To be absolutely depressed by parenting

[checktheoil]

I don’t know if it’s just me. It often feels like it but I am absolutely depressed by parenting mine. It feels like there’s nothing good; every day longing for them to go to bed and then the same shitshow starts again the next day!

Your own 2 children are not too much for one person!

Thanks. Honestly, things aren’t great. I’ve been struggling a lot over the past few weeks and had a lot of dark and intrusive thoughts about my children, feeling like I hate them which I don’t but it’s a sign of how depleted I am.

Have you tried SSRIs? Not because there’s anything wrong with you, because truly I think anyone would be depressed with chronic sleep exhaustion and being screamed at 24/7. But because they blunt the sharp bits and help with the anger/panic emotions.

I may have to. I’m low because I feel like I’m doing a really awful job. My youngest keeps trying to drag me around; feel like a dog on a lead. Eldest silly, defiant and winds up the younger one. Makes an incredible mess. I was in the shower this morning and he was transporting toys, cushions and blankets from his room downstairs and just ignoring me shouting at him to stop.

Give them a go, they’ve helped me - I don’t snap in the same way I used to, I’m a bit calmer now and not feeling so ‘jagged’. I’m on 20mg fluoxetine - low dose.

Today we’ve had constant fighting (over toys. One will snatch from the other, the other will hit, then the snatcher will swipe all the toys over to ruin the whole game). DS just wants constant attention in a way that’s incredibly suffocating - he climbs on me relentlessly, not for a cuddle but just to do it. He threw his whole plate of untouched dinner on the floor then had a huge tantrum. Every meal time, ever car journey, every bed time is just fraught with stress.

I keep repeating to DH that once my youngest is 18 everyone can just sort themselves out and I won’t be providing the very high level of support everyone on here seems to give to their adult kids. I need to know there will be a time when I don’t exist simply to serve other people.

We had quite a long car journey yesterday because DHs work has opened a new site and they were having a family fun event. Both were awful for the first part of the journey; kicking one another and leaning across then screaming when the other touched them. We did manage to settle them eventually and ds was fine at the event but dd wasn’t … she does this thing where she takes me by the hand and tries to drag me around and she was trying to drag me into the car park and I’m doing my best gentle parenting but she’s pulling me one way and if I pull her the other I risk her flying backwards and if I pick her up she has a huge embarrassing tantrum. Just one of (many) situations where I feel so incredibly powerless and that always sends me into panic mode and when I panic it always ends badly. She was trying to drag me away from a queue and refused to wear an apron for painting (the children were painting a mural for the new office) and ruined her Boden cardigan.

I would always have said at one point dd was my easier child but lately I am walking on eggshells with her. I’m impatient and irritable but I’m sick of no to everything and I know you shouldn’t ask but tell but it’s hard to break the entrenched habit of politeness - we don’t say to our colleagues ‘Sally, pass me that pen’ - it’s phrased as a question ‘Sally, would you mind passing me that pen … thanks’ we’re not expecting ‘no.’ So I say brightly ‘shall we brush your hair then we can go to the park’ NO.

My biggest worry is they will hate me at 18, or that they’ll be traumatised from a horrible childhood. I’m really going such a bad job of parenting them at the moment.

Was DH with you yesterday?

The example with the apron would have been no painting without one on. Let her tantrum, carry her to the car if needed. I remember marching my then 5yo out of a national trust, through hoardes of picnicking families whole he was screaming to get him in the car because he'd been so rude.

Your kids aren't your colleagues. They're learning about life and don't need the ambiguity of things sounding like a choice. "X it's time to brush your hair so we can go to the park". That statement isn't rude but isn't a question. If refused, follow up with "no hairbrush, no park. You have a minute to choose". Gives you a chance for a cool down in between.

OP I don't think that all parts of gentle parenting work for everyone. The bit I had to drop was the twee phrasing and wanky scripts. I realised that it didn't work and worse that I was far more likely to lose my shit and shout at them off the back of saying something like "would you like to put your shoes and coat on before we go out?" and them not doing what the books said they'd do in response to a polite request. I can relate to the powerless panic feeling.

I agree but then what the hell does work? I haven’t found anything other than to be very honest yelling my head off in frustration and rage and I’m doing it so much lately I know it’s affecting us all, but I just don’t know how else to manage as behaviour has been bloody awful lately and I can’t ignore it!

I think you need to 1) not ask, but tell and 2) don't be so afraid of tantrums. No one is judging you (well, no one who is a parent). They need to learn that when you say no, it's no.

Have you tried a sticker chart to reinforce the positive? We're using one with my 6yo at the moment and it's like magic.

Have a "big" reward at the end and require a hefty amount of stickers to get it. Then reward for good behaviour repeatedly in the day. Eg "well done, you got your shoes on when I asked, here's a sticker". Start with it as a bribery tool "anyone who gets their shoes on in the next minute gets a sticker" and graduate up to it being a genuine reward for choosing the behaviour without the draw of the sticker. (hope that makes sense). Deliberately give out a lot to start with. Say 100 are needed for the reward and give out 7-10 on the first day.

I also want to reassure you that they won't hate you. They really won't, and you're probably shouting for less than 1% of the day, it just feels a lot.

This. I think sometimes kids need to just be told things in simple language. As an adult I'm not a fan of something being phrased like a question or an option when to the asker there is only one answer that's acceptable. Do you want Weetabix or shreddies? is an option. Do you want to put your shoes on so we can walk to nursery isn't.

I think kids sometimes need a kind of polite bluntness and to be told what's going to happen or that you don't like it when they grab your hair and I agree that you have to not react to the tantrums.

FGS do people think I’m just a bit dim 😂

It never occurred to me to just tell my children something 🤦🏼‍♀️ All problems solved. Revo fucking lutionary.

And if I didn’t react to the tantrums they would be dead.

How? No one in a safe location dies from a tantrum?

So I ignore the tantrum by the road, or in a car park, or by water do I? I just let them fling themselves around, run off and if they drown or get flattened by a car that’s great.

Obviously I’m being facetious because I’m cross and annoyed that people are making out I’m just a bit dim. I don’t know what you think I’m doing though!

You drag them off to somewhere safer and then leave them to it. Many a parent has had to haul a screaming child back home when things kick off.

So you DON’T ignore it, then, do you?

I am not sitting here being finger wagged about everything I’m doing wrong. I am sick of reading shite that is ineffective.

In the situation where you are by a road, you hold them, carry, pushchair, return home or to the car and ignore. What happens now?

I ignore it in the sense that I don't talk a load of cod psychology to them or give in to their demands. If they have to be taken back into the house or car that's done without speaking to them.

I get you I really do.

My asks at this point, after 7 years, arent massive. I would like to sleep through 7 hours the majority of nights. I would like to be able to sit and watch half an hour of TV a day with a coffee. I would like to be able to make dinner, or shit, or shower in peace without screams of MUMMY followed by the kind of high pitched scream which means they’ve hurt themselves or each other. I would like to spend a day not being kicked, or headbutted, or having my feet stomped on - all usually by accident but fuck me I’m tired of it.

I have a very, very tricky 4.5 year old DS. He is super spirited and will kick off at the drop of a hat. If I react in any way to a tantrum, it gets 10x worse, so yes I ignore it. That doesn’t mean I let him hurt himself or run off, but I basically act like I’ve been lobotomised whilst moving him to a safe space and I remain mute until he realises I’m not reacting and he burns himself out. I also don’t give a shit if people are watching him have a tantrum either, I’d much rather look like I’m dealing with it by removing him than by doing nothing.

I also don’t overexplain to him whilst he’s losing it, it doesn’t work, the red mist is down and he isn’t listening. I wait until he’s calm and then explain why he can’t do x/y/z and why I had to do x/y/z and what he should do next time. Then I move on and don’t hold any grudges whatsoever, because if I do he picks up on that too.

I’m sorry that you’re finding things so hard OP.

This might be terrible advice but my DC are 5 and 2.5. I have worked quite hard at getting them to play together. Earlier on it meant we couldn’t go 5 or 10 minutes of them in a room alone without somebody screaming and me having to intervene. Eventually they worked things out because one of them would usually hurt the other and that was unpleasant for them.

They do get loads of toys out and make dens and stuff so there is mess but for example DS 5 woke up at 6:30. We sent him back to his room to do colouring he started yesterday. DD 2 woke up at 7. She and DS then went downstairs and DS got them both cereal. Me and DH still in bed. Now it’s 8:30, they came into see us at around 8, but now they’re playing in DDs room together. Some game where DS is the dad and they’ve made a space ship. I’m still in bed, DH has had a shower. We’ve almost ignored them both since 6:30 this morning and everyone is happy.

I don’t think enough of modern parenting advice includes ignore them more often 🫣 We still play with them, go places, read with them etc. but having time where we can get on and do stuff or relax makes such a difference.

It hasn’t always been easy. DD would scratch DSs face, DS when he was younger would do something really stupid/dangerous stuff. He’s the kind of kid who climb anything. They aren’t allowed to play a game where the door is closed or they’re whispering but on the whole it was really worth pushing through to get to the point where I can lie in bed and mostly ignore them.

Don't let her pull you. If you pull her back and she slips you say "well that was silly wasn"t it? Don't try and pull Mummy next time."

Don't ask to brush her hair, say "right, sit up on the chair I need to do your hair". If she argues you plonk her on the chair and brush her hair and if it hurts because she's fidgeting that's on her.

😂(Laughing at your post, not your situation) My DD was in a permanent bad mood from age 2.5 to 3.5, bloody hard going. Does get a lot better, but not much comfort when you are in the thick of it!