help with other methods of discipline

[dillawil]

My grandson is 2 1/2 yrs old, my daughter is seperated from her husband and he is not allowed to see the child. He has increasingly become more defiant. he seems to be more hateful towards her,why? We have spanked and spanked. it does not seem to matter to him. Can a child of this age have no remorse or sensitivity about punishment. He runs off when we go places and she litterally has to drag him around. whenever we go places it is inevitable there will be a scene. Yesterday he took off running from her and stopped right as he reached the street where there is always alot of traffic. She said she felt as though she was going to have a heart attack, yelling for him to stop. When she finally reached him he was laughing. She corrected him put him in the car and because he was corrected he threw his cup at the windshield and juice went all over her and the car. He has thrown this kind of fit in the daycare as well. Only after she arrived. When they got home she scolded him and he began spitting at her, hitting her, and trying to scratch her. Some days he wakes up with this defiant attitude. Ex: mother: Its good morning time....Child: No! or begans kicking her. She has another child age 4, and has never faced any kind of problems such as this with him. we don't know what to do anymore, we are at a loss. Is it possible that he has some sort of chemical inbalance, no 2 yr old can possibly be this awful.
Thanks
Concerned Grandmother

[cora]

I know it seems stressful. May I ask if the child was attached to his father. If so may she needs to let the child se his father adn maybe some of these moods will change. I have an older son he is not wild o anything but I raised from alone in his early years people felt he was uncontrollable. I believe he deels that his world has shattered. we are women and we cannot began to understand boys ex. I attempted to potty train my son for wks sent him by his dad  for one wk come back trained. I remember when his cousin use to have tandrums after we ignored her she stopped. As far as the throwing of things goes when he throws take it away and explain that if he continues you'll start pulling his toys one by one and then his room items. This is not good b/c it may cause problems with the other child feeling they are not getting enough attention. So be very cautious not to devout all your attention to him alone leaving the other child without.

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

As you can see, this behavior is very much outside the normal spectrum of child misbehavior. Such behavior can reflect at least two things: a flaw in the parent/child attachment, possible early signs of a biologically-based mental illness (such as depression or bipolar disorder). It can also occur in children who are fundamentally normal but who are experiencing a significant amount of stress or turmoil in their environment. The situation begs for professional intervention, and the mother should seek an evaluation by a pediatric menatl health professional. Physical discipline with such angry children is not effective and will actually likely worsen the situation.