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aurea
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01 Apr 2008, 4:00 pm

Yesterday J asked me if it was the first of April. I said yes. Before I could stop him he said Oh April fools day then smacked my older son in the head. (my 18yr old son had been laying on the couch)
As you could understand this didn't go down to well with my older boy.
My older son is trying his best to understand and make some allowances for J but he reacted as a teenager would, and yelled at J and took a swipe back at him.
This quickly esculated into me yelling and J in tears and older son very angry.
When all had calmed down a little I tried to explain to J that hitting is not on-he said but it was a joke. I explained hitting is never funny. So he then broke down in tears and started hitting himself in the head.
J heard me telling older boy that his response was not helpful, this resulted in more tears on J's part because he thought it was all his fault and he is stupid so on and so forth.
How do you guys overcome all this. J had stopped hitting himself, but I have noticed he is doing it more and more again lately.

Older son later apologised to J and told him he should never have reacted the way he did.



annie2
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01 Apr 2008, 4:10 pm

I would try explaining that, just like we don't hit other people because they are valuable and need to be respected, we don't hit ourselves because we are just as valuable as anyone else and it is part of self-respect (ok, you probably would put that in simpler language). I would tell my kid that it makes me sad if he hits himself because I love him and I don't like anyone hitting him (him included). Then I would get him a punching bag, and say that it is ok to hit a punching bag because that is part of sport and exercise etc., and then encourage him to use that if he feels like hitting. Just a suggestion - I have no idea if it would work, but that's probably what I'd do.



sinagua
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02 Apr 2008, 6:19 pm

I'd try to explain that hitting hurts, and hurting others is not funny or a joke, even on April Fools Day.

Then I'd try to figure out where he got the idea that smacking someone in the head was "what you do" as a "joke" on April Fools. :? Probably schoolmates. Maybe he got smacked himself? TV, maybe?

My son sometimes hits himself when he gets really frustrated. It's so hard to watch that, it makes me so sad. I wonder if your son wasn't so upset because he THOUGHT he "got it" - April Fools, I mean, and how one is supposed to participate in it - and instead he ended up getting yelled at - NOT the outcome he was expecting, I'd wager. :(