My 4 year old is driving me insane

[upthewallie]

Maybe I'm expecting too much but she's just such hard work.

Every time we go to do something fun, she never wants to leave. She's so defiant.

Everything is ' NO '.

No matter what I try to do, she just doesn't do as she's told.

Maybe I'm expecting too much from her ?

For example today we went to soft play and when it was time to leave, I tried to distract immediately with ' hey susie let's go to the toy shop '. I genuinely was going to take her there and she was like ' NO ' so I said, we do need to go now though. So I went over to her with her shoes in my hand and she was sticking her tongue out at me and laughing at me going ' da da da da da ' and blowing at me. So I said, put your shoes on. She said no. Then I said ok I can see you're having trouble listening right now, so I'm going to help you. She was kicking me whilst I was trying to put her shoes on and sticking her tongue out.

Anyway I managed to get her out. I told her it wasn't acceptable and therefore we were not going to the toy shop because she didn't listen and she kicked me etc.

Later on I asked her about it and asked her why she didn't listen and kicked me when we needed to leave and she said she was just playing. I explained sometimes we can't just play and it's not nice to kick etc.

Anyway it's like this a lot when we need to leave places and I'm sick and tired of it.

Hair drying and brushing can be a challenge as well sometimes. It's very frustrating and nothing I do helps. Any advice ?

Teachers can't undo four and a half years of permissive parenting, they just have to deal with the disruption while the parent and child are upset that nobody wants to play with the child.

@Duechristmas harsh. Kids want to play with my DD. She has lots of friends.

It's a bit early to tell, but she may have adhd. This is typical - flashes of intense emotion which are outside her control. Also the inability to cope with sudden instructions if they don't align with what she wants to do. Plus a few other things you've said.

For disclosure me and my dc have adhd.

Telling off, shouting at or getting dictatorial with my children has NEVER worked. All it does is escalate. It doesn't work with me either - if someone demands i do something, I'll do the opposite.

Preparing them for what's happening next with a countdown, explaining exactly what is going to happen, keeping calm, giving only 2 choices at a time, as above the behaviour charts can work, turning things into a game (who can put their shoes on faster, you or me? Use a stopwatch and keep a record, see if she can beat the previous days time) leaving absolutely loads of time to do everything to avoid myself getting stressed and avoiding too many overstimulating activities in a row all help here.

Just wanted to ask what you would do when the parents have made plans and don’t want to stay home? We are not a stay at home and chill family and I won’t ruin our plans because someone can behave well. Especially when we have plans with friends because that’s then letting them down?
I understand kids needs to learn to be bored and they need time to relax and I get that but what if that’s just not possible. We both work full time, kids have hobbies they have committed to. We have a busy social life and see lots of our friends and family at the weekend. If my child was naughty and didn’t do as I asked I would never cancel plans, stay home and not take them to do something fun because then I’d spoiling it for myself, the rest of our family and people we had made plans with.
I do often see though that children of parents that do nothing with them, never take them somewhere fun at the weekend are actually much better behaved, in public at least. Is this the kind of parent you have to be to get good behaviour because if so, I’d rather my child be naughty 😂 sounds like an incredibly boring life to me.
Also, just a thought, are the kids who stay at home more and don’t get many treats and days out better behaved because they are at home with no demands put on them? If they are at home all day doing as they please then surely they don’t refuse to do anything because they haven’t been asked in the first place?
Interested to hear thoughts on this.

I had a 4 year old just like this, repeat it will pass she’s pushing boundaries with you because you are safe to do that!
They become much more stubborn and determined at this age just give plenty of count downs if you need to go and praise the “ big girl” behaviour,
It’s a slog I know when you feel like you’re being bullied by a 4 year old but you sound a lovely mum.
My daughter is still determined but has a fantastic career it’s good when they are studying or working hard for something not so great on us at 4!
But it will get easier remind her that’s not what big girls do and praise the good.

Eldest is 44 youngest 21 but 18 year old acquired lol. Six in total. The eldest I wasn't financially able to take them away places we did have park visits and caravan holidays. Youngest have been everywhere! USA, Dubai, cruises. Activities several times a week as I wanted them to have the best I could give them. I don't think the activity matters spending time together is the important thing. I read to the youngest two every night until they were about 14 and 11 as we really enjoyed it. 21 year old is ASD so got a lot from this.
I wouldn't change plans for a badly behaved child but I think you have to head it off before it escalates. All of my children knew the 'do it' tone. And if in public the look was enough...we had lots of fun but they knew if their behaviour was unacceptable they'd be going home. You only need to do that once!
I do think there are more stimulating activities now which are not always a good thing. Sometimes a child needs to be bored and find their own fun not be entertained 24/7
Also my grandson is 9. Daughter has removed all electronics other than an hour on a weekend. His behaviour was shocking! He's a different boy, creative and happy.
Not implying any of this is you.. Just saying what I've seen.

Defiant ir mind if her own ? Avoid confrontation issues, give her we will be leaving in 10 mns,5 mins , 2mins type messsages. Is she lonely ? Use praise for the good stuff and use distraction tactics for the rest.

No they probably don’t.

Society as a whole has a poor understanding of children, emotions and regulation. Even nursery teachers. There’s so many factors - temperament, tiredness, co-regulation (with parent - how is your own nervous system doing?) diet, screen time and of course neurodiversity. Probably the biggest one though is validation - are their feelings accepted or dismissed/minimised.

As a society we are terrified of emotions. Hence why there’s so many people talking about tantrums as if they’re the worst thing ever. Yeah they’re not enjoyable, but if you allow your child those feelings they will learn to embrace their feelings and process them and thus how to self-regulate.

Things like reward charts and other forms of coercion to tame big feelings train children that their emotions are unacceptable. They then try to repress their feelings rather than feel them, and end up disregulated. Same with the majority of adults in our society, which is why almost everyone would benefit from therapy.

What? Children respond to people as they are treated by them, teachers included. Permissive parenting is a tredy phrase. What the heck does it really mean.

My kids have adhd so i have to parent them differently.

I know my dc won't cope with days out every weekend and every day of the holidays, so i don't make plans that are incompatible with their disability. They're not naughty. They're just different to your kids.

If we do have to go somewhere it involves a lot of talking and planning. Otherwise yes, their method of communication at such a young age was behaviour - they didn't have the vocabulary to express why they felt anxious or unable to do things - I'm sure other parents were tutting at me and telling me to just get on with it and not tolerate "bad behaviour". Now they're older, and we are diagnosed, it's easier to see why they struggled with things that neurotypical children can do.

I mentioned it because i feel op's child is similar to mine.

Same here

My child had adhd and pda so I do understand but I feel as though I cannot change the world and our lives because of this. Somedays we make plans and the day is ruined but we can’t just stop doing things. What about my other children or the people we have committed to such as team sports?
should we not work because they don’t like going from school to childcare?
I know it’s complex and I’m dealing with an ongoing battle myself but I will never stop making plans and going places because of this..

I explained sometimes we can't just play and it's not nice to kick etc.

You need to be a lot tougher than that. Can't believe you let her kick you and calmly asked her about it later on.

I don't want to suggest she has PDA because there's not enough information and lots of 4 year olds are really tricky, but because timers, warnings, rewards, telling off etc hasn't worked it might be worth trying some strategies for children with PDA to see if they work any better. E.g. indirect requests, collaboration, negotiation

So you might say "our session is finishing now, would you like some help with your shoes?" Or "are you ready to go to the toyshop now or do you need 10 more minutes?"

www.pdasociety.org.uk/life-with-pda-menu/family-life-intro/helpful-approaches-children/ www.pdasociety.org.uk/life-with-pda-menu/family-life-intro/helpful-approaches-children/]]]]

Another thing you might find works is praising the positive. This used to work well for my eldest who was also really difficult and loved winding me up. She doesn't have PDA and became much easier from about age 8 or 9 but she is waiting for an autism assessment.

Good for you. I'm not really sure why you've taken away from my post that I've stopped doing anything with my children.

I do still do things, we go places, we make plans. I just do it with my child's needs in mind and within what they can cope with. What will they gain from me trying to pretend as if they're NT?

Anyway, i don't want to derail the thread so I'll leave it there.

Instead we saying we need to go now give her a countdown starting at 10 minutes and remind her every 2 mins nearly time now. When she's good reward when she isn't don't reward that by giving in etc there needs to be a clear difference

I do that, hasn't made much difference.

Today I tried again and gave her a warning, then I said - when the alarm goes off- we need to go.

She said ok mummy. We talked about it on the way to soft play too, just explained my expectations again and she agreed she was going to listen and not make a fuss etc.

So anyway back to what happened. I reminded her again that we had discussed it and I want her to just put her shoes on and leave when the alarm goes off ( I had given a 5 minute warning too ) then 5 minutes until the alarm.

Alarm goes off, she shoots back into the soft play ' ba ba ba ba ba ba ' sticks her tongue out.

I say something like, i will ask you once more to come out and if you don't - I'll get you.

She steps out to start playing hide and seek though, not to listen to me. So I just grab her and get her shoes and put them on her and leave. She at that point said ' ok mummy '.

I explained again that it's unacceptable for me to have to go and grab her like that. She said sorry. We left etc

Then we went to the supermarket and she wanted a toy, I asked her whether she thinks she was behaved well when we left the soft play and she said no. I said, no toy then. She was upset and complained.

Then at the till, she was inside the trolley and kept pushing herself off the side of the till, into the middle of shoppers trying to walk past. I told her to stop and to stay near the till. She carried on. So I moved the trolley to the other side of the isle. She continued sitting there going ' ba ba ba ba ba ' throughout this exchange. People saw and were looking pretty shocked at how rude she was. I told her it's unacceptable and that she can't have the her usual treat after dinner today.

She cried for a while and then said sorry.

Anyway. At no point today did I lose my shit! So at least there's that.

Oh I also explained to her why doing the ' ba ba ba ba ba ' 'no ' I'm not doing that ! ' thing was not on.

I said, you know when you ask mummy for milk ? Would you like it if I said ' no ' ran off and did ' ba ba ba ba ba ' at you? And she said ' no ', I then asked, how would you feel if mummy did that to you ? And she said ' really sad '. I then explained that I also feel really sad when she does that to me and she then said ' sorry '.

No idea if that helped her understand anything.

To be honest, I don't think any of this makes any difference. She just needs to grow out of it. I'll keep trying though.

Hi there! Nursery nurse here, based in preschool (3 to 5s). Hoping to help a little! Fingers crossed 🤞🏻

I haven't read all of the replies (i currently have my 1yo climbing all over me), so apologies if this has been said. But one thing I sawsomeone reply is giving her the heads up. this is always a good shout. "Today we are going to have breakfast, go to the shops, have lunch, then soft play".

I also find sand timers helpful sometimes. 5 min or 10 min timers for visual warning of how long until something is finished. "Ok susie, i know youre having fun, and youre playing so lovely, but we need to go for lunch soon. Lets put the timer on. When it finishes, its time to tidy up and start lunch". Or using a time for tidy up time. "Right suspected. It's tidy up time. If we can beat the timer today, we can add another sticker to our chart. Remember, when we get 10 stickers, we can choose a treat!". Great for visual, great for getting her to count, adding in simple praise for simple tasks that are easily completed.

I also find that children love having a 'job'. They are responsible for something. E.g. when shopping, helping to find and fill the trolley with certain items. They could help you 'write' a list. They could draw things like milk bananas etc. Other things that could help if whatever you are saying, you follow through with (which sounds like you do anyways). "Susie, we got to go soon, it'll be time for tea ehen we get back. 3 more slides then we need to go. Don't you remember you were going to set up the dinner table, or help stir the saucepan, or set the oven timer" etc etc?

Maybe she's got adhd

Ohhh bless you and I feel you. I have a 2 year old going through 'terrible twos' terribly. Doesn't want to go when needed to go home, doesn't want to sleep in the evening. If he can't do what he wants, he screams. Those screams started like 2 weeks back. (he turned two 3 months back) few days back we came for holidays to my parents. Had to spend a night on the airport and he was so good at the beginning, but as he became exhausted in the early morning he started crying and screaming and had to carry him to the gates, pushing buggy with 2 bags in the other hand. Screamed at gates, everyone was looking at me. They helped me to get to the bus, as we had remote stand. He stopped. On the a/c he fell asleep immediately and slept till landing. But it was 2hrs only, so not long enough. When woke him up, he didn't want to go off the aircraft. Didn't want to wear a jacket or put his shoes on, even biscuit didn't help. Cabin crew carried my stuff down the stairs and airport workers helped me the rest of the way, through thr border to baggage hall, as I had to carry him. It was an absolute nightmare. And now every day he has a 10 min tantrum and definitely one before going to sleep. What should I do?
So sorry momma, I don't have any advice for you, need help to sort out mine. But wish you this gets over soon.

Sounds like my child at that age. He’s 6 now and has grown out of it.

How would you know that. I have a 2 year old with same problems. GP said nothing to worry. When shall I worry?

We have boys and at 4 they were highly strung but would never be rude or kick out. They just liked to run about in the park whether rain or shine, wrestle and loved the play area. I used to tell them that they had 15 minutes in the play area and I would tell them when they had five minutes left etc. helped them when it came to saying we are leaving because they had their countdown. Preparing them beforehand is always worth it as if they didn’t do as they were asked, the time would be reduced on the next visit. This worked really well for us and getting them used to set boundaries.

Really didn’t mean to offend in anyway. We all patent differently and we all have different personalities. I was just questioning how the whole stopping treats and days out works when the parents don’t want to do that or can’t do that.

my adhd child is very difficult at times and can also be rude and I tell them they can feel overwhelmed and angry and frustrated and confused and all the other feelings that come with neurodivergence and I’ll listen and help but I won’t tolerate rudeness or violence. I’m trying to set them up for the real world where absolutely no one gives a shit if they’re neurodivergent or not and exceptions will not be made because of that. I’m probably getting it massively wrong, I really don’t know, I just want my child to understand himself and learn how to manage his behaviour in a neurotypical focused society.