Lost control as a parent

[sobloodysad77]

I’ve fucked up today, massively.

Up until 4 months ago (just after DD turned 3) we had a happy household then DD seemed to change overnight and became a child I don’t recognise anymore and I miss her.

We expected the boundary pushing, the sibling rivalry, the defiance but we didn’t expect this.

She goes to a forest preschool 3 days a week 9-3 and is currently on half term.

For the past 1.5 weeks she has hurt DS (15 months) every day by either kicking him or pushing his face/head onto a hard floor and I cannot preempt it at all, it comes from absolutely nowhere. I put my body between them and pick up DS but she’s like a dog in a frenzy and keeps going to attack, this lasts 10 minutes and ends up with DS screaming in my ear whilst DD is jumping up trying to pull his arm or leg or whatever she can get hold of. Obviously with DS in my arms, I cannot also move her so I end up completely overwhelmed and overstimulated with all of the screaming and shouting. The same with DH if he’s on his own with them.

Yesterday was awful, we went to the park then I dropped DS at my Mum’s whilst I took DD to dr (had a cough for 3 weeks), she’d already been told off that morning and had a toy removed for 30 minutes for smearing her toothpaste up the bathroom wall. She was rolling around laughing and kicking me whilst I was trying to put her socks on so I gave up and she put her trainers on crying because I said no, I was no longer going to try and get her socks on. She was prescribed antibiotics for a chest infection. We got back to Mum’s to pick up DS/have a cup of tea and she attacked him again in front of my Mum and Dad. I don’t know whether it was the “safety” of being in my parents presence or what but I just absolutely lost it, I screamed at her, forced her down on the sofa (no idea how when I was holding DS) my Dad ended up taking over and picked her up and took her to the dining room to talk to her, I was sobbing and crying and DS had a bruise on his forehead appearing and finger marks around his neck.

Last night ended up in a 4 hour stand off, she refused the antibiotics so DH took her comforter she still sleeps with and her dummy she has at bed (I know she’s too old for a dummy at bed before anyone mentions it but I’m picking my battles right now), at 10pm she finally gave in and drunk the juice with her medicine in and her comforter and dummy were given back and she went straight to sleep. whilst this was going on, we maintained normal bedtime routine, DH read to her, cuddles were given, we explained in simple terms why she had to take the medicine etc.

This morning first thing, I was brushing my teeth and she came out of nowhere and smashed DS head into the bathroom door, I lost it. I picked her up and threw her onto my bed (literally 2 foot away) but she immediately started sobbing and screaming that I’d hurt her, I picked up DS and I literally screamed at her to leave him alone and get away from him/us.

I know I lost control and it’s absolutely not okay, I know that I should not have thrown her onto our bed, I am heartbroken that I lost control like that and in that moment I didn’t recognise myself, I am not an aggressive or angry person.

I have apologised to her, I openly said I am sorry with no “but you hurt your brother”, I want her to know I’m sorry, we’ve had a cuddle, I’ve spoke to her calmly and told her that hurting her brother needs to stop and it’s not okay.

I just want to add that she gets 1-1 time, we are lucky that we have the “village” that many people want and need which allows me time with just her. She is cuddled/told she is loved multiple times a day, we read books every day, colour and paint, we are normally a very calm house. DH is great at keeping his cool and standing firm in boundaries and never raises his voice. I feel like a total failure. I’ve upset her and I’ve scared myself by seeing red. What do I do? Nothing bothers her, we can remove toys and do any kind of punishment (age appropriate) and never physical until this morning when I chucked her on the bed and she laughs in our faces and looks us in the eye as she does the things she has been told not to. My DS is covered in bruises from her. I feel so sad I’m trying to protect him and failing and I’ve failed at parenting her this morning, I’ve let her down and myself.

There are other issues such as she will only eat 7 different foods now, no meat and no vegetables at all, she has stopped sleeping all night in her bed amongst other things.

Where do I go from here? I hate parenting right now, I love them but I hate being a mum and it’s knocked me for 6 as up until she was 3, I adored it.

Losing your temper is understandable in these circumstances. You are under a huge amount of pressure.

You didn't harm her, just moved he quickly away from where she was harming her brother.

Are her punishments immediate, consistent, and the same from your partner?

Pick your battles, the food thing can wait.

I think a huge part of this is her feeling like shit with her chest infection and not sleeping well. I have the same age gap and honestly, my oldest could be so aggressive with his sibling when he was under the weather. It doesn't excuse the behaviour, but it does help to explain it.

It's exhausting, but I had to physically be between mine at all times. Playing on the floor I'd make sure I was between them or oldest was within grabbing distance. I stopped removing me and the younger one because I was sick of interrupting her play because her brother had attacked again. Instead I took to bear hugging him from behind so that he couldn't kick/bite me, holding him tight until he stopped struggling, and then setting him up with something else to play with next to us but not the original game because I told him I needed to keep everyone safe until he was able to show me he could be gentle. Then he could play with us again.

It was a slog. It was much much worse when he was ill but between 2.5 and 3.5 years old it was the worst period of parenting ever. I hated myself for my visceral anger (I shouted and grabbed him too roughly a few times to get him off her), I wondered if he was going to be a psycho when he was older, I feared for my daughter's safety. But we kept being consistent, and it gradually improved. Now they are 5.5 and 3.5 and thick as thieves. Thankfully my youngest hasn't gone through the same stage with him!

Age 3 is one of those stages when things can change enormously. My oldest was angelic apart from sleeping issues until age. Terrible 2s wasn't an issue at all. But age three... eek... it was horrendous. Enormous meltdowns, hitting, scratching. Thankfully mainly aimed at me not his sibling. None of the normal behavioural techniques worked in the slightest.

Eventually I worked out some of the triggers e.g. change of routine, sensory issues, transitioning from one activity to another erc. He was diagnosed autistic later and these were really just meltdowns. He had eating issues too.

With the sleep and eating issues too I would go back to GP and consider a referral for ND assessment.

Wow ive never had violence from one sibling to another like you describe op..
No wonder you snapped..

I think you should stop feeling bad. Who wouldn’t lose it?

Not sure about the punishments especially if not working. I like what @Gingerbreadseasoniscoming describes. And dr to check anything else

Your poor baby. Hitting his head on things can do serious damage. You should probably get him checked and maybe keep him in a playpen for his protection.

As for your dd, this isn’t normal behaviour. The 3s are hard work but violence towards a baby is another level and very concerning. I would speak to the GP and begin the process of getting her assessed for ADHD etc…

She'll be worse for feeling ill and almost definitely be feeling more that she doesn't have you allt o herself. Also antibiotics can affect behaviour, both do mine are highly nuts on antibiotics

I think it's understandable you are under a lot of pressure.

Can you preemptively keep the dc separate for now? A playpen for the little one? It sounds like you need some relief from being on high alert to intervene in the violence.

Are there opportunities for someone to take your ds so you and you dd can increase your 1:1 time?

I'm so sorry to hear what you're going though. Your feelings and reactions are perfectly understandable.

I'm soery that i don't have much advice, apart from be firm, consistent, and keep doing what you're doing. My sister's DD2 was like this towards her DD3 (and DS1 and others), she was vicious and jealous. It was a huge worry for my sister, but DD2 did grow out of it and she became a "normal" sister to her siblings. It actually affected my sister far more than her kids, who forgot all about this period in their childhood. It took her a while to get over it and feel normally towards her DD2 again, so be really mindful of this and get the help and support you need. You're doing exactly the right things by taliking about this!

So I just want to send loads of encoragement and hope to you that this phase will get better and not leave lasting effects. Take care, best of luck!

Just checking, is she taking Sudafed or any such derivatives? Both me and my nephew go absolutely bonkers if we take Sudafed.

Agree with others re: GP. What you're describing goes way beyond normal behaviour. It's the unpredictability, the detached emotional responses, and the lack of self control. However, you don't say whether she's experiencing the same difficulties at forest school. The concern is that something is going on there that she can't cope with and so she's acting out at home where she feels safe.

Finally, you're not failing, you're struggling to understand what's going on, you're probably frightened, and you're reaching out for help. That's doing everything right.

You need to preempt this, you say 4 months it's been going on so why is your youngest still left in positions she can attack him? He needs to go in his cot while you brush your teeth etc and you need eyes on her. Unfortunately by losing your rag and physically attacking her you've just reinforced that if you don't like something but you're bigger/stronger you can use that against the person annoying you, and thus the cycle with her brother will continue.

Fuck me, this is what a quick smack would’ve solved before all this gentle parenting shite.
Don’t jump on me, my child was smacked very, very rarely and not at all after about 4, because they learnt really bloody quickly that actions had consequences. They are pretty much a model adult human being in all circumstances as a result.

She is an angel at preschool, nothing but good feedback, comes home with stickers saying she’s helped tidy up the garden or she’s been the first to run over and comfort somebody who’s upset or hurt. That’s the girl I know and love, this girl at home is one I don’t recognise and it’s breaking my heart.

She’s also extremely protective over her brother at times too, DH was laying on the rug throwing him up in the air the other evening and he was shrieking with excitement and laughing and she mistook it for him being distressed and ran over and said “Daddy no! Thomas doesn’t like that!” She also comforts him and gets him toys if he is upset at home for whatever reason, she strokes his hair and kisses him every night saying goodnight. This other side to her is completely out of character.

This is breaking my heart, I feel so incredibly anxious all of the time and on high alert. I’m also just spending my evenings in silence not even wanting a conversation with DH after bedtime because I’m so worn down by her behaviour.

DH and I are probably two of the calmest people you could ever meet, we of course have arguments every now and then but never in front of them and never shouting or violence, she’s never been exposed to that so why is she behaving like that?

DS is wary of her understandably and has started to push her away when she comes over to be nice to him.

I have no concerns about the preschool at all, it’s a small village forest school with only 23 children. Mums and I all in a WhatsApp group and chat regularly also. I’ve made good friends with a few of them and none of them are experiencing this. Their recent ofsted was excellent, the girls who work there honestly treat us like family and we regularly attend events there like mini festivals for the kids, fetes etc.

It’s probably important to add that I was sexually abused as a child by a family friend and I’m extremely cautious about who has access to DD and DS in private settings. She doesn’t often sleep away from home for example even though it would only be either set of grandparents and I trust them all implicitly. She’s probably had 4 sleepovers since she was born and they’ve been for reasons such as a wedding.

Since she was very young I have taught her about her body, I’ve told her that she should never keep secrets from me or her Dad and she can never be in trouble for telling the truth. I try and do everything right and feel like I’m failing. I miss my happy, cuddly, kind girl.

I think you may be both over and under reacting.

There's nothing to suggest she has been abused.

My eldest is 8 and youngest is 5, at 1 and 3.5 we had a stage like you describe. When I was home with both children ALL I did was supervise 100% and I had zero tolerance for any fighting from either side.

My eldest is ASD/ADHD and also very clever and very well behaved at school Nd pre school. The effort of that means he has meltdowns that present how you describe, seeming to laugh in the face of the person telling them off.

She's not laughing because she thinks it's funny or is a psychopath. She's laughing because she's having a big emotional response whether that's upset, worry, stress etc and is too young to know how tired respond to this so laughter often comes out. My son would seem like he was laughing his head off then later descend into violent rage and heartbroken sobbing. You need to remain calm and tell her how to manage it. 'ok, we're all very worked up, let's get our bodies calm' and do what's necessary to get calm. Usually entirely changing the environment would help, inside, go outside, downstairs? Go upstairs etc etc.

She's very very young, she seems bigger next to a baby but she's also just a wee thing herself. Treat the laughing in your face as a tantrum because ethe emotions behind it are the same. Help her calm down.

She's obviously distressed so taking a comforter from her is cruel.

Well done! Imagine this, if you HADNT hit your child they'd have still turned out a nice and decent human being and without the memory of you being violent.

I never normally post but I just wanted to check, did this behaviour come on after an illness? The violence, food restriction and change in sleep patterns and it coming on suddenly make me think of PANS/PANDAS. Might be worth looking into.

You say things were fine 4 months ago, is that when the wheels started to fall off or did that happen later?

How long has this restrictive eating been going on? Longer enough to need to investigate if she has any deficiencies?

When did Forest School start?

Has her sleep always been very disturbed or is that something to chalk up to this long running chest infection, and whatever came along to kick that off?

Has she been going to Forest School with the chest infection?

You say you are really calm but you mentioned at least 2 incidents in which you “threw” a 3 year old child onto furniture in reaction to them acting out. Non of us are perfect, least of all me, but that doesn’t sound particularly calm to me.

It also seems like you’re giving the sibling violence a whole heap of attention. 3 year olds thrive off attention, they live for it. Anything you give a huge reaction to will get repeated. I would give it minimal attention. Focus attention on the injured child, make a big fuss of checking if they are ok. Give the offending child bare minimum attention except to say “we use kind hands / feet in this house”. Later on in a calm moment you could talk to DD about what happened “hey you hit your brother earlier, that really hurt him. Were you feeling angry/sad/jealous? We don’t hit when we are angry. Next time you feel mad you can -insert options for anger management-“.

Issuing punishments like taking away beloved items rarely works in a child that young. Their brains are so underdeveloped that they can’t comprehend the link between hitting and a toy getting taken away. So you teach them nothing by doing that. And you will likely escalate their dysregulation. How can she learn to regulate her emotions if you take away all the tools she has for doing that (comforter, dummy) at the exact moment she needs them?

I have adhd kids with zero impulse control, close together.

In my experience I could never leave them alone tigther not even for a minute. I had stair gates on all rooms and travel cots upstairs and downstairs. I always kept them seperate unless I was, there paying total attention. You may have to do the same. So if you need to wee or brush teeth then they both go into their rooms. Downstairs I would have had older one in sitting room, safety gate over the kitchen and younger dc would be in travel cot with toys while I was cooking dinner.

Check out 'the incredible years' its a book and you can do a parenting course. I found it the best one

You might already be doing what I’m about to suggest OP, so apologies if you are! Have you tried looking for the positives in everything she does and rewarding the good stuff? This can look like simply saying “I saw that you put your socks on/brought me your socks and asked me to help - well done!” It might be that you award a sticker (cheap ones from Poundland etc. work well here) for her to put on a chart so that she can see how many good things she has done. You can do things like 10 stickers wins a small treat/toy.

Same idea really, but with marbles/lego bricks/whatever you have. She gets to choose one to put in a special jar every time she does something kind/helpful, follows an instruction without fuss, tries a new food etc. When the jar is full she chooses a treat. Jar ideally kept well out of reach, but visible for motivation just as you would for a sticker chart.

This was my immediate thought, but I wasn't brave enough to come on here and say it!!!

I never smacked my kids, because I never needed to, however I agree with you regarding the gentle parenting nonsense and I do feel like the ‘softly softly don’t ever raise your voice’ is making behaviour worse as oppose to better.

I think that some kids are so used to getting their own way that they can’t tolerate the word no! When that’s exactly what they need to hear! Not all kids but some.

I'm not convinced beating a 5yo into submission is really the parenting win you seem to think.

Yes, it might possibly stop the behaviour (though, the evidence says physical chastisement only works as long as you continue to use it, so are we all happy to continue physical abuse long term? If not, it won't help). But is the harm to both children (the one being abused and the one witnessing the abuse) really worth it?

She is going to seriously harm your son.

Send her to your parents.

@sobloodysad77 your little girl is still there, and you'll see her again. I disagree that this is beyond the realms of expected behaviour. Three year olds can be genuinely horrible and come good within six months.