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 would start taking the pushchair and putting her in it.

I have stubborn children too and don't drive so have always walked everywhere, including 30 minutes+ from school/nursery/childminder with no other way to get home pretty much every day since dc1 was 3. The first two have both gone through walk refusal phases, especially dc1 (dc3 not yet 2 so haven't faced it with him yet!)

With stubborn children at this age I find it best to try to avoid a battle of wills and distract instead, you sound like you've got in to a very head to head situation, can you make a game of the walks to break the habit?

I would often make up a story featuring the kids, starting with us setting out from home and then insert exciting phantasy scenario. Then it's "catch up dd you're going to miss the next bit of the story!" Or I'd do we're going on a bear hunt but change the words to e.g we're going on a park hunt. Or sometimes we'd pretend to be a marching band, the kids would find sticks to march with and I'd play a pretend trumpet or something, I mean we must have looked like loons but it kept them moving! If you don't have the energy for that (understandable!) there's always getting the older two to race to the next lamppost / blue parked car/ street sign etc, or count every silver/yellow/blue car they spot on the way, play eye spy or, as a last resort, good old bribery (everyone who walks all the way gets to choose an ice lolly). Sorry if you've tried this sort of thing already!

I have had maybe 3 or 4 occasions (in 4 or so years of daily walks) where I have had to drag a crying child alongside the buggy to get home, not fun but thankfully not frequent and usually because I didn't have the energy to distract in advance. Now they are really just used to it at 7 and 4 and I don't have to make so much effort any more. Sometimes there is a minor whinge so I will just sympathise and move on 'yes it has been a long day, I bet you're tired. Come on let's get there so we can put our feet up / get on the slides / find an ice cream'.

If there is definitely no medical issue (and worth checking if there's any chance of this) I would try distraction as above first from the start of the walk I.e before refusal starts, if still no good maybe offer 5 minutes on your/DH's shoulders to give her legs a rest where possible or a buggy board (I would be encouraging just for a short bit though then back to walking so she gets in the habit of it), and if it's just you so you can't then as a last resort just drag her along with you and ignore the tantrum as best you can. Don't give up and go home if you can possibly avoid it.

Basically make walking consistently more fun than refusing, make sure the end result is the same either way and try not to make too big a deal of it. Easier said than done of course! Good luck!

Thank you for all the feedback. Lots to think about and put into action. I don’t believe there to be a medical problem, but I will book a doctors appt just to be on the safe side. It might actually make her want to walk after being at the doctors about it, if she thinks there is the possibility that we think their is something ‘wrong’ with her legs, iyswim

I would not use doctors in a fake way if you don’t genuinely have concern. It may feed the attention she likes and you could end up with worse issues.

Of course if you have genuine concern then docs is good place to start.

It would be a shame if Santa brought her baby presents if she isn't acting like a 4 year old and walking properly..
Maybe she would have got a new bike /scooter /skates /doll's pram.
She needs to think about repercussions of baby behaviour...
My ds 4 walked 3 miles both today and yesterday without any hassle..

Crikey I can’t believe all the suggestions trying to fix the ‘walking’ issue such as buggy boards, buggies etc. I’m only judging from the OP but there doesn’t seem to any issue with not being physically able to walk at all and is a case of just refusing to to do what they’re told. Maybe because of jealousy towards the baby, attention seeking reasons. So not being able to walk doesn’t seem to be the actual issue

Does she have hypermobile joints? My son used to always complain he couldn’t walk anymore and we thought he was just being lazy but turns out he is hypermobile so his legs really did hurt! If you google there are some tests you can do to check

I’m another saying please check for any physical issue first before implementing any of the tougher suggestions (some of which are frankly mean).

As PPs say the fact she can run off with her friend doesn’t mean she’s not tired/in pain, children will push past tiredness and pain to keep up with their friends. DD has very mild cerebral palsy, couldn’t walk far without complaining hugely until age 6 but would push herself to keep up with friends. She also has always found walking harder than running, I think because it requires more stability. I’m not saying your dd has CP (there would be other symptoms eg falling a lot) but there are other conditions mentioned above which wouldn’t necessarily have other symptoms.

I’d get her checked, and get a buggy board.

Why wouldn't you take her to the doctor to get this checked? She's telling you there's a problem, believe her.

Just because she runs off with her friends, doesn't mean she isn't in pain. It could just mean that she is "powering" through the pain because running with her friends is more fun than just walking along with mum and dad. If she is saying that she is in pain then it's not a "fake" visit to the doctor. Why would a 4 year old, or anyone for that matter, complain about tiredness and pain if there isn't something going on. If you think she's completely making the tiredness and pain up, then there is definitely something quite serious emotionally going on for a 4 year old to put that much effort into making up pain symptoms that result in what sound like significant punishments.
P.S. Joint and muscle pain quite often doesn't have externally visible symptoms like a runny nose or cough...don't discount the possibility just because you haven't "seen" anything.

OMG you allow the child to dictate?? That's exactly why you have these problems. Be the parent and don't ask; tell her what she'll be doing. You've made a huge rod for your own back by allowing this to go on for so long. Take control for goodness sake. When did people become so wet...

I had a similar thing with my extremely stubborn son. Used to make out that his legs wouldn't work. I used to go between coaxing him very gently "come on, you can do it etc", to which he would respond "no I can't" and dig his heels in Even further as he had to prove to me that he was telling the truth and that I wasn't listening (he could keep this up for three days straight!). Other times I would start to get frustrated and say "yes of course you can walk!! You were fine running across the garden earlier". He would then have even more of a point to prove! Tbh, I felt that he backed himself into a corner and found himself unable to then back down, even though he wanted to. He would get so heavily invested in it! I tried distraction, which had some limited success. I also told him gently that I would have to call the Dr, which sometimes worked. Finally, the penny dropped with me that both my 'you can do it' gentle approach and my "of course you can do it. Now walk!" approaches ultimately encouraged him to have to prove a point to me. He felt not believed or listened too. So, instead I would say, "oh, I know, it's so annoying when that happens isn't it! It used to happen to me too etc. Just take your time. Now what flavour ice-cream did you say you wanted again at the park etc". The moment that I achnowledged it but didn't react, meant that he had nothing to prove. It stopped it from escalating! Alternatively you could set out your expectations and agree them before heading out, or simply get her a cheap pushchair/buggy board for whenyougo out as a family. My bet is that she probably wouldn't want to be seen in one, or at least not in a few months. It will pass though. Deep breathes.

My neighbour's daughter was similar to your DD. She ended up being diagnosed with a genetic disease. She'd sounded exactly like your DD.

She's mid twenties now and fabulous, after a lot of treatment during her early years. She had medical professionals stating there was nothing wrong with her, so just keep an eye on your DD.

What are your plans now for tomorrow and Monday? Will they involve walking?!

Its a power battle and currently she's winning. There's a multitude of ways other people have talked about but she needs to understand that you aren't charge and so do you

My youngest used to do this all the time. Usually when his older sibling wasn't with us. I took a weird approach which amazingly worked.

I tried the walking off, but as he was a country kid without much road sense, it wasn't safe as he would leap up and charge towards the traffic.
I started taking a book with me or a magazine. If he went on strike and lay on the ground, I'd tie his reins to the pushchair and park myself either on a wall on or the ground out of the way and read till he got bored with it all. Then he'd acquiesce and would get in the stroller or start walking.
Did again, out came the book - rinse and repeated. Did get a few looks from passers by, but it worked.
When he realised I wasn't going to react at all, it became less "fun" for him. Added to that I'd explain that we had been going to do something that he'd like, and the longer he lay on the ground the less time we'd have for his activity. He'd miss out, and it didn't worry me if he missed out as I could catch up on some reading.
He got it. And stopped.
Maybe worth a try even if it a strange solution.

She sounds like me when I was little. Apparently I would stop and would refuse to walk. Anyway, my mum would walk off and just leave me. I soon followed.

Hope she is just a stubborn madam though and there is nothing serious wrong.

Nobody elses 4 years olds say things like "I'm too tired" or "my legs are tired/hurt/achy" just to get out of doing something they dont want to do? My dd loves to tell me she is too tired just when she knows shes meant to tidy up. Or when I wanted her to come to the shop with me but she wanted to carry on watching scooby doo. I can tell that really her legs are fine or shes not tired cause of her tone of voice.
Obviously I'm not saying that ops child might not be in pain but to say that a 4 year old wouldn't lie about these things just to get their own way is silly. 4 year olds push boundaries, try to work out how to get what they want etc all the time.

We ended up using a buggy until age 6 (and once when 7 when she had an arm operation and we couldn't carry her out to the taxi and she was a mix of tired and overwhelmed). It sounds crazy but I deeply regret the amount of arguments over "will you just walk" and the times days were 'ruined' over the walking issues when she was 3/4. Turns out her legs were a bit weak and she was struggling. Also the pushchair was a bit of a 'safe' zone for her when out and about. The world is a busy noisy crazy place - more when you are so small.
Just use a buggy. A basic umbrella one for when there is the two of you so one can push baby and one push her. Buggy board or double when just one of you. It will so much make you all happier and screw what anyone else thinks.

Shoulder ride or in the buggy, screaming if need be, she needs to do what you want

Buggy board

Only read the op so might be repeating. I would get a GP appointment, just to make sure.

Then I’d crack out the baby reins and tell her sadly that if she won’t walk like a big girl then she’ll have to walk like a baby...I’ve never known a 5 year old not be horrified at the thought of being treated like a baby.
And it’s sad because obviously only big girls get an ice cream / cartoon time later / a visit to X etc.

Failing that...I’d drag her screaming if necessary and punish her with removal of toys/activities every time she does it...and keep praising her walking like a big girl every time she behaves. I would do my utmost to never let her get her way by staying in the car/going home.

The last thing I would do is get a buggy board as that may well suit her and I think it would definitely be a rod for your own back.

I've done similar to @potatoesofdefiance and do little challenges on the way. How many red front doors do we think we will count on the way? Will we guess right? Or how many cats/dogs will we see? It can help them with their colours and counting skills.

Or you could sing nursery rhymes, which will help develop language skills. I used to sing "Grand Old Duke of York" quite a lot.

DD was terrible for not wanting to walk anywhere. I used to have to take her with me to do my horse. Including poo picking acres of field and I just got on with it and let her whinge. Sometimes we'd put her in the wheelbarrow and I used a hippy chick seat strap thing when I had no option.

Last month I took her to London for the first time. She's 5. She walked the best part of 27,000 steps (according to my Fitbit) over two days in blistering heat. She was hot and sweaty but barely seemed to flag. So I'm confident she's capable now and won't take any protests.

I think you just have to persist and keep making the walking activities normal and eventually she might just get used to it.