DD , 4 next month, hyper bloody sensitive to any telling off, finding the right method of discipline is proving hard

[fishandlilacs]

My daughter can't cope with me telling her what to do/telling her off at all. Even talking to her gently gets a furious reaction. There have been quite afew incidences of this for various reasons but i shall give you an example:

Previously she has always been really sensible and very aware round roads, but just this last week she has started to be a bit silly, she has started to bolt in car parks. I spoke to her last week when she ran straight out of the shopping centre in town into a coach layby right by a really really fast main road. Thankfully no one had been pulling in but drivers use it as a place to pick up passengers and I have seen them pull in very quickly. I cant move that fast at mo as I'm pregnant so if she gets away from me she can move a lot faster than i can.

Today she decides to balance on the edge of a curb waving one leg about on a really narrow but again quite busy road. I got down on her level, took her arm to get her attention and said, "This is a road, i need you to step back and be careful"

I stress that I said this, i didn't raise my voice and I didn't grab her arm or even move very fast, there's no way I could have hurt her or frightened her, I just used gentle but firm voice. She went bonkers, shouting at me angrily "i'm not talking to you, I'm not even going to look at you" and continued to stamp her feet fold her arms and strop about. The reaction was totally out of context with what had happened and I am seeing a lot of this at the moment. Asking her to come for her dinner will get the same reaction (and I give 5 minute warnings and all that stuff your supposed to do) Basically asking her or telling her to do anything gets the same reaction.

She doesn't do it so much for her dad or her gran. Gran looks after her 2 days a week at mo, and has been for the last month.

is this her age? is it something I should just use the mantra for "this too shall pass" can anyone suggest anything different i could be doing? She is not phased by reward charts, time -outs just cause more furious tempers and days of worse behaviour. I am thinking about withdrawing favourite toys/telly priveledges if this continues.

[Haudyerwheesht]

Well I wouldn't say she is 'hyper sensitive' that's almost excusing her behaviour imo. She is just being rude and misbehaving. She needs to be consistently told off in the same way every time. If you decide to remove toys / privileges you need to be very clear when this happens / how long for and why it has happened and there needs to be a clear and predictable build up to it so she has a chance to redeem herself. Oh and you mst always, always do as you've said you will. Never back down. They smell weakness ;)

She may be feeling put out at you being pregnant I guess but it doesn't mean she can get away with it.

[DeWe]

Yes, to me saying a child is hypersensitive would imply that they are disproportionally upset at being told off.
As Haudy says above you need to let her know that however bad her behaviour after being told off you won't back down.

[colditz]

She's not hypersensitive, IMHO. If she was, she'd be doing it even MORE for other people, because a telling off from them would result in MORE distress. She's pissed off, and having a paddy about it, and if I were you I'd ignore her until she wears herself out of it.

[fishandlilacs]

Sorry i didn;t really mean to throw everyone in the direction of her being "hyper sensitive" in terms of it being a proper term for her behaviour, just a phrasse to describe it.

[DirtyMartini]

I know what you meant, and yes I think we just have to repeat the mantra and respond consistently and WAIT.

[graceandbeauty]

IME children often give their parents a harder time than other adults, BUT, it does sound like your daughter senses that you maybe feel upset/guilty having to tell her off and is playing on it big time.

If you have to tell her off for a good reason and she cries, just ignore her. She is testing you to see if you will crack. I really believe that you can hear the difference between the truly upset crying and the indignant crying which stops the second you give in.

My friend's son does this when she tells him off or won't let him have what he wants. He doesn't do it when he's with me - clever things, children - he knows I don't have the parental guilt.

[fishandlilacs]

She rarely cries when I tell her off, she stamps her feet and strops, folds her arms and turns her back to me and shouts at me.

I dont feel guilty about it in the slightest if I have told her something, she's putting herself in danger and not listening, shes going to get told off, no questions asked.

May I reiterate, it's not so much tellings off that get this reaction from her as simply telling her what she needs to do. Outside the library today I did not tell her off, I just asked her to step back from the curb, the reaction I got was totally unwarranted.

Tonight, though shes proved me totally wrong on this by being a total star, I asked her to tidy up her toys after dinner and she did no worries-I dished out masses of praise, when it was time to come out of the bath (a favourite time for strops) she did it with not a moments hesitation and she put her jammies on and went to bed like the ideal child. She got an extra 15 minutes to look at her book as a reward and about 5 mins ago I heard the book drop to the floor, checked on her and shes snuggled down quietly-not asleep yet but not far off.

bloomin kids :)

[DirtyMartini]

Sweet wee girl

They know how to keep us on our toes, I'll say that for them.