driving me crazy!!

[waiting4bambino]

Have read through a few of the other threads on here and it seems i'm not alone when worrying about the behaviour of my 3 year old dd! At times she's an angel, and other times i think I'm going to spontaneously combust with the rage i'm keeping inside!! Inner swearing is my forte!!

The issue is this, sometimes she wants me to help her, other times, she wants to do it herself - but this takes sooooo long! So we occasionally have a meltdown over that. Dressing is another battle, that too takes forever and is interspersed with her running off to do something else. Then there's the blowing raspberries at the table and generally messing up food! I don't know how much of this behaviour i should let go over my head, or what i should acknowledge and punish for - such as putting her on the naughty step.

And with that naughty step, sometimes putting her on there will cause more hassle than the thing that she did that i thought was naughty!! So it seems i'm walking on eggshells trying to keep my life as stress free as possible and her as happy as she can be! What the hell am i supposed to do?!!

And thinking all these things makes me feel guilty, as i waited so long to have her! The angst!!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

It doesn't sound that bad to me! (I have a tricky 5yo).

I think the important thing is to pick your battles. You are never going to get perfect behaviour from a 3yo so to expect it is to set yourself up to be frustrated and annoyed. If there is something that you really don't want her to be doing then you need to carry through with naughty step (or whichever method you chose) and not worry about upsetting her. If you tiptoe around her when she is being genuinely naughty then she will grow up spoilt.

Thanks PlopPlop! Yes, when i read some of the other threads, i do think i'm lucky!! But also, i don't want to spend most of my day feeling wound up...

I think I'm going to make a chart with good things and bad things on, and stickers for the good, naughty step for the bad!

The advice i've been given from some parents is to smack her and then its done! But i don't want to resort to that, I feel i've lost control if it went that far etc...

Isn't there a bootcamp we can just send toddlers to and get them back when they're "cured"!!

I spend a lot of my day feeling wound up as well. I have a 5yo and a 2yo so they are challenging in different ways. My 5yo generally has a more difficult personality though as I think I'll always find her harder. She's lovely in loads of ways and I love her so much but my god does she press my buttons! I recently read a book called "when your kids push your buttons and what you can do about it" and it was great. Helps you understand why certain things they do get to and about your own childhood as well. Think I'm going to read it again!

Who are these people who tell you to smack and get it over with? The problem with that is that they learn nothing from it. I do naughty step (mostly to give me a chance to calm down as I have a quick temper!) and we talk about what happened and why it's not good etc.

I think i'll get that book!!

I was told to smack her by one of the parents at a softplay centre we go to. His little boy had bit my dd, and he said that he would smack him for that, if we weren't in public! His take on parenting was that society had gone mad and we're all namby pamby now! He said he was smacked and it did him no harm and he grew up all the better for it! I was also smacked occasionally, and no, it didn't harm me, but i spent my childhood favouring my dad, who never smacked me, to my mother, who did! Now that i'm grownup, I get on so much better with her and she's my best friend. Now that i'm experiencing parenthood myself, i have a new respect for my parents and especially single parents - what a job they've got!!

On Friday of this week, my dd starts nursery, so I'm hoping that more interaction with other children will cure her of some behaviour, such as her dislike of sharing!! However, i anticipate that she's going to pick up some habits from the other kids too....

I'll check out the library or Amazon for that book - thanks again! Here's to a unmiffed day for both of us!

That's quite ironic really, that he smacks his child and his boy is going around biting people! People will tell you all sorts of things but you have to make up your own mind and once you do ignore everyone else. Personally I don't agree with smacking as a way of discipling a child although I have smacked a couple of times and then really regretted it! It's not something I CHOOSE to do if you see what I mean.

Maybe just go by your own experience of how it distanced you from your mum.

I was smacked by my dad and my only memory of that is being really confused as I had no idea what I had done wrong, so it didn't teach me anything. I think that goes with any punishment though, whether it is taking a toy away or naughty step or whatever, always explain why you are doing it.

Plop speaks a lot of sense.. And I have also read that book and felt that it was the single most helpful book I have ever read.. It should be given to every parent!!