Come and be a better parent in the trenches! Thread 2

[BertieBotts]

Terrible title sorry Next time we'll start the discussion at 900 posts, OK?

Originally started by AnotherMonkey, we are trying to improve our parenting which may include less shouting (www.theorangerhino.com) and positive boundary setting (www.ahaparenting.com), or any other goal you want. If you want to be more authoritative that's a great cause too. No judging of parenting styles allowed, honest critique OK. There is occasionally homework (but really, honest, we're nice and don't care if you want to skip past that bit)

Dumping of emotions/ranting after a bad day also acceptable. The saying "in the trenches" refers mainly to having 2+ under 5 but really any stage which is repetitive, challenging, soul destroying about parenting.

Books recommended so far:
How To Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk
When Your Kids Push Your Buttons
The Happiness Project
Calmer Easier Happier Parenting
The Explosive Child
The Highly Sensitive Child

Please post a little intro/reminder just with your DCs ages/stages and any extra challenges - a couple of us have relocated abroad, that kind of thing.

Hi Searching - do you have an NHS wellbeing service near you? I got some help through them for anger issues.

searching you have read my first post. Me me me all the way. When i posted i had had enough of being the one who shouts, ALL the time.
There are times when you just feel like offloading and normally when one is in that mood you don't think you can help anyone as much. No need to apologise at all.

Poor you. I am on your behalf because when a grown woman cries that much then they are really not in a good place. ((Hugs)) and some. Get all he help you need and when you are doing ok, handling your Dc will be much easier i think. The pressure at work, is there no way you can delegate or you have to be on charge of everything? Can you afford to reduce your hours? Just for a while just to give yourself a break?

Husbands wrt emotions and all that!! Mehh:). My Dh for some reason is very good at noticing if and when i am not in a good mood, maybe because me is not shy to say it:) i am quite chatty( see where Dd gets it from) should not complain really, so if i am quiet for 10 min Dh then wants to know if i am ok. He has learned through the years though.(long story) please tell him and express your feelings. He might surprise you.
mandbaby all the best with birth. Overdue with 2 more young children? You are my hero. Good luck

searching helllloooo

Fab to see you but so sorry to hear that you're having a rough time. You are absolutely right I think that an un-sticking strategy is needed. If you had to choose one thing at the top of your priority list to change, what would it be? Are you getting any time to yourself which isn't anything to do with work or family?

Blessed it's so good to 'meet' you, I've really enjoyed your posts. Thanks for delurking! I would not have guessed that English is not your first language if you hadn't mentioned it. I highly recommend the 'fake it til you make it' strategy - look for every tiny single bit of positive you can find and celebrate it, and smile, until things start to feel brighter. And as others have said, your DD sounds super bright and in need of lots of stimulation. What sort of things are your 'go to' activities if you need a quiet 5 minutes?

Have to go as DD has just woken up, sorry to those I haven't replied to yet!

Monkey love the name as i call Dd monkey and Ds the other monkey:). Go to activities mmmm,,lets see MN:). Music is my thing. When i need thise fove minutes then its my hyms and christian music. Sorry, a bit boring for some i know.
Things have greatly improved and here is the reason why. Ds(6m) just started sleeping properly. I was at my wits end??sp?? Decided to give sleep training a go. First day did not last that long i kept messing things up by going in ALL the time even when he was not crying. Took him about an hr to sleep by which time he was snuggled nicely on my back in a sling. Day two i meant business. He cried for very a very short time. I went to do something thinking i would check on him after 2min. He stopped crying and started playing. It took about 20min. That was yesterday. We were all.
Today was even better. I took him in sat by the door waiting for the screaming, it never came. After a minute it came, i went in and gave a pacifier, turned him on his side and he slept. I thought i would sit and wait. Nothing. Today took 5min:) at 19:00

Him going to bed leaves me with time to mess around with Dd which she loves. At church yesterday she hooked up with some friends, by this i mean people over 20 because then she can ask her questions and get answers not like playing with people her own age,,,she does though in kindergaten. I realise that i was not getting any sleep with Dh holding on to my boobs hour after hour during the night. Ds did not feed at all last night, hoping the same will happen tonight..

Oh boy!! Not only did i accuse my Dh of hanging on to my boobs all night but it looks as if i have forgotten my commas as well. Sorry..

I haven't read the whole thread, just the first two pages, but thought I'd pop in and join you if I may?

As an intro, I have three DC: DD1 is almost 7, DD2 is 5.5 and DS is very nearly 3. DD1 was an angelic baby - she slept perfectly, ate perfectly and had a very sunny and placid disposition. DD2 was a bit colicky for the first couple of months but then was pretty good. I had quite a hard time of it though, being eventually diagnosed with PND when DD2 was nearly 9 months old. DS was conceived having managed to evade three different types of contraception. DH didn't want any more children and it took a good few weeks of soul searching to finally make the decision to keep him as I didn't feel I'd ever forgive DH if he 'forced' me to terminate the pregnancy.

My pregnancy with DS was terrible. I suffer with a type of IBD and throughout the entire pregnancy was hideously poorly. I also developed quite severe costochondritis (inflammation of the ribs) and PUPPP. He was induced two weeks early due to these issues and after a few weeks the colic hit us. He pretty much cried for the next three months, almost continuously, meaning he (and us) also hardly slept. The girls slept through most of it but our household was not a pleasant place to be for those months.

When DS hit about 6 months old he was a lot better but he has always been quite a cry-baby sort of child. These past few months he's been really pushing our buttons...he just doesn't listen. To anything! We have to repeat ourselves over and over and over, eventually ending up shouting at him. We seem to shout and shout and shout, getting into awful rages, completely seeing red. We hate seeing it in each other and always try to intervene when the other is in a mad shouting fit, but don't seem to know how to stop it. There's something about DS's behaviour that seems to tip us over the edge and I'm really worried about the unhealthy environment this is causing us all, particularly the children, to live in. When DS is behaving, we have a pretty good and happy time as a family but I do worry we are still too hard on the children and expecting too much from them.

I suffer with really bad PMT since having DS too, which doesn't help matters. There's not a great deal of help, treatment-wise, I can take for that, due to the immune suppressants I take for my IBD and arthritis.

I'm really not sure what to do. Does anyone have any tips? I'm at my wits end! I love my children dearly but worry that they are going to end up hating us both because of the way we lose our rags so easily. The poor kids end up walking on eggshells around us, which I hate to see. DH grew up in a horrible home environment as his dad was an alcoholic, and a nasty drunk. I grew up with a narcissistic and unloving mother and a step father who beat the shit out of me at the slightest opportunity. She did eventually divorce him but only when my grandfather (her dad) intervened and said he'd call the police and try to obtain custody of me if she didn't do something. I want my children to look back on their childhoods fondly, and not with bitterness and rancour like DH and I do but we really need to get out of this horrible situation we find ourselves in.

Sorry for the long long post. Hopefully there are others who have experienced similar and have managed to find a way out?

Hi Squirrel - sounds like your situation is really intense and you both have a lot you need to work through. Would family therapy be an option? I have no idea how you go about accessing something like that but it sounds very destructive, small children can be so trying - three is or has been such a flashpoint for a lot of us on this thread! Book wise I really recommend "When your kids push your buttons" and have you seen the Stately Homes threads at all? Are you able to stop each other when you get into the mad fit or not?

I had a bit of a "moment" yesterday when I just ended up spilling a load of stuff to DH and then went out for a walk at about 11pm which I think freaked him out a bit I just needed to get out and have some space and think without being stuck in the same place all the time. It was good and helpful and he ended up just cuddling me when we went to bed which was nice because I had been expecting him to try and fix everything when I just needed to know that he was there.

So then four things. Firstly we decided to clean the entire apartment yesterday which was nice, just to get stuff out and have empty, clean space is amazing. I am not a person who is bothered by mess in general but the calm from a properly clean room is lovely. I'm doing the "Life changing magic of tidying" book at the moment too which is related and good.

The second was that I decided (a while ago but cemented this on my walk) that I want to enjoy now. I'd been getting caught up in petty ridiculousness - wedding envy on facebook (we had a tiny last minute thing) worrying that others have a bigger house, that we have to wait to have babies, money stuff, food, whatever. Nothing hugely major just annoying envy about various things. So I decided that whatever situation anybody is in (and we're in a pretty GOOD one) there are always things to enjoy so I'm going to try and see that.

Thirdly we ordered DS' birthday presents tonight from amazon and I'm excited for his birthday (Sunday) - he's got a few new things to play with which I'm quite excited to have a go on too

Fourthly a thread on here about doing one thing every day which is the "real" you. So as a culmination of everything, I'm hoping to spend more time keeping the house in order, discovering new things with DS and finding out what the real me likes doing. I think that all of this will cut down on my screen time naturally, and make me feel like I'm doing more in general and hopefully I will start to feel more alive and living along the way. So, a positive post from me.

I've just gone back and read a few more pages - Blessed, your DD sounds EXACTLY like my DD2. She is extremely bright too and, like your DD, pretty much hasn't shut up since she started talking at about the same age. It drives me to distraction too, all the constant questioning. We live quite remotely and so to get anywhere it's a car journey. Even if it's just 10 minutes, she'll probably have asked 100 inane questions: why is that car turning that way? Why has that dog got a coat on? Who dropped that rubbish by the road? Why have the traffic lights turned green????????? ARGGHHHHHHH!

Most adults she talks to find it really endearing but they don't have to live with her! I think it's because she hasn't quite worked out that an internal monologue should be just that: internal!

Hahahaha. I remember posting on a thread with a really earnest poster who insisted she had done the whole UP thing with no punishments ever ever ever and I expressed my frustration when I pick DS up from kindergarten and he has to give me ten minutes of monologue before he will even look at his fucking shoes, and she said "Oh but he sounds bright and organised. Don't you like that?" Yes! Sure, whatever! I love that! But really come on, I can have those conversations ON THE WAY home, and not sitting on the floor with annoyed kindergarten workers "ahem"ing and watch tapping at me.

DS has this baffling habit of asking why to things that don't make sense to ask why about. "Would you like to watch this new film, DS?" "Why?" "......" (total bafflement, thought he would jump at the chance, no idea what to say) "Because it's.... nice?" or he'll ask you a really simple question and then ask why to the response even when it's not something which has a reason behind it.

Have you tried (both of you) turning it back on them and saying "That's an interesting question. What do you think about it?" It gives them a chance to think about things and explore their questions without expecting too much thought process from you (not my strong point when tired) and sometimes their answers are hilarious - DS' understanding of various science, geography, history etc is brilliant (in a really bizarre way, I mean, not that most of it is correct). I should record him or write it down so I can look back one day. He's also totally convinced that he's right most of the time and refuses to back down. Until later when you bring the topic up again and he acts like the correct information that you gave him was what he thought all along, duhhhhhhh.

Bertie I do find DD2 hilarious most of the time. She's just so curious and weird amazingly creative. I do write down some of the conversations we have, and have plans to print some of them in a photobook, along with photographs of some of her more crazy fashion ideas. She didn't really have any hair until she was 3, still doesn't have all that much now (still quite wispy and only just down to her shoulders) so she compensated for that for about a year by donning a Mary (as in mother of Jesus) head-dress thing that she had in her dressing up box. She'd decorate it with coloured pegs (that she called 'stylashes' - still no closer to finding out what they actually are!), put hair clips in it and even tie it in 'bunches' with hair bobbles. On the odd occasion she'd pop a pair of colourful tights on her head, and pretend she was Pippi Longstocking and that the leg parts were her plaits!

Oh, and in answer to one of your questions: yes, we do stop each other when one of us gets in a shouty rage. It's like a bit of a good cop-bad cop thing. When one is angry, the other is radiating calm, rational thinking, patience etc and the angry one of us generally stops and goes away to calm down elsewhere.
The issue I have is that I generally only really get like this at the end of a trying day, or if it's in the holidays and I've had all three kids bickering all morning. DH, on the other hand, seems to get like this after spending not much time at all with the kids. It's usually at the weekend, when I generally wander off to do some cleaning, sort washing out etc and he's left having some 'quality' time with the kids. He really seems to resent having to look after his own children. Also, with the auto-immune diseases I have, I suffer terribly with fatigue (like the kind that hits you in early pregnancy and completely floors you) but I get the impression that he thinks I'm just being lazy. When I request a couple of hours in bed on a Saturday morning, just to try and catch up on some rest, he seems to really resent it (despite me doing the same for him on a Sunday) and takes this resentment out on the kids.
I'm probably painting him in a really bad light here but he's not all bad . He really struggles with young children. He's fabulous with older kids (8+) as they're not quite so irrational (generally) and can usually be reasoned with. I actually think he'd make a great teacher as he's great at patiently explaining stuff and does do stuff in schools with the Bloodhound SSC project.
We just need to work out how to deal with the kids in a less shouty manner. We talk about it most evenings, about how we feel so awful about it, how it's affecting the kids and us etc. I think I'll get a copy of that Buttons book and see if it might help. Our major problem right now is DS - as we just can't seem to get him to listen to us at all. He's a nightmare to take anywhere, unless he's in a pushchair

I would like to lurk and learn as well if I can.

I have 2 x DS one nearly a teen the other slightly younger. DS2 has ADHD, post traumatic stress and attachment disorder which is hard at times. DS1 has teenage attitude disorder!

I'm a single parent which actually helps in a lot of ways but as you can appreciate is also tiring too. I'm a great screamer and use it too much. I would like to lessen this and start to move from toddler parenting to teenage parenting. Therefore discussing rather than directing. It's hard and I haven't succeeded yet.

I've just ordered the Kindle version of the Pushing Buttons book - and had it sent to DH's iPad too so we can both read it and hopefully improve ourselves with it.

Mojito I've only just joined this thread today, but just in case everyone else is wisely in bed, hello!

Hello squirell and mojito. Welcome. Bertie i loved your post with the four things. The last one just made me because Dd is exactly like that. I am usually the first parent to arrive at the daycare to fetch her as i am at home with Ds. It normally takes an hr to finally leave. Now i just go half an hour before the daycare closes. They why questions are marvellous. I used to send the question back to her and say ' i don't know Dd why Venus is close to earth,whta do you think?. I got " mama, you were born before me, you are the adult and i am asking you. If you can not tell me then i will ask my yes (Phd in physics papa). If i don't give her an answer she is happy with then pappa is the one to go to.

Squirell your Dd is amazing. Wish i had thought of the Mary mother of Jesus hairstyle. That there is smartness indeed. Most adults will obviously think it is endearing yes because they are wowed for the 5min they talk to them. It has its own advantages i think. Our children's pastor just told Dh on sunday that we have a very enlighted child:). She spent 5 hours at the door chatting to one of the ushers about compost and dead animals. I apologised and he seemed to have enjoyed the company. Truth be told. I am very proud of her, i just think she should learn to be quiet sometimes. I am a christian, Dh is not. She starts about God, you are wowed. She starts about the sciences, you are also wowed. I feel embarrassed because whatever child related meeting she attends, she just tells them i know that already. My mom or dad has taught me, leaving the story teller a bit unhappy:).

Your forst post squirell was quite . There is a lot going on there and totally agree it is not good for the kids to walk on eggshells. You say it is at the end of the day that you engage in these screaming matches and it is understandable. After the day's end all you require is some cooperation and some quiet afterwards. You are tired, your health is not up to par, you have challenging kids to take care of, then at times a Dh who gets moody because you need a couple of hours by yourself not forgetting your health issues. In my eyes you are Mother Teresa(hoping she did not shout at anybody).

I have no help to offer other than to sympathize. Your Dh has to help you out. Unfortunately as parents we can not bring children into this world then decide that little babies are not fun so i will skip that stage and meet you all in teenagerhood. We all learn as we go along. Doing most childcare alone when you have a partner who is there is tiring. Hope things will be better after you guys read the book. Here at us it is ONLY me who shouts{but getting better) due to ds learing to settle himself to sleep and actually staying that way up to the morning. You will get better. Do not be hsrd on yourself as well. I doubt you shout as much as my FIL and his kids are totally fine...good luck.

Hi everyone x

Tonight I am cross and tired and angry and grumpy and premenstrual and DS has been in meltdown since school pick-up and I've fallen out with DH and I want to make it better but I haven't got the energy. I've come to bed simply because I've had enough of today.

It's nice in bed though

My DD is just getting started with the questions. DS is another one who ploughs right through my attempts to turn the question round. "No, YOU think about it mummy, do birds wee?"

Welcome to the thread, squirrelling and mojito :) (mmmmm mojito.…)

AnotherMonkey

Why don't you send your DH via text? That way you don't have to talk to him but he knows you're sorry and might bring you up a cup of tea as an olive branch

The answer is no, by the way. Birds don't wee - all their urea comes out in their poo (hence why it's bad for your car's paintwork!)

anothermonkey we have discussed the bird wee question at length in this house (we have chickens...which is a whole other issue...moving on). DD2 often requires new information to be repeatedly confirmed (but also asks very clever questions). So she notices her wee is yellow and then proceeds to work her way through Every Single Person she knows asking if their wee is also yellow. It took a while, poor DP

Oh no!
Had a big post with hello's for everyone and I've accidentally clicked "hide this thread instead of "preview" and it's all gone (and I won't be able to find it again cos I've hidden it.)
Bugger
Time for bed (said Zebedee....)

Well, I started reading the pushing buttons book today (older two at school, DS at nursery) and found it quite interesting. So many scenarios describe me to a T. Looking forward to reading the rest of it.

Today was a fairly good day. I got up a bit earlier especially to make sure that the morning routine was a little less rushed and a little more calm. It worked to some extent - although DS is still pissing about with his breakfast at the moment, which REALLY pushes my buttons. I managed not to shout at all this morning though. Kids all away most of the day. Picked up the girls from school and drove straight to swimming lessons. Got through that all nicely and calmly too - despite DD2's bickering and back-chatting. Picked up DS on the way home and managed to get school and swimming stuff put away (by all three kids - miraculous!) homework done/snacks given, baths done and all ready for bed with NO shouting or crossness from anyone. DH was home so was able to do DS's bath/bed routine. I then had to nip out for a PTA meeting but was pretty happy with the day today (albeit spent mostly without kids!). Hoping tomorrow will be good too - just DS and me at home. I might take the easy option and take him out for a run at the local NT gardens.

How has everyone else's day been today?

Not doing too badly today, but not at all sure what's best to do about screen time. DS2 in particular has picked up the phrase "screen time" and it really winds me up for some reason to have him come up and say "Mummy, can we have screen time?" like he doesn't care what it is as long as there's a screen involved... So trying to train him to ask specifically to watch TV, go on the laptop, play on the Wii or whatever. But then it winds me up if he asks the minute we walk in through the door, or when it's sunny (like today) and I feel they should be outside... We used to have a rule that they got half and hour just before tea, but that got to a point where if we were late home, for example, and they missed 5 minutes of that allotted time they'd be really aggrieved. So then we said that they could have half an hour at some point in the afternoon, but now they wind me up by asking incessantly, or the half hour gets dragged out, or they don't know what to do with themselves before or after that half hour... I can't figure out what's normal, what's the best way of approaching it.

DH reckons that by limiting the time it gets more value in their eyes, but I'm afraid that if we don't limit it they'll never do anything else. The whole situation leaves me feeling uncertain and put on the spot, so then I snap at them for asking! Sorry this is so long, but does anyone have any thoughts?

My girls (6 and 5) only really get to watch TV as a wind down time activity just before bed. They'll normally only watch one programme (usually Sofia the First or sometimes the Crystal Maze!!) and then it's bedtime. DS (almost 3) often watches an episode of Mr Tumble/Something Special whilst I'm tidying up the remains of the morning rush from the kitchen and dining room but otherwise doesn't watch it during the week.

At the weekends they are allowed to play on the iPad for a short time each, or watch more TV than usual. They all mostly prefer to play outside though, given the choice. My DD1 is such a telly addict though - she'd happily watch TV all day long too. The other two aren't quite so good at sitting still so don't have quite the same fascination with the TV as DD1.

Could you try doing your screen time as a 'just before bed' thing instead? Perhaps don't set a time limit on it, just say you'll put it on for 'a while' and as it's the last thing they'd do before bed, it might make them feel that they can factor in other activities beforehand. I'd imagine that they'll normally be in the house at that time so it can be fairly easily kept at a certain time. It also means that they may be less inclined to ask immediately on getting home, and continue to ask until you give in!

I don't limit screen time (unless banning it as a punishment) but I will say "Come on, after this cartoon it's time to do something else, you've been on there ages" or suggest doing something together or say "We're going out"

They probably will binge on it for a couple of weeks but then they get bored of it. And I think in the week after school etc they do deserve some downtime, to just chill out in front of the TV or whatever.

I can't keep up!

screen time. Banned after 3pm by the sleep consultant we saw. Seeing as she's replaced my child with a clone that sleeps I'm sticking with it Sometimes 30 minutes in the morning. Or none at all. DD is a telly addict. she sits through whole films and has.for months- she's just turned 4 in September. I think if it were unlimited she'd watch constantly hence I'm very wary. she has watched nearly 3 hours solid when ill while I play with the dts if she just wants to low on the sofa. And still wanted more! I find they don't know what to do with themselves after and get grumpy too so it's better without here.

I am an irritable old bag. Lost it and shouted at dt1 and made him cry. All over him whining (tired) "carry me, carry meeee" which he does all the time, and then getting hold of dh super expensive new bike light when I picked him up and dropping it on the floor from kitchen counter height. My reaction totally out of proportion. its all calm now. DTs having a nap. Just off to play with DD. She wants to bake.... I think it's just tiredness. Was worried about DD who went to bed after lying around crying about about tummy ache. Then she came in for a cuddle at 1 am. Then I couldn't get back to sleep, and dt1 got up at 6. So I shouldn't be this grumpy as that's a great night for us really. Ho hum. Just me again being awful to the dc. Right. really am off to play with DD.

Or maybe I'll order the 'buttons ' book first for my kindle.

Thanks for your thoughts. TBH they don't often want to watch TV apart from weekends before breakfast. It's more likely to be the Wii and/or the laptop that they're after. I don't like TV just before bedtime because I read in an article that the blue light disrupts sleep patterns so I do avoid that (for them - I ought to enforce it for myself too, esp. going on the computer last thing at night!). I think chillling out about it but with limits is going to be the way forward - if I can manage it!

Proud of myself for not screaming at DS1 for whacking DS2 just now. Baby steps...

bedtime. Just awful. Sick to death of it and just want them to go to bloody sleep.

We used to let Dd watch as much tv as she wanted but realised she could sit glued to it the whole day if possible. We then limited to just fri,sat and sunday but not too much. A lot of screaming and demanding until she realised i meant it. When she stopped obsessing i let her watch again but this time around i would tell her to switch off when she felt she had seen enough. That worked really well because she watches two episodes of Dora then gets bored so she rarely watches it now. Now i use it when i want to do her hair:)

Things have been good in our house lately. Our son sleeping through was the game changer. Today i was so proud. First time he slept in his bed for a nap, a proper nap for more than 1hr. It was lovely to have that one hr to just sit still and not do anything. He has always slept on my back. I feel like my old self pre Ds.

Rhetorician oh the good old bed times. Been there, done that. Exhausting isn't it? It will get better. What is going on? Don't the kids want to sleep? Do you have one that does not settle easily? How old are they?.