Sat here crying about DD’s behaviour

[Cantfeelmuchthesedays]

I can’t take much more of it.
She woke up at 6 am, shouting she wanted to go downstairs, kicking me in my back.
Asking me to help her to do things and then getting angry as I’m doing it wrong. Constantly reacting and shouting and screaming. Following the dog around annoying her.
She’s not very pleasant anymore, at all and it’s causing huge problems between Dh and I, he’s stressed at work then comes home to shouting and screaming and taking ages at bedtime to sleep etc. Weekends are hell also.
We don’t have much patience anymore and I’m starting to dread waking up, my only peace is when I’m asleep.
I just don’t know what to do and if any of this is normal and a phase and will pass or something else. Taking her out is a nightmare, spending the day at home for 12 hours is worse.
As awful as it sounds, I miss my old life so very much, I don’t enjoy motherhood anymore and don’t know what happened to my lovely girl, I don’t know if we’re to blame or if it’s normal and we’re not emotionally strong enough.
Will this just be our lives now

We went through this at the same age. I think it’s an age and phase thing, topped with a busy life, illness and lack of sleep it is so hard. I’m happy to tell you it didn’t last long, although it felt like it at the time. Now at school and she is pure sunshine, with plenty of spirit, most of the time. I would try for an earlier bedtime, always found mine would take longer to get to sleep the later bedtime was and her wake up time never changed.

Don’t hate your life or motherhood. This won’t last forever. She’s obviously going through a stage in life, trying to express her feelings. Lashing out maybe because she probably feels unheard.

there isn’t anything wrong with getting up at 6am. If that’s her time, so be it. Maybe get up 15 minutes before her, prepare yourself mentally for
the day ahead. If she’s coming in your room at 6am, demanding, you’re half asleep still, not feeling like getting up in an instant, she’s ready and rearing to go, so getting up they 15 minutes before you DD would be best. You can have a wash, freshen up to help you wake up, make a brew, get dressed, start the day better.

as for following the dog round, your DD sounds bored or fed up. She’s annoying the dog cause she’s most likely needing something to do, some activities. Not anything screen time related for
her, as that’s unhealthy. Maybe if you’ve a PC and a printer, print off some activities she can do.

Get some glue, loads of recycling, make a robot together or something out of the empty boxes, stimulate her through crafting, as it’s calming and therapeutic. Painting, messy play is always good. Papier-mâché is another.

the tantrums must be stemmed from somewhere, she’s probably feeling frustrated and that will escalate if she’s bored or fed up.

a nice relaxing bath, warm milk, before bedtime can calm a child down. Play some soft nursery rhymes while she settles down before bed. Make
bed time relaxing, no screens, no sweets. Maybe a nice story, she can talk to you about, or ask her to play spot the picture. It don’t always have to be about reading.

weekends, make sure she’s out burning energy, the park to run about, shout scream at the park, feed the ducks, or go and pick up leaves and bring them home for leaf rubbings. There’s so much you can do to distract a child. The park is a great way to burn off her steam, make her less hyper. Going for a nice walk somewhere is good. Take a ball and a little picnic. It’s winter but a little snack and a walk, is good for both you and your DD.

If she’s annoying the dog, give the dog some
space and remind DD she can’t annoy him or he’ll be upset. Get her to draw a picture of the dog and say she can give it to the dog as a gift, just so she gets distracted.

i always find arts and crafts calm my two girls. Or reading a book, a warm bath with toys, some music or just a lovely cuddle and a chat together.

good luck

I’m going to say this and it’s going to sound terrible. She’s just figuring out who she is in this world, she needs to learn that she’s not the boss in your house. It’ll be a phase as long as that’s all you let it be. Tough love goes a long way in these sort of situations. If she won’t stay away from the dog then put the dog outside and lock the door, take away the key for a bit. If she won’t get dressed then dress her, if she won’t get in the car, put her in the car. If she screams she screams. Just go about your business. She’ll come around and want your attention sooner or later and you show her that when she’s good she’ll get lots of attention . I found rewarding good behaviour works better than acknowledging bad behaviour. It’s hard, but try not to be sad. Things will get better as time goes on. Make sure your hubby knows how your feeling and you can support each other. I hope it gets better soon. Xx

Agree with @mikado1 - this is why you need to lay off asking direct questions about preschool. She thinks you want to hear certain answers and is bottling feelings.

I think so, mathsanxiety, and I'm also imagining the preschool praising her for being a big girl and not making a fuss..

Please don't bribe her to push down the feelings with star charts OP, uncomfortable as it is for you, it's really important the feelings are out rather than in and acknowledged by you. This is how emotional intelligence is born.

I found parenting young children the hardest job ever, and I had one laid back, easy going child and one who cried, screamed, grizzled constantly. It really felt like nothing I did was good enough. Things did improve though.
Have a look at Happy Kids by Cathy Glass, it might help.

Our 5dd is the same. Always pushing boundaries and can get quite aggressive.
what has worked (so far) is 3 jars, one filled with Lego and the other two are her ‘good’ and ‘bad’ jar (Belle and Gaston, her choice). When she does anything remotely good; uses manners, does what she’s asked etc she gets one in the Belle jar. If she is particularly naughty Belle has to give a Lego to Gaston and she has to earn it back. If Gaston is empty at the end of the week she can pick a small treat, when Belle gets full she gets a bigger treat. Hope that makes sense and good luck!

mikado1 sounds so great on this thread.
I'm in a totally different situation (parenting teenagers) but it's still a very useful reminder.
I'm reading a book about listening (it's about how people think really well for themselves when someone listens to them attentively without interrupting), and I guess this is kind of the same, only with a young child it's all coming out in other ways. I too find that idea of a child having to 'be brave' (i.e. bottle up their feelings) sad - even though it's completely normal in uk culture I think.

Just to clarify - OP I wasn't suggesting that you were getting your dd to bottle up her feelings at all! I was thinking more of the nursery mentioned where a child would get a jelly for not making a fuss.
OP - sounds like a v difficult situation and you have lots of sympathy (but unfortunately no words of wisdom) from me.

Thank you for all the kind advice, it means a lot 💜

Aw thanks badger2005 ♥ That's really kind of you to say. I am really commited to this kind of parenting - but neither me nor my DC are perfect either, important disclaimer!

You're welcome OP ☺

How I react and what I do is a part of how they behave - and it is something that it within my power to control

There are some fantastic posts on this thread; this is just one of them which particularly caught my eye.

Agree with PP who say that you're now tiptoeing around your DD. Asking 'just to be interested' questions is you willing her to give you a "nice" reply. Instead, she's reasonably enough telling you to go away and let her enjoy her programme. As you might do if you were trying to watch something in the evening and she came down and started talking to you.

I would put a stop to her coming into your bed.

Nobody on here can say whether or not your DD might have additional needs. I have a child with additional needs, and it was clear well before she was four. Some children are just harder work than others, and will try your patience more than others.

I think you do have to accept that your behaviour towards her might play a role in the dynamic which has developed. Try to imagine you had more than one child. Would you be pussyfooting around one child if you had several of them?

I would have no truck at all with things like her running round the car instead of getting in. I couldn't have physically wrestled a 4 yr old into the car seat, so I'd have counted to five and then cancelled whatever it was we were doing. If it was somewhere she didn't want to go anyway, I'd then cancel whatever she did want to do, on the grounds that you were unable to (eg) go to Tesco earlier because she was messing around, so you will have to go now instead. I also often used the 'waiting' technique mentioned by PP. I used to sit and read while waiting for children to be a PITA about putting shoes etc on. They got bored quite quickly if they didn't have an audience.

Also agree with PP that she could well be bottling up frustrations about pre-school. This will become easier as she gets older. Though I had one who would bottle everything up at school and then have an almighty blow-out at home until about 13. It isn't uncommon.

The main thing I always used to think when my DC's behaviour was upsetting me was not "why are they like this?", but "what could I be doing differently?"

I promise you this is perfectly normal. What you say, how you feel, I have been there with my oldest daughter, a lot of her behaviour was down to anxiety, early childhood anxiety is a thing so it could be this. It will pass, once my daughter when you school it stopped so much of that. Don’t get me wrong weve just had an awful half term with her being a madam and her 3 year old sister being the same but let me tell you this is normal. Try get a babysitter and get some time for you and also you and you it hubby.

Just want to echo @mikado1 on some suggestions here. Coercing children to bottle up their emotions with reward charts is really bad for their emotional development. It also only creates external motivation to ‘behave’ rather than any intrinsic motivations or true understanding.

Same with turning your back on them or time out. This is the opposite to what they need - connection and acceptance of their feelings (different to acceptance of their behaviour - they still need firm boundaries)

@Cantfeelmuchthesedays I’m afraid I don’t have any great advice - we have a pretty sensitive/angry/anxious DD (8) and I am sure I’ve been getting it all wrong since day 1 (!) but we rub along together with lots of love amidst the blow-ups. I just wanted to send you my best as I was amazed by some of the more critical replies - you sound like a lovely parent, keep up the good work!

Children are allowed to have feelings, and show anger / frustration. I can’t believe people are rushing to diagnosis your child asd / adhd after a month of such behaviour! I have two asd and adhd boys, and the mountain of evidence that was required from every setting was a joke!

She’s just being a 4 year old, a difficult one granted! When my kids first started pre school they were tired, cranky, confused…. It did soon settle down. I’d put her in full time, the half days can be really unsettling.

Honestly this could have been me. Between ages of 3 and 9 daughter was very very difficult just like you are experiencing. 2 things really helped me. Going on a parenting course run by the council see if your area runs them it was the incredible years programme (you can get a book) and triple p. Second thing getting her diagnosed as autistic. Read up on it. Mine had pda traits so wants to control everything. Learning what stressed her out and giving her a little bit of control, not sweating the small stuff, tons of praise for good behaviour and playing with her for ten mins minimum every day really helped.we have different challenges now she is older..waiting for ADHD assessment. but definitely you are not being unreasonable. Parenting is exhausting and kids dont come with manual. Though the incredible years is a great place to start
Please also look after yourself get some respite. You can't fill from an empty cup 🤗

We had this but started at around 3 lasted several months before getting better and returning temporarily after a big family holiday. Having tried all of the techniques I could find I watched old episodes of Super Nanny to try and highlight where I might have been going wrong and for techniques to use. The really soft emotionally listening didn’t seem to work but rather led my child to run rings around me. Super nanny is very strict with some techniques that people frown upon but these worked for us. Also we used a sticker chart with did help but super nanny was the extra mile we needed. I used to cry thinking I was a terrible mummy but we are just trying our best. :)

I feel like I could have written this myself about my 2yo! This sounds so tough OP. I find that reading parenting books (I really rate Toddler Taming) and changing up my approach often helps. Consistentcy is key. It it met with heavy resistance at first but then they eventually get it! Some kids really struggle with half terms as well because it's a change in routine. Try and get breaks from the kids wherever you can. Could you find a babysitter and go out with your husband, feel like yourself for a bit? Or take it in turns to have lie-in so you get a good snooze? I hope you find something that works for you and your DD settles. You're doing a great job. Hang in there, super mum.

Hi OP, sounds really tough hope you’re ok. Mine developed blinking and tic when watching tv (at age 3) and turned out they needed glasses…it disappeared after that. Might be worth getting her eyesight checked out, I rang the heath visitor and they arranged a test at the local clinic

how old is she
honestly sounds as though you should have been disciplining her a log time ago. why listen to her demands re getting out of bed? ignore her
you're shooting yourself in the foot by complaining yet still pandering her. ignore her and grow a back bone

@TheOtherWoman2 4, she’s always been disciplined…wasn’t like this before

If you remember that all behaviour is a form of communication - what's going on for her that she's struggling with? Is there something that's changed in routine? Has something happened at pre-school that she can't articulate to you and its coming out as behaviour?

My son is autistic - my first thought from your post was it sounds like she may be displaying some traits but without knowing more its a bit of a judgement.

Whatever it is it'll pass. Completely understand how you feel though.

Do you have an older daughter you were having difficulties with?

@jenobi1 Which traits would you say? I’m wondering that also..I’m just surprised the intensity of those traits can happen fairly rapidly?