DD is driving me insane - what am i doing wrong?

[Heebychick]

I know it's me, it must be. My DD is 3 and she is a clever, beautiful wee soul but .... really I find it so very hard to like her some of the time. She (like all young children I am told) never listens, shouts, cries at every opportunity, screams at me, demands ALL the time, plays up at any given opportunity and never, ever, ever does anything she is asked to do first, second or third time.

We use 'i'm going to count to 3 ... ' etc then if i reach 3 she goes in time out. But i'm counting to 3 nearly every minute of the day, she goes into time out lots lately and comes out of it better, i praise her but then within seconds she's back doing it, so back in time out and so the cycle continues.

Clearly i'm not doing it right or it's not effective enough.

I am tried and I see red mist so very much, I love my girls but when one is spiteful, spoilt and generally has no respect (when do they learn this??) then i find it hard to enjoy being with her.

She gets out lots, we have lots of friends and activities and i am home with them every day.

I am a rubbish mum and i get angry (hence why i can't sleep at midnight because she just woke up, wanted to tell me something so Daddy said to tell him as i was asleep but she just shouted until it woke everyone in the house and then demanded i watch (i didn't) so i counted to 3 which resulted in time out and then finally she went to bed without screaming.

I'm exhausted and fed up with being a mummy.

Sounds like she's pushing to find her/your boundaries within which she can feel safe. If you are only using positive reinforcement of good behaviour then she will have some idea of what that there are now boundaries in the direction you want her to see as good.

A 3 year old simply has not yet developed the circuits in the brain to make all but the simplest value judgments. Rational argument or withdrawal of treats etc are not understood in the way you want. She simple cannot understand; it?s like having a light switch and a light but no wire between the two. No matter how much you or others want the wire to be there will not make it develop until the brain is ready.

Now this is going to get me in hot water with the PC crowd but a sharp single smack on the bottom (and no before it all starts I am not avocations beating the child and child abuse etc) followed immediately by a close loving cuddle says "too far, stop" in a way that registers. Tell them why they were smacked when cuddling and later when they have developed more the reasoned argument starts to be understood much earlier. It works. I've seen many children over the years become more relaxed and comfortable with what they are expected to do because they have been told in a way they understand.

If you stick to reasoned argument or withdrawal of treats before she is able to understand that you slowly but ever so certainly teach her that no matter what you say she can oppose and expect to gain the upper hand at least some of the time.

OMG.... It is actually like I wrote this message. I just came on here to post exactly the same thing, having been in tears everyday for the last week (even on my birthday) .

My DD doesn't listen to anything I say, is rude, hits me, hits her baby sister, won't do anything I ask. The list is endless. Everyone I talk to says it's her age (she's 3) and it'll pass, but I too feel like I am the worst mother around and I'm so tired of shouting and feeling like this.

We even took ALL her toys away and she has to earn them back, but she doesn't seem to care.

I have written this before reading the other replies, so will go and do that. But from one desperate mother to another, I hope there are some answers on here.

hchmum hello and welcome to our den of despair . I'm so sorry you are having a tough time too, it's so hard isn't it. I spend most days feeling like throwing the towel in and like you have spent weeks/days in tears. I know all the 'what i should do' and 'what works' but you know sometimes it all gets foggy and i just want out.

I gave up my office so i could be at home all the time and boy do i regret it some days.

Boundaries have been pushed loads but i have to say this past day or two i have been mummy stern, i have just said no to all the usual requests for gifts, sweets, extra time playing etc etc and in fact she hasn't been too bad, we've had a fair bit of time out but slowly i feel like i'm less stressed already and a bit more in control. She pushes all the buttons and i am trying hard to rewire myself so the buttons don't exist anymore!

As for smacking, you know i'm not going to have a strong negative opinion either way, i'm not really in favour of it simply because having spent 5 years studying negative punishment during my degree i totally know the effects on behaviour and learning if you do punish in this way so i'm not happy about doing it. Learning cannot take place through fear so if she is frightened by my smacking it won't help at all. I prefer to work with positive reinforcement. I also believe that we (as in parents) do tend to smack because we are angry rather than for the child's benefit and this is of course not right.

My ideal is to achieve respect and help her to have it - before she goes to school and pretends to have none for her teachers!

DD took time out into her own hands. She takes her own 'time out' when she gets upset & takes herself off to chill out - good skills!

DD is 2.8 so younger than your DD, but we have quite good success with GOOD LISTENING - which we got from our childminder. As it can be used for such a wide range of behaviour & it cuts through all kinds of nonsense it is useful. DD gets GL stickers at CM but not at home - though we may have to start at home now too.

I just wish she would listen to me. For example this morning, she had a lovely time playing at her friend's house and when I say it's time to go, it is like I am talking to a brick wall. There is just not one flicker of recognition that she has heard me. Then I can just hear myself telling her over and over and over again that it's time to go and it makes me so cross.

Really feel like my relationship with her is spiralling downhill and I know that as the adult I have to fix it, but I don't know how. My patience has been worn down so much that she is walking on thin ice all the time. I'm sure that doesn't help matters. She's probably just being a 3 year old - it's me who has the problem but I don't know how to get out of the cycle.

Also feeling guilty that I look so bloody miserable all the time so my DD2 who is 9 mths must be picking up on it.

Gosh there's a lots of us!!

heebychick we will go for the later bedtime for DD1 but I'm still breastfeeding dd2 so things are often a but haphazard.

We had a busy but well behaved day - it can be done But DD1 had a long sleep around lunchtime. I know this is not necessarily a good thing.

Anyoe else's DD an early riser??? it's often 5am in our house... Yawn

I'd be knocking the 5am rising on the head now too before you crash the car with exhaustion, been there done that.
Blackout blinds and if that doesn't work a stair gate across the bedroom door and a no we're not coming to you until 7am (maybe buy a grobag clock www.bumpto3.co.uk - AIP10 will give you 20% off), but you cannot start your day that early and expect to be Mary Poppins at 4pm.

hchmum that's where the learning how to talk to toddlers thing comes in quite handy.

Put yourself in their shoes - if you were busy having fun, 100% caught up in what you were doing, and someone said it's time to go home - what would you do ? Ignoring is the easiest option.

I get frustrated with this too.

One thing I learnt from Connection Parenting is 'Lets' as in 'Lets fo home and have lots more fun, doing this that and the other'

Give her a reason to want to listen to you. Works much better ime

Heebychick, I understand what you mean; I am not advocating negative punishment as such. I used smacking with our 2 as, if you like, a boundary condition. Dealing with bad behaviour within that did not involve smacking. But they were both aware of were the boundaries were and by the time they were in their 4th year they understood when I said "no because....". I never smacked them again. They now understood how positive rewards and penalties worked and what they meant.

No matter how much you want a child of 2 or 3 to understand, it cannot. Simply cannot. The child has not yet grown the pathways in the brain that enable it to understand. Basic biology, no matter how bright you DD, DS is it makes no difference. A parent who does not understand this is like the tourist abroad who when the local does not understand simply repeats what he was saying but louder!

I remember seeing some experiments done with 3 and 4 year olds some years ago. The child was sat at a table with their mum no one else was in the room. The mum placed a sweet in front of the child and told them that if they did not touch the sweet while mum was out of the room they would be given a whole pack of sweets. The mum left the room and returned 5 minutes later.

All the 3 year olds (girls and boys) ate the sweet and expected the whole pack as well and were upset and confused when they did not get the packet.
All the 4 year olds (girls and boys) did not touch the sweet and were rewarded with the whole pack.

The 3 year olds had not developed the pathways in the brain that allowed them to understand that to get a bigger reward they had to hold off taking a minor reward. No reasoning, describing, etc with the 3 year old could change the outcome of the experiment.

If you only use those methods that need such pathways to be there, when they are not, you are not communicating in a way that a sub 4 year old can understand. You can talk till you are blue in the face but all the child sees is and upset mum but they don?t understand why.

APBrasrule So my answer to your suggestion they don't understand, is fine so ignore the behavior, I'd rather do nothing than smack them because on the basis of your argument they won't understand what the smack was for either just that mummy has hurt them, what exactly is the point of that ?

There is a fab book called divas and dictators by charlie taylor - a behaviour expert who runs a school for excluded children so he knows it works in practice.
its about effective not over the top praise, sensible and minimal time out, rewards and consequences.

has def helped with my ds

Good point mamatomany.

It's not that 2/3 year olds don't understand (although they certainly don't understand everything) - they lack the impulse control. They know not to eat the sweet but it's so tempting they can't help themselves.

How To Talk is a great book but some of the suggestions are really for older children. DS is 22 months and I find giving a name to his feelings helpful. Some other things I have learnt from various places:

"Discipline" means "to teach" not "to punish" - punishment/some unpleasant outcome may feature but it's not necessary in all cases. Instead of thinking "How can my child 'pay' for this crime" try to think "How would I like my child to deal with/behave in this situation?" So for example if they are fighting over a toy, most people will either remove the toy and give it back to the child who had it first, or just say "Share" which is even more pointless if they don't know what sharing is. So with this approach, you think about what you want them to do - you want them to play together with the toy or take turns or both pick a different toy to play with. So you have to show them - with a young baby, the easiest option is to distract with another toy. With a slightly older toddler (15-21 months+ depending on their understanding) you can say "Wait, it's X's turn now. You can have a turn in a minute." or sometimes "Why don't you throw the ball to X, and he will throw it back." Sharing ie playing together with the same toy doesn't work well with most things (balls and other things to throw, and sharing food that there is more than one of seem to work ok) until much later, because they don't get the concept and just see the other child as interfering with their playing. You can't realistically get them to share other than turn-taking until you notice them starting to play with other children of their own accord.

With the seatbelt earlier in the thread - it might not have been a big deal to you that you undid it first, but I imagine she's been taught not to undo it when the car is moving, so she's sitting there thinking "I can't wait until we stop so I can push this big red button" and perhaps she has built it up in her head, and then you do it first, and she's so disappointed that it overwhelms her, which is probably more likely if she is tired/hungry, and I know it's not really foremost in your mind who gets to push the button to release the seatbelt at that time of day - but perhaps this is one battle you could pick and if you undo it first and she says "NO MUMMY! I wanted to do it!" then you could redo it to let her do it and say "Sorry darling, I forgot. Good girl for waiting until we stopped." What you want in this situation is for her to be able to tell you calmly that she wanted to undo the seatbelt, so try to rectify/damage control before the tantrum kicks in and then praise her for asking nicely (even if please etc is prompted) and once you KNOW she can ask nicely then it's fair enough not to redo it if she immediately kicks off about it. Save the not giving in under any circumstances for times like when they want sweets just before dinner.

Meant to say yes APBras I agree with you on some points - that the parent standing next to a 2 year old saying "Share, play nicely" (And I'm not saying I have never been this parent) is being ineffective because a 2 year old has no concept of sharing a thing which cannot be broken into two parts, and most 2 year olds only practice parallel play, so even if they are shown/explained what sharing is, they are still unable to play with the same toy, because they still won't understand why the other child is pushing the button that they wanted to push or drawing on the bit of paper they wanted or putting the jigsaw pieces in in the wrong order.

I guess I just disagree that smacking is the only way to get through to young toddlers.

A good way to enforce good toy manners in pre-fours (and I agree with many of APBra's points on their lack of social understanding and concept of control and reward) is to instantly remove anything that is causing a problem.

Then DON'T negotiate with them to get it back. gone is Gone, until the next day.

Hitting someone with the hammer? bye bye hammer. Throwing blocks? Bye Bye Blocks

Screaming at mummy? Then, I'm afraid, bye bye Mummy. not for the day - just don't scream at me, then take yourself COMPLETELY away from her, taking her sibling with you if necessary. Go and sit in your bedroom. Or put her in her bedroom.

i will also say - pick your battles wisely. Decide INSTANTLY whether something is so important that you will never cave. if it isn't that important, let it go, becaus4e to allow her to scream for it until you give in (because it really isn't important to you) is going to teach her to scream.

Save the screaming for the things you care about.

Never give her something just for screaming.

Some really really good points here, this thread is brilliant. bertie i totally understand your logic, and yes the seatbelt thing really was her wish and not a 'trying to be naughty' thing, you are right i think and i shall look at each situation differently, we do try to let some things go, and we do a lot of:
'bedtime now please phoebe'
'oh but i want to stay in the tent'
'well why don't we leave it up and have breakfast in there tomorrow?'
'ok yeah great!'
(this was last night) it was better than demanding she come up to bed when i know she loved her tent we'd made earlier and 'things' mean alot to her.

apbrasrule i saw that test they did on 3/4 year olds, it was called the marshmallow trick, i tried it on DD1 when she was just 3 and the first time she ate it but then we did it a month later and she waited until i came back - although she did lick it!

As for sharing, i read a Dutch concept a while ago and i follow it's principles ... before a friend comes over / DD2 gets up / we visit someone etc I ask DD1 if there is anything she would like to store away and not let the others play with, she chooses the usual 2-3 things (a guitar which her sister will play with as it lights up is a first!) then she understands that all other toys are fair game. She has a comforter and this is not shared at all and the same for DD2. I strongly believe that children should not be made to share absolutely everything they own, i wouldn't! so we use this rule all the time, it works amazingly and she shares really well and in fact gives toys to friends to take home and play with. I know they have to learn this and we did start off by showing her what sharing was and playing others - she has far to go as in playing joint games and this will come with age but this is a great rule so far.

colditz thats great advice.
Mamatomany. I do think that DD1 and I have better days when i am not tired. I was up with the baby in the night and was exhausted today and things were a bit tricky today, but in the grand scheme of things Ok.

As for making her wait til 7 on a work day I have to be out of the house by 7.30, we would never get out on time but I would love the odd weekend lie in. Her room is dark and we have discussed the clocks before.

Just popping back to this thread and I've found some good ideas, like the sharing one!

I was complaining to a friend yesterday that one of the things that I find hard is giving a natural consequence that isn't acceptable to me iyswim. Can be very hard to think on your feet enough.

lala what do you mean?

my daughter used to be a little terror and do all the same things as your daughter does. i love her very much but her behaviour used to be so bad that i needed to find help. my brother suggested me a helpline called youngminds and they gave me lots of help and info. try calling them : 0808 802 5544 :)

My DS, who is 3 3/4, pings off the walls most afternoons, and some mornings. I work 3 days a week, thank the Lord! He can be extremely unpleasant. I do talk to him sometimes about why he's behaving badly. This morning it was because I was going to work. Other days it's because he hates his sister, who is 2 yrs 4months, and wishes we'd never brought her home in the box (moses basket) and bearing in mind this was when he was 18months, it's no wonder he's full of resentment. I know we need to spend some quality time with him. DH is taking him to bournemouth for a couple of days, father and son time. Hope it works for a at least a few days.

I think my kids are spoilt brats. I am very strict and will draw a line under bad behaviour, almost stamp it out. If my DS is really bad I put him in my DD cot bed. Not sure what I'd do if he got out.

It is possibly the most frustrating relationship I've ever had and my daughter is happily joining in now, which is great NOT.

Glad I'm not alone in this, DD1 is 2.5 and sounds like she could belong to you! I think it's normal sadly! Every morning I wake up determined to try harder and to start a fresh, but inevitably she pushes all my buttons and I end up feeling like a crap mum. You are not alone!!!