Please help - 3year old DD

[user1471514421]

Evening everyone

I have been pushed to the pin of my collar this evening by my 3 year old daughter. Ended in tears.

My dh and I are finding our dd extremely challenging at the moment and am considering this evening exploring avenues as to how we may improve things. I am not for one minute suggesting this is something wrong with my dd, it may well be the way we are parenting also. However either my dh nor I can take anymore. We also have a 20 month old ds.

Dd just turned 3, is extremely sharp and intelligent, excellent speech, in sentences, toilet training by her 2nd birthday, has hit all milestones in advance. The downside is her rollercoaster of emotions, to the point I am walking on eggshells for fear i might set her off. From the moment she wakes and I mean the very first moment she will whine shout demand etc. She is a very good eater, but will demand her food a certain way, ie not cut up, or peas separate. If I do it wrong she will scream cry trash about on the floor push away the food, you get the picture. Her normally easy going brother has observed this behaviour and is beginning to make similar demands but will not when she is not there.

She fights with her brother, will not share, tells me to stop talking. But it is the constant whinging, crying and screaming that is getting me down. I am beginning to not enjoy my time with her. My dh is now refusing to go places as a family anymore due to the behaviour.

I feel as parents we provide a loving caring environment, our children do not witness aggressive behaviour or shouting etc. They are extremely well fed, looked after with plenty of attention exercise toys etc. I'm at a loss as to where we may be going wrong.

Please help, I feel I dont know what to do anymore and need some help. I adore my children, everything i do is for them. I need to learn and to make this better. I am so afraid that she may be unhappy, she must be unhappy to Express herself in this way all day and that breaks my heart

Much of what you describe is completely normal 3 year old behaviour. It can be harder to take when the child in question is very articulate as we tend to think they should be more "advanced" but the fact is that they're not...they're just three.

You have to be very firm. Shouting should be completely ignored. Don't rush to please her in fear of tantrums....that makes it worse in the long run.

Start firmly and stick to your guns.

Can you be more specific about what sets her off. What do you mean she "won't share"?

HennyPennyHorror thank you for your response.

Yes she is very articulate, maybe I am expecting too much. I definitely am guilting of rushing in to solve the situation to avoid meltdowns.

By not sharing I mean if I start a game with both babies, for example this evening both pretending to cook me dinner she will move in her play kitchen as close to me as possible to try to exclude her brother. Her brother started to play with a pan that she wanted which resulted in an absolute catastrophic meltdown. Any kind of game ends in a fight instigated by her unless she is in absolute control.

Things that set her off, first thing in the morning she will shout for me to go to her which I do, say good morning, some days I will say nothing just put my arms out to hug her and she will begin shouting, to go down stairs etc. I just dont know what to say anymore. Another example if we are going in the car she wants to pick the side she is on, she might get in then decide she wants the side her brother is on. If we say no, absolute meltdown again. Everything seems to be emotionally charged and drama

Everything and anything sets her off, literally anything. That's why we are so on edge. She is extremely independent and wants to do everything herself, sometimes I might forget and put my hand to something and her instant reaction is to scream at me

There's a word for this "threenager".

It's where they are learning their boundaries and pushing luck to find out what they can get away with.

Keep doing what you are doing and remain consistent, follow through on punishments etc

Ignore. Ignore. Ignore. Praise the good, ignore the bad. In the kitchen situation, I would put her somewhere else and carried on cooking with DS. The whole shouting in the morning scenario I would just get a stern face and stop interacting. Nice Mummy comes out only when she behaves nicely. Otherwise you are bored and ignoring her. When she behaves well, lots of specific praise. ‘You shared X nicely with your brother. You took turns and I was very proud of you. It’s not easy to share and you did so well.’

What is appropriate to discipline a 3 year old? I am so upset, I don't want my child to be unhappy, I am feeling maybe she is feeling misunderstood, or not getting enough attention. My dh and I both work full time, maybe we could give more dedicated 1 on 1 time, it is so hard to juggle, plus I also have to consider my son. He becomes v frightened in the midst of these meltdowns and I dont want him to be forgotten or in the shadow of his d sister

Car scenario, ignore, strap her in, chat pleasantly to her brother and carry on. What do you do when you touch something and she screams? I would carry on doing whatever I was and say quietly: please stop screaming. We do not scream in this house.
And ignore. Say ‘when you are calm you can always have a cuddle and a hug.’ When she is calm later you say ‘mummy got cross because you did X. Mummy did not speak to you while you screamed. If you do that again Mummy will again stop speaking to you till you get your nice voice back. Okay?’ And rinse and repeat.

She is articulate and intelligent but at three is emotionally immature. Hence why she may converse one minute and appear reasonable but in the next minute will go berserk because you put her cereal in the yellow bowl and not the green bowl!

She will grow out of this as she develops reasoning and understanding

Have you tried spending time with your children separately? If I’ve understood your post correctly, there’s only 16 months between them and this can be very challenging for everyone.

Your child will be unhappy sometimes. She is currently unhappy because she spends most of her day screaming. That’s unhappiness to me. It sounds like she needs firm boundaries. We have always used ‘time out’ but I call it the ‘thinking corner’. We have three simple rules: no hitting (includes kicking and all violence), no throwing and no screaming. You break the rule and you go in the thinking corner for a minute or two.
You cannot let a 3 year old rule your life. DH and I also work FT. She is doing this for attention but it is your job to teach her that bad behaviour does not get attention. Otherwise she’s a confused girl crying out for some boundaries.

What is the childcare situation if you both work? Are the children in a crèche or with nanny or child minder?

It sounds to me like you've tried and tried to do things her way to keep her happy and avoid meltdowns or tantrums.

Tantrums are unavoidable in 2-3 year olds. Luckily they're small and you can pick them up and carry them away from public spaces. At home you can put them in a safe place.

You have to allow her to have her emotions without rushing in to fix it for her. At the moment she is probably not feeling very safe as there are no boundaries, and she gets what she likes if she asks, and if she doesn't get it she goes mad. Just let her go mad, and still say no.

Brother had toy first? Tough luck. You get it when he's finished. Tantrum? I'm sorry you are so upset, don't kick me, don't hurt me (remove yourself or anything she can break, prevent her from hurting herself or others). Stay close by and let her have her emotions.

Don't allow her to tell you what to do, you tell her what you're going to do and then do it. Don't give in, don't change your mind. This will just make her feel unsafe as you say one thing and do another and then you can't be trusted.

All of this can be done gently and respectfully. You don't have to shout yell or punish. Follow natural consequences. E.g. we can't go to the park now because there isn't enough time as you wouldn't put on your coat. We'll play a game here instead.

I have to put that toy away now because you threw it at your brother.

We have to eat toast now because you threw your plate on the floor/we don't have time to play now because I have to cook something else.

Stop trying to keep her happy and concentrate on keeping a balance for all of you.

Be consistent and trustworthy.

I don't have many words of wisdom but if it's any consolation I have a four year old DD and three year old DD and your descriptions sound exactly like what I've experienced with my two (there is 14 months between them).

My DD was like that at 3, we are able to reason with her a little more now that she is 4, however now it's DS's turn for this type of behaviour which leads me to believe it is just some sort of 'phase'.

I now tend to just let them have their meltdown without pandering too much to it. If they are winding each other up or being mean to one another, not sharing etc I take away the item concerned, toy etc until they calm down.

I have three the most difficult age so far. It will pass!

*found

Thank you all for the advice. To answer some of the questions there is 16 months between the babies, a well thought out plan at the time!! Both my husband and I do condensed hours full time over 4 days, so we each have a day off in the week with the babies so only 3 days childcare. A childminder comes to our home 2 days and my mam takes them another day. Dd tells me she doesn't like the childminder, I think this may be because she has stronger boundaries than I!

All of my free time is with my children, I get the point re separate time, however we should be able to spend time together without meltdowns I feel. When they are not together they miss and look for each other!

Apileofballyhoo thank you, your post has lots of helpful advice I will try to implement.

Your point re rushing in to fix her emotions definitely rings home for me. I have a voice disorder which means I find it difficult to Express authority with my voice due to range control etc and definitely cannot shout. Dd will literally put her hand up to me and say mammy stop talking.

PotolBabu yes she is ruling our life, she is described in our extended family as the boss. Socially she retreats, will cling to me, kick and scream to leave. I tried preschool however she would not stay

I hope this doesn't come across as a bash my dd thread. And love and adore her and want so badly to have her content

• I love, not and

But having her content doesn’t mean giving in to her. I mean if a three year old said ‘stop talking’ to me I would be VERY CROSS. That is just plain rude. There would be immediate consequences. Because she is clearly not content now- children rarely are if they get whatever they want. It’s a dizzying sense of power. She is desperate for you to take back control.

Three year olds love to push boundaries and seen what they can get away with. It is often too easy to give in to your child's demands for an easy life, I have done it myself many times but it really doesn't help the child long term and this behaviour will not be acceptable at preschool or school.

Your DD is probably very confused about what she can and can't do, you say she's emotional she needs to learn how to manage need emotions without you. You need to put boundaries in place so she knows what is acceptable and what is not. For example my DD knows that shouting at mommy is not acceptable.

I would give her warnings, explain clearly to her we don't do X because of X, if you do it again you will have time out.

Watch a few clips on supernanny on youtube op. She gives some great advice.

Reading with interest because my dd (22m) is displaying these behaviours as well

And that your extended family calls her ‘the boss’ is not meant kindly I think. So I would take control now. It must be frightening to be in her place to know that all you have to do is scream and adults will try and placate you. That’s not a nice place to be for a three year old.

Before you implement any strategies I would have a chat with myself(or yourself). You need to get rid of the mum guilt and the desire to please her. You are not her friend, you are her mum. Till you change how you see your relationship our advice will be impossible to implement.

I am sure she’s lovely but if no one is able to see the lovely side of her, then she will be friendless and isolated. I have no doubt you love her. Those of us who impose discipline and rules love our children a lot, and that is partly where our need to ensure boundaries comes from. If I didn’t love them I would let them do what they wanted, run wild, behave as they wanted, why bother.

Willowkoko thanks for the supernanny tip will check that out.

I will definitely plan with my dh how we are going to tackle this together. My dh claims the behaviour is much worse when I am around, that she doesn't behave like that much with him

PotolBabu your post has brought a tear to my eye, I know you are right.