Hello Baby, I hadn't seen your last post when I made my post. Your son sounds very similar to my daughter at that age. She still sucks her thumb at night time and for all the reasons already given, we let her. Some times she'll use it at other times when she's really tired or stressed, but otherwise you never see her sucking her thumb. I guess I would wonder too if insisting on it not being used might make it more difficult for him to stop using it rather than more, as the insistence creates more stress for him? I like the idea of a calm spot - might introduce that one here.
DD5.5 is still a bit of a hitter (perhaps a couple of times a month and only to dh and I as she bottles everything up to be 'very, very good' elsewhere). She tends to hit when she is really frustrated. I remember being the same when I was a kid and I can still feel the sense of relief that came with a physical reaction to my frustration (and even now, I will often exercise or do some kind of vigorous activity to calm myself down). My husband comes down on dd like a ton of bricks for any kind of hitting, where as I am more inclined to help her find another outlet for it. For example I encourage her to punch a pillow when she's very frustrated and I can see her itching to release it in some way (rightly or wrongly, this seems very effective) and we ensure she gets lots of physical activity every day (though she never seems to get enough - she could, and has, literally run all day). I have no real idea, but I do wonder if dd's kind of uncontrolled hitting has something to do with a combination of emotional and psychomotor over excitabilities. Certainly hitting in our house is unacceptable if it is a conscious decision that has been made (which we had a short lived period of), but most often when dd hits it is quite obvious that has lost control and we need to take another approach. Obviously she is older than your son, but once we have resolved whatever caused the frustration we talk about how she felt when she hit out, how she might have felt in the past when someone has hit her, how the person she hit might have felt and whether or not she feels and apology is appropriate.
We have found routine (x number of books at bed time, x amount of screen time, special cereal only one day on the weekend, x activity after school on y day) very effective in reducing dd's frustrations and we warn her when things are no likely to go to plan. Now she's bigger we have her participate in making decisions around routine. Our routine and her involvement also allows us to calmly walk away when dd looses it because she's not getting what she wants and what she wants is outside of the realms of what was agreed (i.e. if she wants to watch an extra half hour of TV, read for an extra 15 minutes at bed time etc). She's had what was agreed, so I'll calmly explain that I understand she's disappointed but that I'm ready to move on to whatever else we're doing once she's calm. Then I leave her to it and get on with my own thing (it took practice not to get drawn back in). Once she's ready I give her a big hug, chat about it if it's necessary or appropriate and get on with the next activity. I can't say whether or not it has reduced the number of melt downs or whether that has just been because of her maturing, but it does prevent the two of us getting more and more frustrated with each other!
