dd 4.10 ruining weekends/days out/hols with behaviour.

[familyfun]

how do you punish/prevent bad behaviour without punishing whole family.

dd is annoying for the want of a better word, she purposefully winds people up for a reaction.

she calls her sister over, then snatches her toy or pushes her away. she hides her teddys high up. she chases her knowing she will crash and hurt herself.

she climbs on the back of the settee, stands on sisters potty, blocks doorframe so sister cant get passed.

i tell her not to do things and explain why. she agrees and carries on doing the same things over and over.

at dinner she calls her sister and then taps her own head so sister taps her head while holding yoghurt and gets covered.

i am fed up of saying dd1 stop this stop that. outside we have no fun as dd1 wont stop doing things she knows are wrong.

worst time is weekends/day trips, i can only presume she gets overexcited, but when i say come and get your hair done she runs off and hides under the table and then she wont get dressed and then she wont put her shoes on so by the time we go out we have all shouted at her or dp has picked her up and moved her to where he wants her to put her shoes on and dd1 is crying and she screams and screams like a tantrumming toddler. dd2 cries and backs away from her. if we say ok we wont go out then we all suffer.

we have tried ignoring this as we dont want to nag and shout, if you ignore dd tapping the tabel she will sit there indefinitely doing it just for the reaction. reward chards dont work as she knows what she should do and doesnt do it on purpose for attention.

at school she is good, people always comment on how sensible she is and grown up and well bahved and generally when out she is (apart from asking for everything in shope) its just in the house for us and sometimes her grandparents that she is like this.

dd has time at the park, swimming as a family most weeks, reading time to us and we read to her, we play games, i help with homework, so gets attention.

where are we going wrong?

i just cried writing that, she is all ive ever wanted and i dont want to mess it up.

family fun, we all have those fears about messing it up, but you are on here, asking questions, and thinking, I don't think you will mess up!

I love these articles from the hand in hand parenting site, because they are short so you can find solutions without having to read a whole book.

I want it now!

The cries that bind

I thought the following one might be relevent to how your daughter always gets overexcited about doing special things.

Holiday Meltdowns

oh by the way I think it's a great time to have one to one special time with your DD. One idea I've just been reading about in the Playful Parenting book, is to do exactly what the child wants for a set time period.

Familyfun - "i would love some time with her as we used to be always together ans i miss it too" - have you told your DD that? Sometimes just hearing you feel the same way makes a difference, as she then sees what she's feeling is 'okay' - and she sees you get on with things even though you have those feelings. She doesn't have to 'do' anything with her feelings, but she is allowed to have them. And that can be enough, as other people have said.

Example from my experience, when I was chained to DS BFing, I said to DD (who wanted to play with me) "I'm sorry DD, I can't play right now as DS needs feeding and it takes a long time. It's not much fun really. Babies are a bit boring when they're little, aren't they?" DD responds "Yes, he is quite boring... but don't worry mummy, he'll get bigger."

Adventureswithvoles: I agree with you to an extent re the emphasis that CP can be damaging creating a sense of 'pressure' to do it 'right', and if you don't do it 'right' you screw up your kid. I take more of the view that we're all human and it's better to model imperfection as otherwise it's setting an artificial model of what people are like that the child can't live up to - it's okay to be cross, tired, impatient, get stuff wrong these are all part of being a person. It's about being authentic - and I think Kohn says something along those lines, about being an authentic person to your child, and the importance of apologising to your child when you get things wrong for instance. Setting yourself up as the authoritarian CP style "mummy knows best, because I say so," sets you up as a perfect, omiscient person in the eyes of the child, which just isn't real and they suss that out at some point. However the bit in UP where it says something along the lines of "be aware of whether what you're doing is more about your needs or your child's" needs refining, in my view, as we all have needs; clearly the child's needs are important but that is not to negate that parents have needs too. That bit, I feel, is lacking in the book.

I'm not saying UP is a panacea, but it does provide a different approach and the idea of what you risk trading off in short-term compliance vs long-term development/relationship is useful... but life being less than ideal, sometimes you need short-term compliance for very practical reasons! Though you risk raising a 'people-pleaser' if you rely on praise as the key motivator, by putting the emphasis on helping the child empathise with others, and not talking about your own needs (as a parent) I do ponder whether you then end up with a 'people-pleaser' of another sort, one who sacrifices their own needs all the time because that's what they've seen their parents model. That's not healthy either. As with most things in life, it's about balance. But there is a lot of merit in understanding what the approach is built on, in terms of how your children may experience your parenting differently than you intend.

those articles are great thanks.
well after school i asked dd what she wanted to do and she suggested a dvd camped on floor with pillows and duvets so we all watched a dvd and i made sure dd1 was lying by me and she loves it and so did i
she was really good and kind to her sister, then her sister was sick and i had to see to her straight away and dd1 immediately started to be silly rocking her chair and banging the table and repeating herself.
i sat with her and told her that id had to help her sister just like i would help her if she was sick and there was no need to be silly to get attention, i didnt shout and she calmed down.

sounds like a lovely cosy time watching DVDS. I'm really glad the articles helped.

OP are you me? Bookmarked this thread because my dd1 is really challenging... Glad something seems to be working already. Must find time to read full thread ..

:) Thinking of you OP, hope you have a lovely long weekend.

unfortunately, we all have stomach upsets, dd2 was ill thurs/fri, then i was ill fri/sat and still a bit off, dd1 and dp got ill sat and today.
so we have been stuck in, but behaviour wise its been great, lots of time watching tv, reading, doing jigsaws and activity books togther without having to rush anywhere or entertain anyone has been just what we needed (without the sicky sheets and poo) yuck.

ive also realised that i treat dds very different when upset/angry and im trying to treat them more equally despite the age gap,
if dd2 cries i hug her and say poor dd2 etc and if she is angry/frustrated/shouting i hug her and tell her i will help her etc. she is 18 months.
if dd1 cries i often tell her not to cry/not to be silly and when angry i tell her off. 4.11
i have realised how unfair this is and how it must make her feel so have made an effort to hug her/support her/tell her i will help and have used "i will wait with you" for both of them when waiting for turns, and to me it seems much better and i think dd1 thinks that to.

i love them equally, i think i just expect too much from dd1 and half her behaviour/attention seeking is acting like a baby like her sister to get the attention like her sister gets.

im really trying and thanks to everyone who is posting.

when dd1 has been cheeky (which she has no energy for at moment) ive just quietly asked her not to and told her it makes me sad/is rude/hurts feelings and there is a lot les shouting.

hey family fun, sorry to hear about the stomach upsets, but glad it helped you get some family bonding time. It sounds like you are making some real changes in your thinking and behaviour. so hopefully in time your DD will change too!

still all ill here but lots of family time and dds are playing lovely together with lego, happyland, fuzzy felts, lots of joint games.
i think when dd1 has been at school she knows there is only 3 hrs till bed and that includes making dinner, eating so she wants every second of my/our attention but as we have more time together she is sharing me better.
she still says mommy where are you, mommy what are you doing every 30 seconds though

Hope you all feel better soon. Sounds like things are heading in the right direction though, as far as DD1 'sharing you' is concerned! My DD is a bit younger than yours, but she loves 'helping' with things like making tea etc - can you involve your DD in things you need to get done, like making dinner for instance, so that frees up more time for her to be with you?

Admittedly the individual task takes longer, but my DD can sort of lay the table, or chop things like mushrooms (with a blunt knife) and she gets a huge kick out of it as well as (hopefully) setting her up to do 'chores'/pull her weight round the house in the longer term, so it's win-win! As another of my 'mum-friends' said though, sometimes it's good to be the favourite parent, sometimes it's a pain... This too shall pass...

Where are we going wrong? Shouting at her and giving her lots of attention for bad behavior maybe. Can you give her positive attention when she does something right? Thank her for being thoughtful or kind.

Can you have daily time alone with her. Positive and fun time together where you can encourage and be warm to her. Make her feel valued. She sounds desperate to be noticed at the moment.