Question
Hello,
We have 3yo twins, boy and girl. So let’s say there are good days and bad days: good days means he is in good mood, smiling, playing, and behaving - this is 20-30% of the time. The bad days is when he cries, never satisfied with anything, anything that I do for him is not right: changing his shirt- the shirt is not the right one, when covering him the his blanket when putting him to bed the blanket is not laying properly and makes a big deal out of it; or when placing food in his plate - it is too little (he always asks for more food, more water, always he wants more of whatever we give him, and if not done like he wants he will cry and show dissatisfaction. He may not he hungry at all but he asks for more food and most of the time much food is left in his plate).
He gets irritated very easily and hits his twin sister and even his 7 yo sister, yells at them. Very often when the siblings come to play with him he starts yelling and gets agitated almost spontaneously and cries and yells why they touched his toys.
We give him several warnings and if he continues to misbehave we put him in time out in the bathroom, but after sometime he starts acting up again. If the time out doesn’t work after 2-3 attempts then he gets spanked gently, but this makes him very angry and he starts yelling and throwing fits, so we try to avoid disciplining him with spanking.
And he doesn’t want to share his father with any other sibling. He is very, very attached to his father. Almost every morning he cries ( almost a hysterical cry) that he doesn’t want his dad to go to work but rather stay home, and if he starts his day with a cry when his father leaves, then the rest of the day is pretty much set for him to be emotional, to yell, cry and to seek attention.
One day when he got spanked during the day, i asked him at night why he misbehaved because it led him to be spanked: he replied that I shouldn’t spank him. When asked what should i do since he doesn’t listen and doesn’t want to calm down; he said to tell him with words “I am telling you like this” - referring to talking, using words rather then spanking. So sometimes i try to talk to him and remind him that he wants me to correct him with words rather then to discipline with time out or spank. And sometimes he clams down and listens, most of the time he doesn’t.
I know this is a lot, but i am not sure what drives his behavior and how to taper off his whining and to teach him not to ask for “more” each time we sit down to eat. (Even this morning I made him tea and tried it to make sure it is not hot, he became unhappy, raising his voice stating why i had some of his tea now he doesn’t have a lot anymore). The other two siblings don’t show this type of behavior, so there is no one in the house to teach him this, he doesn’t ho to daycare either.
Please help.
Thank you!
