how do I handle rudeness in my 4 yr old?

[ladyluckylula]

I have a 4 yr old DD. Always been a bit on the head strong side. I have a 2 yr old DS and I can see his nature is so different. He's much more accommodating and easy to get along with. Maybe its just a personality thing. But I find with DD she is sometimes so rude to me. She likes to correct me and say I'm wrong even when I'm not.

I'm not sure why it annoys me so much but it really hits something deep inside me. I wonder if it gets to me the same way my older sister used to correct me. Does she feel this and is that why she does it ... to annoy me and get more attention? I just find with her that if I'm all happy go lucky and nice as pie she does it and I have to be really strict and serious to get any respect.

Its odd because my 2 yr old DS has always said please and thank you really easily like it comes naturally and I don't get the attitude with him at all (yet!)

Anyone else in the same boat? People say ignore the bad but I just don't think I can ignore it anymore. Isn't ignoring saying 'that's ok darling you can speak to your mother any way you choose'

If you let her get away with it now she will be 10 times worse as a teenager and will have a habit of putting you down. Nip it in the bud now. Every single time she does it pull her up, tell her it is extremely rude and you are not having it - you will listen when she is polite. (Make sure that you are polite to her)

thanks SatinSandals.. so true. but my problem has always been what punishment or consequence?

weirdly this evening she did something she always does when she doesn't like something on her plate which is flick it off and make a big song and dance and hoo-ha even if the rest of the meal is something she loves. We are always telling her to leave it on her plate if she doesn't like something. We don't make her eat it but we expect her to try it. She kept flicking it off then threw it on the floor when we were out the room and said she'd eaten it.

I'd told my hubby about how i was feeling so it was big guns time and for once we were both on the same page. He sent her to her room and said she could go to bed without eating anything. wow - that worked! After leaving her waiting sometime we eventually said that she could eat her dinner but she knows what will happen if she did that next time.

Afterwards I thought we should have followed through. That has been our trouble (or my trouble) is having the guts to give a proper consequence and letting her get away with a little trickle of bad behaviour since she was about two.

there's aways been a voice in my head saying 'she's tired' or 'she's hungry' or 'she's only 3' or 'she'll grow out of it'

You just follow up with what you say. The dinner was easy. When she flicked it on the floor you simply tell her, without getting cross and without any emotion, ' if you do that again I will take it away and you will do without'. When she does it just take it wordlessly away. I would put it in the kitchen and, since this is the first time, if she really wants it I would give it back but with a warning that next time she won't get it back.
Any future fuss just keep calm and repeat like a broken record, with slight surprise,' well you would be hungry if you don't eat your dinner'. She won't starve without a meal.

I don't think you need a punishment just a consequence to go with the behaviour. E.g if she is rude tell her that she is being rude and that you will pay attention when she stops and after that do your own thing and ignore. Keep calm and just treat it as perfectly normal that you are not responding to rudeness.

She may well be tired, hungry and only 3yrs but she quite probably won't grow out of it if it isn't stopped.

ok - thanks for your advice, SatinSandals. It's just so weird how hard its been to drum politeness into her whereas my boy seems to have naturally picked it up. Its a bit like she feels she has right of passage and so gratitude doesn't come naturally whereas with my son you can just do something like put his shoes on and he'll say 'tank cuu mummy' Maybe he's just an angel and an exception. Having said that right from when he started speaking I always repeated the 'say please' 'say thank you' after his requests whereas with DD I think I often let it go.

Good advice from SatinSandals Remember, it's easy to compare siblings, but it's a slippery slope. What was she like when she was 2? What will he be like when he's 4? He may copy his sister's behaviour as he gets older, which is another reason to nip it in the bud now.

"Tank cuu mummy" for putting on his shoes? I am dying inside from the cuteness. If my DD was the devil incarnate I wouldn't mind if I had such a sweetie for a DS!

I would absolutely stick with Satin's advice and try to be as unemotional as possible about it.

These things may still change. Children's personalities are not set in stone.

My dd, who was challenging and questioned everything I said as a toddler/preschool child, has shown great respect for my judgment since she reached her teens (which is really when it matters).

Ds otoh, who was a compliant little sweetie as a toddler, went through a very challenging period in his pre-teens, where he deliberately seemed to want to learn as little as possible, live as unhealthily as possible and spend as much time as possible criticising everything we did and stood for. He is now coming out of it at 13.

Make sure you don't let your dc become fixed in some kind of narrative of Who They Are; it can muddle communication in later years when they may feel themselves to be some totally different person.

One thing I have learnt is that it isn't just about the child; it is also about the person we are and what we cope well or less well with. When dd at 2 said "how do you know that, did you read it in the papers" I felt secretly proud and pleased because it seemed to me to denote a questioning, active attitude to life. Another parent might have found it very challenging. Otoh when ds at 11 said "where's the point of trying to change the world: you are not Nelson Mandela" I had to take several deep breaths, because this seemed to challenge something inside myself. But really, it wasn't that one was naughtier than the other: it was all about my reactions.