VLOG- Parenting

I would not say my eldest was a bully but aggressive would have been a great descriptor for him for years. He still has a few tendencies of being aggressive but I am happy to say (at age 7, yes, it’s old) it’s very slight and mainly with his brother but not with others for several years. From 1-4 (okay 5) years old, I had to really watch him like a hawk. There were playgroups I couldn’t let him play in a room where I wasn’t because I needed to monitor how he was doing. I was so discouraged so many days… especially since I am completely non-aggressive and just couldn’t understand why someone would EVER hit someone rather than use their words. It took A LOT of repetition, consequences (though we never spanked for being aggressive/violent but other consequences personally). But somehow all that payed off because now it’s not an issue (except occasionally w/ his brother, which is kind of normal for 2 boys). I think it was especially hard from age 1-5 especially when I saw calm, “sweet” children and just thought he was bad, bad, bad. Looking back, part of it was being bad but a large part was being an EXTREMELY active boy and not knowing how to channel that energy correctly (which is our job as a parent to teach them). He wrestles with his brother (both assenting) on a daily basis and ROUGH (from a mom’s perspective) but they both have a blast and get lost of energy out and often get hurt but that’s part of being a boy apparently. Oh yeah, and one more thing, we also had to avoid playing with one boy because he was just like my son and they were like oil and water. Now they can play together but literally couldn’t for years because they were too similar and it just wasn’t worth trying after enough times of BAD stuff happening. Hope that my story is an encouragement but also know that it’s not easy. Sometimes knowing that it’s probably a long-haul thing is better than thinking it will be over in 1-2 weeks because it likely won’t and then you’d be disappointed.