Ds (10yo) has just started this.... When he's mad or whatever, he stomps off and slams his bedroom door.

Do your kids get into trouble for doing this? Do you just ignore it? If they do get punished for it, what do you do? I'm thinking that I'm just going to ignore it... but I'm not sure :confused:

Thanks! :D

EDITED TO ADD:
Thanks for all the replies :heart:

Here's what I'm going to do:

I'm going to tell him that he is welcome to slam the door, BUT he has to pay for a new door when (not if) it breaks. And I'll tell him how much it will cost him. That way he knows before hand what the consiquences of his actions are.

Don't have an answer for 'ya, because mine wouldn't *dare* do that for fear of facing the wrath of *mom*. :D

I would categorize it as a disrespectful bevaviour toward the goodwill of the family for which they are a part of. Also, slamming the door is not good for the overall maintenance of the door itself and the repeated slamming would cause it to come off kilter for which *I* would have to fix, and not be happy about doing. So if they are going to have an outburst of any kind they may relinquish their energy on their own personal belongings, not mine.

My discussion with them would go along that theme. :D

I, personally, am not big on outbursts of anger. My husband would argue that we all have them and all need an outlet. However, I disagree, I believe we *choose* to react violently or negatively. We have full control on how things make us feel and how we view and react to them. This is what I am trying to teach my girls, that anger comes up, but doesn't positively effect the situation at hand and does not lend any positive attribute to their life over it, thus it is better to just calmly let stuff go, or discuss it with the person whom you have the problem with and *then* let it go, no matter if the other person agrees with you/changes or not.

Peace and kindness in all things, no matter what, or at least try and strive for it. :)

I say it's disrespectful to. Not only to you but property. My friend's Mom would have removed the door from the hinges since she "owned" the door.

and he now understands that's mommies door and when he gets grown and has his own house he can slam his doors. He I also tell ds if he is so angry he needs to slam something to work it out on a pillow LOL. Mommy is a hot tempered red head as well and fights her want to break things when she is ticked. LOL the mommy wins out over the red head, I know if I break it, I just have to clean it up!

My kids would never do this as they KNOW it's disrespectful and they WILL be appropriately *punished*.

Edited to add...punished isn't a good word, reprimanded might be better.

um, i dunno a preteen/teenager who *doesn't* do this as some point.

mine all went through it, and it was no big deal.

hel-l, i've slammed a few doors, no biggie.

if our kids aren't allowed to get angry and SHOW it, they're stifled. i don't want a stifled kid on my hands (and don't think i have any currently).

i don't think there's anything with being so pissed that a door is slammed, or depending on the situation, even worse...a curse word is mumbled.

(gasp)

In the face of the real issue, how important is the kid slamming the door? IMO it's nothing to freak about. The kid is just blowing off some steam. Ignore it. By giving him more negative attention you may push him away more.

Well my oldest who will be 14yo in 2 weeks seems to LOVE to do this when she is pissy :rolleyes:

I just ignore it I mean really it's just a door and she is blowing off steam. I can think of much worse she could do so if this is all she chooses to do to release her frustration then I consider myself lucky:p

My dh *hates* doors. My oldest was about a year old before I convinced him to put the door back on the nursery.

His sister used to slam the door, except it was a "pocket" door (where it slides into the wall) & then *he* would be stuck with his PO'd father trying to get it back on track.

I know without a doubt, the doors in this house will come off as quickly as they get slammed, which is a pain, cause I like to slam a door well every once in awhile. :p

Mine are younger so I'm not sure this applies/helps, but here's my two cents anyway. :D

When angry or upset AJ is not allowed to leave the room. Period. I don't send him to a different room as a punishment and he's not allowed to voluntarily go there until he is COOLED OFF. Last time I let him, he cut up a t-shirt. At his age (he's only 5) he is too destructive and I don't feel it's SAFE to leave him alone until he learns to control his anger, kwim? Cutting up a shirt doesn't hurt him - it only hurts dh & I since we have to replace it - not keeping a 5 year old clothed isn't an option. :p Some natural consequences that would work with a teen, just won't work yet. ;)

So, here's what I tell him:
"When we are angry or upset, sometimes our emotions make us not able to make good decisions. So when we're upset we need to be around other people so they can help us be safe."

I don't force him to play, or hug, or anything he doesn't want to do, but I do make him stay in the same room with us - he can pout in the corner or whatever, but he's where I can see him.

I have a feeling I will probably continue this when they are older... at the very least until he learns to control his anger.

So, when he's big enough to slam a door, he'd better not, or he will have shown me he can't control his anger and he'll be headed back into the room to sit by mommy until he's calm no matter how old he is.

I REALLY love the idea a few mamas mentioned of taking the door off if it's slammed. :thumbsup: I'm writin' that one down. :D

Mostly, I am really really trying to teach him to control his anger even in the little things because of the possible escalations, kwim? I don't want to allow him to act out anger when he's mad about something little because then what happens when he's mad about something big? Does he loose control and act out worse?

I have an extended family member with huge anger issues and I firmly believe the reason is that his mother didn't ever teach him self-control (she has told me that, so I'm not trying to be unkind in saying it). So I don't know if I'm going overboard with it, but I just want to be sure he is able to control his anger. Everyone gets angry, but we've got to deal with it in non-destructive ways.

Oh! I have on occasion given him a pillow to get emotions out on, and it made him realize how silly he was being to throw a toy when I told him to throw the pillow instead. :p He realized it didn't really do any good or make him feel better and cheered up. However, I see that would not be helpful with an older child...

One other thing - ignoring him MAY be the way to discourage the action. Some kids that works on. My 2 year old it works with. He throws a tantrum, I ignore it, he gets over it eventually. My 5 year old is different. The only reason I say that is I don't want this to sound like I'm saying you're not teaching self-control if you ignore it. It's not the method that matters, IMO, it's just that they get it that matters. :D

Anyway, Becca, don't know if this helps, but :hug:

My kids wouldn't get in trouble for that. They probably already got a correction yk? We've been doing this long enough that I would just go in and tell them that slamming the door is not acceptable. I think Airon has done it about twice. He slammed the front door in anger and all my windows rattled. I explained the situation to him and he didn't do it again for a long time. If any of them slammed their bedroom door continuously, I wouldn't hesitate to take it off. They'd get the picture.

When my kids have that angry look in their eye and they are stomping about, I grab their hands, throw (not literally!) them outside and make them run around the house with me. We usually end up laughing.

I definitely think anger should be expressed. Hurting people, creating work for other people, and willfull destruction or potential destruction of property are not proper outlets in our family.

I do not think it is a sign of disrespect but a sign of needing skills to use words to express the feelings he is experiencing. IMO, punishment is punishing the feelings not the act. It is ok to be angry, scared, intimidated, etc. But, slamming doors is not ok and does not resolve the feelings. Expressing them verbally and working through them resolves them. We go through this here often. I help Beth and Samantha but teaching them how to express themselves verbally rather than physically (because it is not just slamming doors, it may be hitting, throwing things, etc.) or reminding them of already learned skills that may be forgotten in the heat of the moment. I have to be reminded too. I am known to throw things when frustrated or peeved.

My kids are 3 and 5 and we've had that happen on occasion. My biggest worry was slamming fingers in the door. I bought one of those cushion things to put on top of the door so it can't close, and if that somehow disappears, I just throw a towel or something over the top.

I really hate closed doors at all. In our house the only time a door gets closed is the bathroom or if you need some alone time;)

I agree that you have to figure out what is going to work with your child, there is not a magical way to do things that will work every time, kwim?

Good luck! :thumbsup:

oops. wrong button...

i slammed an awful lot of doors in my teenage days. I'm thankful my teen is more of a sulker then a slammer. lol

She did slam the door once, and broke it!
So now she can't slam her door , cuz its broken and doesn't close all the way. Boy that makes her mad.

anyway, we did talk about how
1. slamming a door is disrespectful
2. slamming a door can (and did) break the door
3. slamming a door is not a great way to express that you're angry with me

she was 12. she's 15 now and we dont have door slamming.

we do have eye rolling tho.

I would ignore the stomping off, but would not tolerate the slamming the door... as it is disrespectful, and is damaging our property.

I have one that likes to get up stairs and stomp, etc.... and as long as that's all he does, he can have at it.
Dh and I see it as a way of venting.

However, when he tries to slam doors, or has been known to hit the wall/door (hasn't for along time though) he gets in trouble, ALOT of it.

I have two teen girls...door slamming happens around here. I don't see it as a sign of disrespect, but a sign that they are frustrated that they can't have things their way. I would rather have a door slammed than a raised voice. If the door breaks, then they won't have a door that works, or they will pay to replace the door.

My ds's therapist has indicated that part of learning self control is to have some wiggle room to express all emotions, even, or especially, angry ones. He has suggested that we contract with the child ahead of time what are acceptable demonstrations of anger, like screaming into your pillow, hitting your bed, pillow or punching bag, stomping, telling your parents in maybe a louder voice than usual how you feel (I feel really ANGRY about that, etc).

The problem is that humans, adults included, tend to feel ENTITLED to misbehave when really upset (yell, hit, inflict trauma on others) so while children do need an outlet for all of their genuine emotions, they are served well by being helped to understand this process and limiting the extent to which they infringe on other's right to a calm, safe environment with functional doors, lol!

So, I think our approach will be to let the child know what are ok ways to display anger, and remind them (not punish them) why we don't cross that line when they do.

Originally posted by hippiemama

she was 12. she's 15 now and we dont have door slamming.

we do have eye rolling tho.

:ditto:
:juggle:

I have a 14yo who no longer slams doors - just sulks off to pout. But my 12yo is still slammin', though not as much as she did even a year ago. (she has moved on to more, ahem, 'verbal' expressions of anger.)

She understood the consequences of a door breaking, but other than that I can't say that I did much about it. Honestly, by the time the argument has reached the point of door slamming, we are all ready for it to be done and take a break from each other.

No they woudln't get into trouble; we woudl discuss alternatives though.

So far we have been lucky and don't have any door slammers. We do have plenty of snotty Whatevers form a sweet 14 year old though.