4 year olds refusal to walk dictating weekends!

[Hannahlouise4026]

My dd is 5 in November.
Every weekend for the last few weeks/months have resulted in either me or my husband having to abandon whatever plan we had as a family to go home with her as she just lies down in the middle of the steeet and refuses to walk. She says her legs hurt (I know this to be a lie to get out of what she wants to do as she runs off with her friends, swims and dances ( all things she enjoys)
We also have a baby and a almost 6 year old ad well.
Examples -
• last weekend on the Sunday we decided to go to a local national trust castle with fantastic play park, and the promise of lunch. She refused to get out of the car, then rolled around in the ground. In the end my husband sat in the car with her while I took my eldest and baby to the park

•weekend before, we decided to walk to a local cafe with a little play area and get an ice lolly. A 10/15 min walk. We gave her option of using scooter if She wanted. As soon as we got to the end of our street she sat down and refused to move, begging husband to carry her.

•on Thursday we went swimming just myself and baby brother, pool is 2 minutes walk from our front door (literally can see our door from it!) and on the way back she lay on the ground and refused to walk, half an hour later, me standing beside her the whole time, she saw her friend and then ran off with her.

•today she was playing outside with her friends and as it’s a lovely day, we thought we’d take a walk to local park (10/15 min walk) got yo the end of our street and again the same thing happened. I ended up literally having to drag her back while pushing the pram. She’s now rolling around the floor, which will last for ages.

I’ve said she has to spend the next two days indoor, and no iPad/tv time. I’m not sure what other reasonable thing to suggest to stop this happening.

It’s ruining any family thing we do, my husband has one day off a week and we fee we can’t do anything as her refusal to walk/go anywhere ruins it for all of us.

She is smart, friendly, generally well behaved at other times, no developmental/behavioural concerns otherwise.

Please help as we are at the end of our tether.

I’d do the going home to bed threat. It works with mine!
‘Oh, you’re too tired to walk/eat/go to the beach? You had better go straight to bed then dd!’
It’s amazing how quickly that gets her going!

If she runs off with friends etc then she's clearly not physically in pain etc & I'm assuming any jealousy/hurt feelings related to new baby would be obvious in other ways, so ruling both of those things out, it seems like she's just trying it on & wanting her own way. And THAT you can't allow! She's 5 - you're in charge. End of.

You just need to decide with your hubby what discipline approach you're going to take & then 100% consistently stick to it - both of you & other family members - wherever you are, whatever you're doing - even if you feel embarrassed in public. Reward the good & consequence the unacceptable. Be clear with what you expect (visual charts etc if need be) & VERY firm with consequences. Reward your older child so that she can see what she's missing. Her consequences MUST be something she won't like - even if it means that you & hubby have to temporarily take a hit & split up with family activities, which will be shit for a while, but as soon as she gets the message, it should sort everything for the future. Ignore the inevitable tantrums & just know you're doing it for her own good & not doing her any lasting damage!!

Good luck!!

If my 4 year old does this (rare) then id probably say ok bye and just walk off and he’d pick himself up and follow after a bit of a strop.

or “ok time to go home and to bed as you’re too tired” That normally does the trick. I guess the best thing to do is follow through with the threat though. Not to go home and watch tv or whatever she wants to do, literally home to bed.

What do you say to her when she refuses? My parents would have been furious with me for ruining everyone else's day out and that would have been enough to get me moving (with me having a tantrum as well and them ignoring it). It may well be she is feeling like she is no longer the baby but she is exerting control over you including your oldest child who must be fed up with it all as well.

Agree with GogglesBoggles.
Also you can`t allow a child to dictate to you.
She will be a bloody teenage nightmare at this rate.

Foot down and just walk away, they soon catch you up.

DS is 5, hates walking and does what the OP has described (well, sitting down on the floor or just refusing to walk rather than lying down). Leaving him behind doesn't work - tried that many times.

What I do is to physically pick him up and move him - no attention. I explain why we need to go to x or do yz; give him a warning. Then I go to him without talking or making eye contact, lift him and walk. He hates this and asks to be put down. I ask "are you going to walk nicely?" If he says yes I put him down; he usually plays ball after that.

This is incredibly annoying for the rest of us - we are all physically active and love long treks, particularly DD who is 4 years older.

In our case I think it's partly that DS is a bit lazy and that he genuinely dislikes walking. There must be an element of tiredness as well as this happens a lot after school. So there is no new baby - however in your shoes OP I would explore that avenue first.

You stood there for a whole 30 minutes while she lay in the street? Blimey she really has you where she wants you hasn't she!! Sorry but I would have dragged her home if needed be. Did you not at least try threatening to leave her there and starting to walk away trick?

Yoink up and keep going I've been known to drag my youngest around the supermarket stop giving her attention for it put her at the pool or at the park in a safe place and bugger off and play with the other two she will come around, my ten year old tries this and I walk away with his brother he is walking behind shouting HELLO I MEAN IT IM GOING TO STAY HERE while still following

I don't think this sounds like routine playing up, one way or another she is telling you something even though it is not obvious. My children could always run, especially race, when they definitely 'couldn't' walk. As hard as it is can you try a totally indifferent response to take the power aspect out of it? I might put on my concerned voice and agree they can't whilst moving a short distance away and engaging in something else. Honestly, I'm sure this will come back to bite me but sincerely agreeing with complete unreasonableness often takes the wind out of the sails. Importantly, never mention it afterwards. There may be something else going on, children are weird with health issues - just because they can be distracted doesn't mean there isn't a problem.

Yep saying I will leave him behind doesn't work with my 5 year old either. He knows that won't happen and that I will be just around whatever the nearest corner/obstacle is watching him. I have to pick him up and move him if he wont go somewhere and he is refusing. However he does genuinely prefer to be at home playing, so I make sure we have days at home too.

When he won't eat his dinner I say "ok, I'll put it in the bin then

This made me laugh... my kids are more than happy for their dinner to be binned and have nothing till breakfast time...

She is getting to dictate far too much.

Walk off from her sometimes, providing she isn't somewhere where she could be in danger. If she is then just drag her along whether she likes it or not, plonk her at the side to continue tantrumming and then completely ignore her while the others have fun. I mean COMPLETELY ignore her. I bet that she eventually stops and sidles over.

It will reduce massively when she realises that the energy she is expending is not going to get her the reaction she wants.

Tell her what the family is doing. Tell her that it isn't up for discussion. Take her along whatever strops she throws along the way. Leave her to sit out and strop to herself.

Stop punishing the rest of the family and letting a four year old dictate.

My DD2 could be a bit like this when she was that age. It was not pleasant. I never let her dictate though. If I said we were doing something then we did it, whether she liked it or not. If stropped I left her to stew in her own juice (within line of sight, of course) and we got on with our planned activities whatever she did. Nearly always she climbed down very quickly and took part. Until then she was ignored.

More than likely it’s jealousy or even as per child above laziness but I would keep an eye on it anyway

Just buy a buggy board/buggy board seat!
You are creating a problem where there does not need to be one.

Thanks for all the replies
Baby is 5 months old. He is generally an easy going, undemanding little one, happy to sit in his buggy and watch what’s going on.

I took her swimming earlier myself, and asked if she wanted to go along or take little brother and she asked to take him too. So she is having one on one time, when she wants too

We’ve tried walking off but she doesn’t budge, in fact when we were on holiday and she did it, we walked about 20 meters in front and a van pulled over beside her asking if she was ok...my husband ran over and they said they were going to call the police as they though she was lost 😓

@MythicalBiologicalFennel my ds is more often than not waiting for a better offer or looking for lots of attention convincing him to eat (and we used to do it too). A healthy child won't starve themselves so I've just decided I'm taking all stress out of the matter.

I wouldn't do the walking off thing, simply because you'll still have to stop and wait for her to move, which means your other children still waste time pandering to her.

Can she fit in the pram you use for the baby? If so, I'd take a baby carrier just in case and be prepared to put her in it. If not, take a second cheap fold up pram (when your DH is with you) so that she can go in that if necessary. Then, as soon as she starts acting up put her straight in andd continue with some of the other ideas in the thread. She doesn't get to run around the park because she is too tired, and straight to bed at home for the same reason. And have a nice time with the six year old and baby, else they'll start to resent her having to be pandered to all the time.

Oh, and I did use the home and to bed approach too if needed. The threat of that was usually enough. I'd followed through with it before, so she knew it would happen if she continued to push her luck.

Buggy board?

I do think you should get her checked out though. There are invisible issues that could be making walking exhausting or painful for her.

Either wait her out (hard)
or
Take her home and put her to bed. Every single time.

No TV, no electronics, no books. She's tired and needs to sleep.

She gets up for her lunch or dinner and then straight back.

Play her at her own game.

2 things this makes me think.

1. Put her into a buggy, and carry on with the day. If you don't have a double buy a cheap umbrella fold single, then you can carry it when not neede and it doesn't matter if it falls apart due to heaviness of child. I would not use this as a punishment as such or "make her friends see her", just make it a matter of fact thing "Oh your legs are tired poor DD, in the buggy you go then, got to get on".

1. GP appointment to get legs examined just in case there is a real pain that she's ignoring when there's something better she wants to do. DS1 used to get growing pains at about that age.

Have you tried totally overreacting and pretending you're really concerned about the "injury"? I used to do this with DS and I'd adopt a very serious expression and say "I think... we're going to have to chop it off" which would send him into peals of laughter and he'd get over whatever it was, attention bid satisfied, and get on with his day. Obviously you need a very unanxious child for this to work :o

I can remember planting my feet at the age of 3, on the way home from the shops for lunch. We lived nearly 200 yds down a road off the main road.

I was overcome by a sense of righteous indignation when my dm told me that I was too big to be carried at she set off home. I picked myself up and ran after her.

However, if you've tried that and it doesn't work would it be worth having a word with the health visitor, not to make a big deal out of it, but just in case she has some ideas.

Put her in a buggy or get a buggy board.

My dd was like this when she was younger and many a walk was abandoned because she wouldn't walk any further.

She's now late teens and it turns out she has hyper mobility, and does get extreme pain in her joints when she walks far. This doesn't stop her from doing gymnastics and dance and cheerleading, but walking distances causes pain that will also extend to night time and cause her not to sleep.

She still little still. What about a buggy board she can hop on and off from?