To want to tell my kids to fuck off

[allwrongnow]

Dd2(3) destroyed DD1(6)s Lego. Tried to put DD2 in a time out; of course she won’t stay so she’s in her room with me on one side of the door holding it closed while she screams the place down and DD1 follows me bellowing and ranting about the injustice of it so two kids screaming their heads off at me while I’m holding door closed.

I didn’t but I wanted to tell them both to fuck off. (I have never done this out loud but Jesus it’s tempting.)

Yes, I know I probably did it all wrong and no MNetters would have such chaos but that’s not my life I’m afraid.

An angry outburst so shocking it makes your kids behave for a couple of days is over the line.

All you're teaching them is it is ok to lose control and blame a child.

After a birthday that generated loads of new toys my 2 argued for a solid hour over a blue ribbon from a balloon. It's mad

My kids are now older and we never used one, but do playpens have a role? I don’t know what age they are for and whether a three year old can be plonked in one…

Sorry, OP. This sounds hard. You sound like you are at the end of your tether and could do with a bit of child free time/opportunity to relax. Is this an option at all?

The whole situation seems to have descended into tempers being lost. I don't think trapping a child in their room will help although I will admit to locking myself in the loo to breathe for a moment when DD went through a particularly tricky stage.

Going forward, you sound like you could do with a plan for special things that shouldn't be touched by anyone so DD1 can keep stuff safe. I think the only way you will encourage DD2 out of this very trying behaviour is for you to change your approach. Could you aim to be really calm and just repeat your expectation and try to redirect DD2 to something else?

My experience of time out type punishments is that unless the child meekly slinks off there, they become more of a problem than a solution. You then have to enforce that, everyone is dysregulated and nobody is any better prepared for the next time.

What you have now is 3 people losing their cool and if you could reduce it to just two, that would at least be better for you. Can you try to spend a little bit of time with each child individually? Grabbing something from DD1 gets your attention immediately and DD2 knows this. That's why it doesn't matter what other toys there are. She wants you. DD1 also knows this and if she shows DD2 the party bag, she is the good girl again. It sounds like you're in a loop of this happening with all 3 of you playing your parts.

Give her as much attention as you can. I know it isn't always possible as life competes with this aim but if you could just get in there first you might find DD2 to be rather lovely and this could set you up for better interactions. Ask her to help with things that need doing. She won't be any help but you can tell her she is. It won't get things done more quickly but it will be more pleasant. This is a very difficult phase but it will pass. Try to find multiple opportunities to tell both kids how great they are. If you could model calm you might get more of that happening. Big reactions beget big reactions in others. Kids do what you do not what you say, sadly. Be very obviously sympathetic to DD1 when her toys are broken and encourage DD2 to join in. Make it possible for both to win even after behaviour you don't want.

Not all kids are the same so different strategies can be required but kindness is learned from you. You might need to model it more for DD2 than other kids. I hope your conversation with the HV is productive and you feel listened to. I think some of what pp have found defensive and dismissive in your posts is that you have lost hope of things improving, but they definitely can. You just need some support to regroup and reset. Some other adults to allow you to divide and conquer would help. Are there grandparents etc who might take DD1 for a few hours so you can spend some time with DD2 doing what she wants without having to consider DD1?

I’m skinning through the posts but are you guys kidding me? We walk through the garden and into the house and I say DD1, don’t show DD2 that party bag. Take it upstairs. Yes mummy. We go in and she charges up to Dd2 LOOK WHAT I HAVE GOT. If that’s not a bit slow I don’t know what is.

They are NOT still babies! How anyone can describe children this age as babies is beyond me. I get how 2 might be but not 3 and certainly not nearly 6.

Anyway it doesn’t matter. I’m resigned to it now. I had to walk out of a supermarket and leave dd2 and I wished I could just keep walking.

And seven pages in and no one has given one suggestion to stop dd2 taking DD1s stuff. Not one.

Are you able to throw some money at this OP? I've been somewhere similar to where you are now. It's awful. Absolutely awful.

There will be a way through this. But the main thing I think will help you find it is some regular, genuine, break time for YOU, that gives your nervous system a chance to get away from the high intensity, high urgency, fire-fighting mode that you are living in at the moment.

That will only happen if someone else can mind - and properly mind, so you can not have to think about it - one or both kids, on a regular basis. Are you able to get family or a babysitter or a kids club organised at all, so you can actually have some breathing space, and find yourself some small sources of calm and joy, and (ideally) connection with other people. It honestly makes a huge difference to regularly meet a friend and vent and laugh, or to practice a musical instrument, or go for a walk and say hi to other people's dogs, or whatever helps your nervous system take a breath and feel safe and calm. Because parenting your kids at the moment involves being in a constant state of alarm, and having no breaks at all from that state is not sustainable - something will give eventually and there's every chance it will be your mental or physical health.

I really feel for you. It was my physical health that gave up in the end. I absolutely wasn't aware of just how much chronic stress I was living with trying to deal with my day to day life. It's really difficult to have any sort of perspective on it when you're just drowning in it all. And of course my internal urgent-alarm state didn't help with managing the kids so it was a horrible self-perpetuating cycle.

Sending huge hugs to you x

You say if you buy them the same thing, Dd2 tries to take Dd1’s. Why? There is some reason that DD2 seems to think DD1 has something better than her - or has it just become a habit to want what her sister has? If so, you have to break the habit. I’d try buying them both something they want, and make it very clear in advance that if either of them tries to take the other’s away, then they will lose theirs. If it happens, then take away the offending daughter’s item and put it in a high shelf and tell them that it’s not OK to try to take something if someone else’s. If DD2 tries to take her sister’s and then has her own taken away, she will kick off like mad, but perhaps after a time or two, she’ll get the message.

You sit on the floor too, you set your 3 yr old up with an activity and you lead them in their activity, your child expectation seems to be that you won't have to intervene but it's constant intervention and leadership from you. It's a rough age, I've been there but you need to put everything else aside and teach hem and be there to intervene every time and it gradually improves

Be in between them, stop it before it happens, redirect. Every single time. If it gets too much take them outside and r direct to something like a playpark, if that doesn't work try something else. Do you think everyone else's kids just behave?

It's how they get their mums attention. Surefire way to get mum to 'play' with you, disagree so wildly she has to get involved.

You have had suggestions from here to the moon OP.

I would really like to help you but you don’t listen.

Maybe they aren’t babies (I didn’t use that word) but they are tiny. You just don’t think so because your eldest is only six and it feels like you’ve been a Mum forever, but they are tiny. They have nothing like the capacity of an adult.

You need to use different tactics - many of which have been described in this thread.

You can’t just “stop dd2” once and for all and that be done, allowing you to just leave the kids to it, and expect all will be well. Parenting is a daily job that needs to be done over and over again relentlessly - especially with a child as little as three. Yes they can learn stuff but it won’t be instant. And it won’t be learned through violence (I’m afraid to tell you that locking in a room is a form of violence, even though the state does sanction this for criminals, obviously).

I might have missed it, but is there another parent on the scene? It often work really well if Dad/ another adult takes the lead with the youngest and Mum with the elder one - a lot of families are tempted to do it the other way round but ime this seems to be better.

Basically, some kids are easy and their parents don't realise. And some adults (weirdly imo but everyone's different) find yelling, dicking about kids adorable no matter what. Then people with non-easy kids who lack the aw isn't it cute brain override get stick for being fully fed up. 6 may be "tiny" but not every 6 year old behaves like an idiot.

You're not the problem op, the situation is shit but it will get better.

That is not one bit true. When you are calmer, read the posts properly and maybe you won’t be reacting so defensively.

Also, you don’t walk out of a supermarket leaving your 3 year old behind.

Yes, they are still babies. I mean you’re going to be parenting them until they’re around 20. You have far more years to go, that’s 15-17 years where they have more capability to listen and understand. You’re far closer to the start line than the finish. There is more than enough time to turn things around, you just have to want to and to put forth the effort to change.

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Some kids are just twats @allwrongnow and wind each other up on purpose. Mine do. I presume they will eventually grow out of it. My main tactic was separate and distract. Mine are teens now and they still do it!

Can I just mention/remind the 6yo is actually 5 and turns 6 in September?

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing the m suggestions are pretty much all ‘tell DD2 no’ ‘don’t let DD1 get her Lego out’ which just isn’t very practical or workable. If it was as easy as ‘no, don’t do that Dd2 …’ Not one person has given me an answer, and that’s because there isn’t an answer. Time outs don’t work, shouting works but is very very bad, nothing does.

It isn’t that I’m not listening, I am listening and saying that doesn’t work. Yes I can get in between them but dd2 is screaming and darting round me and I grab her … it’s just a fucking mess!

It isn’t about stopping her once and expecting that to be it. But even stopping her once isn’t easy. See my example with the bucket and spade: she just wouldn’t stop going after dd1 and taking her bucket and spade even though she had an identical set. So we had to go in the end as I kept taking them and she clung on and I’m prising her fingers off and she’s putting them on again and that’s unfair on DD1 who just wanted to play in the sand but really wtf do you do? Rhetorical question but you know.

@CurdinHenry thanks. Mine definitely aren’t easy

@PapersAnd no one will have them and I don’t have money for childcare. Plus there’s very little for dd2s age anyway.

Same ages, same problem! I know how you feel.

It sounds to me as though she is being deliberately provocative knowing that it will wind dd2 up. Siblings do this to each other. In this situation if dd2 snatched the party bag I wouldn't intervene other than to tell dd1 that she shouldn't have taunted dd2 with it

Does that make such a dramatic difference in terms of understanding and comprehension?

She isn’t actually too bad alone. When she’s with the other one it’s not much fun. She’s developed this habit of grabbing or snatching at you as you go past, a bit like a bad tempered cat. Nothing has stopped this. She does it to DD2 - grabs at her hair: every time, DD2 responds with a screech. When I’m driving she leans forwards and randomly yanks at my hair. I actually did it to her a few days ago - awful but I was so fed up of it and absolutely nothing had worked - she looked shocked and burst into tears. Did that hurt? Yes. Do you want to hurt mummy? No. Do you understand that hurts me just like it hurt you? Yes, very good into the car, and guess what happened?

It is so shit. You go into I thinking you’ll do a better job than your parents and … nope.

Your description of hair pulling sounds as if it is the first behavior to work on. I would not recommend you continue pulling her hair. You have accomplished establishing that she should not be hair pulling.

Now she needs a consequence for every time she does it and a reward for every day that she doesn’t

Another Supernanny fan. It is hard when you start off but once you have established the rules life is much easier.

Watch old episodes on you tube OP

my example with the bucket and spade: she just wouldn’t stop going after dd1 and taking her bucket and spade even though she had an identical set. So we had to go in the end as I kept taking them and she clung on and I’m prising her fingers off and she’s putting them on again

Stop making an issue of it for identical bucket and spade. You shrug and give the identical bucket and spade DD2 has abandoned and give it to DD1. You stay calm and unbothered no matter how many times the two sets get passed back and forth even if bucket and spade get separated.

All the no stop, physically prising her fingers off and then prematurely stopping an entire beach day is making DD2 believe that whatever DD1 has is really special even if it looks the same. As soon as it is meh 🫤 one is just like the other one, and no one reacts you just carry on, DD1 is going to realise they are the same therefore it doesn’t matter which one she has.

Your reactions are making it a huge thing that matters so much that you had to leave the beach and DD1 is then under the impression her sister ruins everything.

For biscuits and food, the introduction of a 3rd identical item often derails and defuses things.

I don't know how much support you've got OP (sorry if you've said and I missed it) but I think you need to separate them regularly so a) they don't have the chance to fight and wind each other up, even for a few hours and b) each gets 1-1 time. I know this is predicated on having a partner around/family/friends but failing that, look for separate activities and work on the other one while they are attending.

A close friend had 2 with a small age gap and they were terribly jealous of each other early years, always had to have exactly the same (exactly) presents as each other, fighting, some of what you're saying rings bells. They are both now full grown and get on fine, I'd actually say quite close too.