this has been made clear to my son that spanking is off the table.

In another household where the parents are far superior to me, I could see spanking. But I'm not good enough to use it properly--my son was responding in fear to spanking even though it had been many months since the last time. That made it clear it just had to go away as an option.

So, take the above study with a grain of salt.

Answer 4

I have hit much of this same behavior with our son, although with others his behavior tends to be on the best side and we get glowing reports from others, at times at home we get some of the worst. Mostly it seems like normal Five Year old behavior, and although we have a younger one I at times thought it was mostly due to the younger brother that we got some bad moments. Generally it seems to be an attitude/anger problem where we say No to something and that will set my son off, we do time out's, a toy time out and so on, but it doesn't seem to change the mannerisms at times. We emulate the behavior we want, and stress at times that he needs to set a good example for his brother, but many times we get the "attitude".

I can get his attention with a loud, stern voice and that will sometimes scare him enough to give us his attention or stop what he is doing. I've also spent time getting on his level, but make him look up at me a little, and try to make him understand what it is he is doing wrong. Many times the result is limited choices, you can do this or nothing or some option that gets what you want, and keep at it - kids can try to wear you down and in some ways I think we all did the same thing when we were young and trying to asset ourselves.

For things that you mentioned what I would do is:

• Yelling in public, bring him home or to the car unless it stops. I've sat in the car at the store waiting for my wife when he has misbehaved, after a couple times this has stopped. I give one warning, I find that my son has a short attention span on warnings, once and then we have punishment otherwise he takes it as an opportunity to continue.
• Running away, same options. Although if it continued you might want to get a child harness, personally I do not like them and think they are awful but a couple of times I did it with my oldest when he was younger. After the second time out he never strayed again.
• Talking back and disrespect gets a timeout and whenever he begins to talk I shush him, not loudly but sternly, only with a shush or "no talking". I found saying "shut up" or certain variations tended to backfire on me.
• Hurting animals I have never seen, although this tends to be a red flag for many things, maybe you can elaborate on what you mean by it. Still, I'd try to have him respect animals and be kind or keep him away from them.
• Repition, this is where you get the contest of wills. You HAVE to keep it up otherwise once you relent they take advantage. We did this on a couple things with my oldest last year, and are still trying to get him back on track to helping out and doing chores at home. We let him slide a few times then it was like starting over. It's hard, but whenever you let it go then it seems like everything resets.

Hopefully this is momentary for you and you can get through it. Good luck!

Answer 5

Disclaimer: I'm not a medical doctor, psychologist, psychiatrist or even a certified counselor. Though I can't speak for anyone else I would bet that these types of individuals would not be lurking on sites like this waiting to dispense free professional medical advice to someone across the aether. If you think, as a parent, that you need to consult a professional, then I would do so and not waste time with advice (however intelligent and informed) from perfect strangers.

Some of this sounds like normal testing of limits. He's wondering if there is any point at which you'll "give up", and is systematically trying to figure that out. Unfortunately, that requires you to outlast him; you have to consistently punish him for misdeeds that harm others, including animals (I decline to pass judgement on the question of "abuse", save to reiterate that if what he does to animals concerns you, you should seek immediate in-person guidance from a professional, not from Internet commentators).

The first sentence in your question seems to be refuted by the rest of it; not the part that he receives punishment, but that he fears it. He does not seem to want to avoid punishment. This may indicate he perceives it as "normal", which may in turn indicate you are overusing punishment. Examine the boundaries you have set for him and the punishments for crossing them. If the punishment is consistently "one warning, then time-out" for any offense, that's unrealistic; you don't get a warning for dangling the cat by the tail. Conversely, screaming or other undesirable verbal calls for attention can simply be ignored until they become destructive; reacting to undesirable but non-destructive behavior reinforces a lesson that it's easy to get a rise out of you. Consistently enforcing the rules and implementing punishments where they are expected is key, but the punishment must also fit the crime.

If the punishment is always the same regardless of the bad behavior, then all things bad are "equally bad". His reaction to the punishment then becomes normalized; no matter how light or severe the standard punishment is, it's "normal" because that's what he always gets when he does something. Varying the punishment according to the severity of the bad behavior, while keeping the penalty for specific misdeeds consistent, will teach him that some things are bad because they are annoying and disruptive, while other things are bad because they hurt people, and the first category isn't "as bad" as the second, though because there is a punishment it's still "bad".

I hear a lot of "stick" in your disciplinary method. What about the "carrots"? How do you positively encourage and reinforce desirable behaviors? The absence of punishment is not a reward. If he takes your hand and walks by your side across the street, tell him that you like that and verbally praise him. That reinforces what he's doing as he does it. When discipline becomes too much about punishment, a child may genuinely not know what they SHOULD do. This is especially true if they try good behavior and are snubbed. If your child comes up, takes your hand or shirttail and says "Mommy?", you need to respond to that immediately and positively. If you say "not now sweetie" and try to continue what you had been doing before, that's a snub; that didn't get the result he wanted, which was you paying attention so he could ask you something. That discourages the good behavior; he knows it doesn't get results. The fact that you may be on an important call trying to take down facts and figures for something else important doesn't matter in the slightest to him; his next step will be bad behavior, because even though it'll get him punished, you turn to face him when he does it.

This can in fact become a game; Do A, get ignored (even though that was good behavior, because Mommy has other things to do). Then, do X, get warned, do X again, get sat down on the naughty step. It's formulaic, predictable cause-and-effect; exactly the kind of stuff 5-year-olds like in their entertainment. By provoking punishment, he's getting a predictable rise out of you. The solution is to not make it worth his while. By going through this Kabuki theater of getting down to his level, saying "no", picking him up and depositing him on a chair in the corner, getting down to him again and telling him why he's being punished, then watching him serve his sentence, you're giving him a relatively big reaction to anything bad he does, and at that age it can be fun to press Mommy's "mad button". If, instead, you simply pick him up, plop him on the seat and say "5-minute time-out for pulling the cat's tail" while heading back to what you'd been doing, that's trivial for you, but now he has to sit on the seat for 5 minutes straight. Now the punishment is obviously more inconvenient for him than you, when previously it was evenly divided if not actually biased against you.

Other than this strong-willed disregard for rules, how is he doing developmentally? Is he reading and counting (or at least learning his letters and numbers)? How well is he talking? Has he been potty trained? If so, has he regressed any with regards to accidents? If there's just one area where he seems to not be getting with the program, that's one thing that indicates a need for correction, but if overall he seems a little behind other kids his age, then I would seek further help.

Answer 6

I also have a 5 year old son, whose behaviour isn't very different from what you've described. In fact, what you've described is normal 5-year old behaviour so the first thing to say is that there's nothing to be massively concerned about in the long term.

Meanwhile, handling his behaviour is a painful experience. Many will tell you that it's all about getting attention. Kids crave attention, and if they don't get the "positive" attention (playing & reading with them etc) they will misbehave in order to get your "negative" attention. There's some truth in that, so it's work making sure you're spending enough quality time with him.

But we've found that by far the biggest factor is tiredness. If he's over-tired, you can guarantee this kind of behaviour from our son, especially at bed-time (which of course only exacerbates the situation the next day) so I would suggest trying an earlier bed time. Linked to this, if he doesn't get enough activity (exercise) during a day, he finds it harder to get to sleep and will probably misbehave the next day, so that's a factor to consider too.

But also remember at all times that this is typical behaviour for kids, especially boys, at this age, and it will not last forever. In particular, you're not a bad parent for having a child who behaves this way, and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the child. Contrary to one of the earlier answers, I don't believe for a moment there's any cause for alarm that requires medical or psychiatric attention.

Answer 7

Let me start by saying that some of the things you mention are not normal for a five year old (in particular, the animal abuse, banging of fists, and kicking of walls). Some of these things are indicative of more serious things going on, whether it is something he is doing as a result of being abused by someone, bullied by someone (which is really abuse perpetrated by a peer) or some other challenge within him such as oppositional disorder or one that prevents his development of social awareness (such as Aspberger's - in which case, he may honestly not understand about your feelings, the animal's feelings or how his actions effect others. You may take some of the previous advice and get some professional help from a family therapist or psychologist. Have him evaluated to figure out what is going on. Then, depending on the prognosis try the following:

I particularly recommend the "Motivation and Control" workship here:

The workshop will basically go over the following idea and how to apply the idea with your child in your home. I would tweak this a little depending on the route of the problem, but this is the gist and with the help of a professional, you can do the "tweaking" neede for your particular circumstance.

Quite a few kids are motivated by control rather than rewards or punishments. For these kids, they especially need to feel in control of their own life in some fashion (thought all kids are going to be better off with this feeling than without anyway) For the kids that are motivated by control, if they don't feel in control, they'll control whatever they can eventually. This may mean their caloric intake (anorexia/bulemia), their pain threshold and tolerance (cutting), you (by making you frustrated, worn down and upset), others through bully behaviors, and things smaller than themselves (animal abuse). All of these things can also have other causes and are fairly complex, but this is one piece of the puzzle in all situations.

For kids motivated by control, the traditionally upheld systems of reward or punishment absolutely WILL NOT WORK (physical or otherwise). It sounds like your child MIGHT fit into this category.

The good news for you is that discipline is, contrary to popular belief, not really about control at all. Instead, it is about building mutual trust and respect. A parent should be a lot like a mentor to a child. Some one who can offer up advice and suggestions in a respectful rather than dictatorial way. In order to do this, you have to truly understand the child and his thought process FIRST. As Christine Gordon says, find out about your son's thought processes. Find out what he notices, thinks about and puts first. Find out what he is capable of adding to the family experience and find joy in working on things together.

It sounds like if you relinquish a little control and offer him some choice, he may feel better about himself and his life situation rather than feeling as though he is being controlled. Obviously, you have to have certain boundaries (you are his parent, teacher and guide after all), but perhaps a little loosening of the reins will go a long way toward fixing this young boy's attitude toward you a little. Is he crumbling the bread all over because he is being told he MUST eat it? Why not, "Would you like a slice of bread or a little rice?" Then, he gets to choose, and help you make the food of choice. You know he is still getting a little grain with his meal, he is learning a little about how to cook and you are having some quality time together.

Discipline is really about making good choices that make good consequences more likely as opposed to choices that will result in bad consequences (I am speaking of natural consequences here not parent imposed consequences). Let your son learn the difference without "bad consequences" be punishments from you. Instead, put yourself in the role of empathetic guide.

Let me give you an example of what this looks like. My daughter was given a 3DS by her grandparents for her sixth birthday. When she wasn't keeping her games, charger and player together one day, I warned her this type of care (or lack thereof) often led to loss of the thing not being cared for, but she made the poor choice of bringing it and not keeping it all together. I saw the situation, but instead of saving her and picking it all up for her I just let things play out. She mis-placed the player and it got stuck in a prop drawer where it stayed until 2 weeks later when she finally found it (with some help from the theater manager who she then had to write a thank you letter to). In the mean - time she didn't have her player. I empathized with her and genuinely expressed that I understood how sad she must feel. However, when she asked if I'd buy her another one. I pointed out how expensive they are, number one, and that she had shown she wouldn't take care of it, so I wasn't about to buy her a replacement. Special toys and treats like that are for people that take care of them. When she wanted to borrow stuff from me (like my ipod) I simply said, "I'm so sorry, but I don't think you are trustworthy to keep track of your stuff. Why would I loan you my ipod? I want it to be well cared for. I'll loan things like that to you when you show me you'll take care of it." It may sound harsh but these are the realities of life once you don't have a parent following around and cleaning up after you. She has kept track of her stuff quite well ever since.

People who crumble bread all over the place wind up having to clean up the stuff. When some one is being super loud, other people don't want to hang out in the same space. When a kid runs away in public spaces, that kid isn't trusted to go to those public spaces anymore (and he has to figure out how to win back your trust too). It isn't a punishment, simply a consequence - you don't trust him.

The book: Parenting with Love and Logic stems from the same basic idea and works nicely in conjunction with what the Mecham family outlines in their workshops. I'd recommend reading this book as well.

Answer 8

Read Dr. James Dobson's The Strong-Willed Child; it will change your approach.

Strong-willed children need strong, courageous parenting to learn self-control and discipline so that the energy and drive they possess can be productive not destructive. Dr. Dobson emphasizes discipline, structure, routine and mutual respect.

Note: @HedgeMage .. the OP asked about disciplining .. other answers dealt with possible other issues. It is very likely that the child is acting out as a test/response/provocation of the parent. Much undesirable behavior is made more interesting by parental disapproval,particularly is that disapproval comes without a price.

If discipline stops the "ordinary" undesired behavior but some more troubling issues remain, then some form of counseling or professional evaluation is in order. But jumping there without trying strong discipline is premature.