Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

Help! Nothing works and our child is becoming a monster!!!

3 replies

mumdadhelp · 12/11/2013 19:45

Our Daughter has always been stubborn. We have always gone through periods when she would not go to bed. Tried quietly putting her back to bed when she gets out, literally had to do that over 100 times in one night - did not work. Have tried reward charts. Removing toys if bad at bedtimes. Naughty step - she screams and fights and will not stay on the step - hours of hysterics. We are going though another period of refusing to go to bed. 3 weeks now and we are at our wits ends. Cannot reason with her. All techniques have failed. Help! She is 5yrs old now. Is good outside of home.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
notagiraffe · 13/11/2013 15:22

Hi

I had a v stubborn DS1 (still do, but at that age it was far more difficult.) The one trick that really, unbelievably helped was using the methods in Positive Parenting. Loads of people with stubborn kids dismiss the ideas because they think they give in to the child, but they don't. they just take the battle out of the equation.

You just agree with the child. So, your DD says 'No' when you say 'Bedtime' Instead of having a battle of wills (which they win because they're not as knackered as you are), crouch down at her level and say in a gentle voice: You don't like bedtime do you? Listen to her answer. Ask what she doesn't like. She might say she wants cuddles. Or misses you or is frightened of a monster. Whatever.

You just agree, whatever it is. You say you miss her too, or you love cuddles too, and look forward to them as soon as it's morning.

Then you say you bet she can come up with three things that will make sleeping in her bed nicer. Agree with any ideas that are doable, and say 'that's interesting, anything else?' to the rubbish ones. One that worked for us was making a giant soft toy the guardian of the room. he did a fair bit of kung foo fighting of imaginary monsters every night, but it helped settle DS and it was so much nicer to have him giggling at bedtime than screaming (even if he still didn't go to sleep straightaway.)

Also, if she asks for something she really can't have, like 'You sleep in my bed' or 'I sleep in your bed' just be honest. E.g. 'I don't sleep well in your bed, it's too small for me, and I don't sleep if you're in my bed because I'm scared of rolling on you. So that's why everyone has their own comfy bed. So we can all sleep and have lots of energy to have fun in the day.' Stubborn children often respond to adults treating them a bit like fellow adults. It makes them feel they have equal power.

I know it all sounds a bit sickly and squeaky clean, but it works. It just does, even though you think it won't.

Instead of a naughty step, PP suggests a cosy corner. You fill a chair with cushions, cuddly toy, blanket and whenever anyone gets really tantrummy, say they need to cosy up in the cosy corner until they feel better again. there's a toy to cuddle and a book to look at to help them feel better and they can get down as soon as they feel fine again. That way, there's no punishment involved for having emotions that get the better of her, just a nice place where she can learn to calm herself down (good skill.) And you can also go and sit in it when you get overwhelmed by her. Win win.

The book these ideas come from is Positive Parenting by Jane Nelsen. Nearly everything in it didn't come naturally to me, but they worked, so I learned how to talk to my DC that way and it helped massively. The freaky power control tantrums disappeared. (Still didn't jump into bed at night but at least we didn't waste time having huge battles about it. And for pretty much everything else it worked like a dream, so we only had the bedtime stress, not the day time stresses too.

sesamechoc · 14/11/2013 20:50

Hi Op,

notagiraffe - I couldn't agree more. When me and DP read How to talk.... it was essentially like learning chinese. Been talking this way for 5 years now( ds1 7 ds2 3) so it comes much more naturally. ( ahaparenting helps a lot as well)

Something I always remember - When the authors of HTT told their mentor ( a child psychologist) that they were finding it difficult to learn this new language, he replied " Learning a new language is difficult - for one thing you will always talk with an accent bur for your children, it will be their native tongue...

An example of this happened yesterday - have already posted about this on another thread today!!. When our washing machine broke and I was saying - oh this is soooo annoying - DS 2 came up to me, gave me a hug and said" you seem frustrated mummy, don't worry, let's call someone to fix it"

HawkeyeInChaos · 14/11/2013 22:48

Agree with notagiraffe. I'm still an amateur when it comes to positive parenting, but the techniques work better with my stubborn dd than anything else I've tried.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page