I need advice on how to deal with 3.8 year old dd....

[Tillyscoutsmum]

DD is a real mix of being very sensitive and very boisterous. She has seemingly boundless energy.

If she's doing something we don't want her to, I can tell her calmly 4, 5, 6 times (she ignores me) and then I tend to raise my voice a bit to try and get through to her. She then bursts into tears because I've "shouted" at her.

I have tried to send her into another room to sit quietly until she's calmed down and is ready to apologise but she just continues to cry inconsolably and beg me for a cuddle. She will usually stop when I cuddle her. The behaviour is generally repeated 10 minutes later. Same thing happens again.

This afternoon/evening, we've had the same cycle about 10 times. Its exhausting and I'm clearly not dealing with it right, otherwise it wouldn't keep happening, would it ??

What am I doing wrong ?

Anyone ?

weirdly, dd1 (3.11) seems to have got a bit better since we wrote up and illustrated some "house rules"
ours are - listen to what other people are saying, use your manners at the table, and no fibbing. i think she liked making the poster, and the fact that we said the rules apply to all of us.

we don't have a consequence for breaking them, but pointing out that she agreed to the house rules works for a good percentage of the time.

I think there are 2 possibilities.

Either - she really is genuinely distressed, or she has worked out that this is a good way to get attention and cuddles.

Does she get attention and cuddles for good behaviour the rest of the time?

FWIW, I would not tell any of mine to stop doing something 5 or 6 times. I would tell them once, then physically remove them from the object of their attention. Then distract their attention.

I wonder if you are making a bit of a drama of what should be a very simple situation?

You are getting dragged in to a point when you are not in control, she is.

3littlefrogs - you are right. I am rarely in control . Its difficult to distract/remove things because its often things like asking her to stop running around and come and get dressed (for example) or stop running around screeching loudly all the time.

She does get attention and cuddles at other times but tbh, she often doesn't want to sit still and get cuddles because she's too bust rampaging around ! She does seem genuinely distressed but then I think its happened enough times and she should perhaps be old enough to understand that if she listened a bit more, I wouldn't need to raise my voice and she wouldn't need to cry. Its just all so bloody futile

Thanks Martha. That might help. We have had some success with reward charts for other things (sleeping through for example).

No answers I'm afraid but my DD1 (3.9yo) is going through exactly the same thing at the moment. I'm fed up of asking her her to do things 4-5 times only to be ignored. Don't really know what to do to get her to listen . Like you I end up having to raise my voice & then there's floods of tears & I end up feeling like the worst mother ever

We're going to try & implement a (supernanny style) reward chart where she can lose points for bad behaviour as well as gain points for good with a big treat after 10 points. Don't know if this is going to work but its worth a try.

Thanks Noomininoo. Hopefully its "just a phase"...