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.

Bexster yes, I often find that the clash of needs/ requirements/expectations at the weekend, plus all 4 of us falling over each other in the sitting room cos the boys' room isn't big enough for them to play in makes them extra stressful times. :(

I managed to have quite a civil conversation with DS1 on the sort of subjects he normally blanks out (feelings, emotions, his behaviour, its effects on other people...) by sitting next to him but not making eye contact, and fiddling about with hexbugs with him. Hmm. Will see if it was a fluke, or if it works again another time.

123 magic is a book. I'm not keen on it because it's v. conditional and it ignores/rubbishes a lot of things I think are important, but it's very mainstream which means it isn't harmful as such, and it's formulaic. If you read the amazon preview on this version: www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1889140430/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=569136327&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1889140163&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=05ZMGP3M20C6WJDCDR2N

You get enough information to piece it together. Just watch out, page 37 has offhand references to acts of child abuse which really really upset me. I'm sensitive to stuff like that (although I think every parent is, why put it in a parenting book FFS! And it's only in there for the author to boast about what an amazing teacher she is.)

I do like the way it says when you're doing the 123 thing don't talk, explain, cajole, plead, berate or say anything at all except "That's one, that's two" etc.

Ear plugs are recommended when you have sensory defensiveness so I think they could definitely be worth a try! :)

Hello, can I join please? 2 dd's under 4 + sleep deprivation + part time job = shouty mummy. I have all the books but haven't read any of them. Please inspire me!

Hi can I please join?

I am a slummy mummy of 2 beautiful babes under 3, dd 2.5 and ds 15 months!

I'm a far to shouty stressy mummy who needs like minded mummy's to share and compare with:) Jules x

I joined this group last week because I'm struggling to cope with DD's (3years, 4 months) behaviour and my DS - 9 weeks with reflux. Things are so intense I haven't been able to post.

But right now DH is at home and DD is kicking off - again. Ear splitting screams non-stop. She has woken DS, which makes me want to cry because he rarely sleeps in the day with the reflux. It's been going on for nearly an hour now. A mad house.

Please can you tell us what to do.

We've done naughty corner which used to work very well. Now she goes in screaming, storms out screaming (we keep putting her back) but when she has eventually done her 3 mins without leaving she is still screaming, refusing to apologise and yelling at us. She also pee'd the floor. She has always used the toilet as a way to get out the corner. This time we called her bluff and she took off her pants and tights and pee'd the floor.

From there DH has put her in her room and not allowing her out. This is to keep her out of the room where I currently am with cranky DS. We can hear her trashing her room and screaming - very high pitch, really ear-splitting. She pulled all her books onto the floor and is kicking and banging things over. DH is going to take a picture of her room because he said no one will believe it.

Is it OK to insist she cleans it all up when she calms down. If she refuses, is it too cruel to pack it all away in boxes for a day or so so she can't play with it or read anything?

We've never done this before.

I am getting increasingly angry. She has never been spanked in her life but I am a heartbeat away now from giving her a smack. How the hell do we wrestle control back from her. It is awful. I dread her coming home from nursery and she used to be my darling girl.

I don't have time to read parenting books or threads, but is it OK to lock them in their rooms until they calm down? I can't stand and hold the door handle as DH is doing. What will psychologically harm them and what will teach them?

HV was here this morning and wants me to see a GP about post-natal depression. I haven't told DH this yet. And this is happening when he's at home. When I am alone I could literally pound my head into the wall with the craziness of it.

Please advise.

Hi choccie. First of all, sending and a big un-MNy hug your way. That's tough :(

Next, the only thing I know for sure about DDs tantrums (DS was far more chilled as a two year old, funnily enough, and his tantrums could be stopped) is that sometimes they can be prevented (food/sleep), sometimes they can be diverted, and sometimes you're f*cked and just have to ride them out.

My own view with DD is that when she does go supersonic, I don't want to leave her entirely alone. She'll scream like an animal and back into the wall and tell me to go away and I have to work very hard to stay calm because I find it very upsetting. But I'm in a routine now, I talk to her calmly with stuff like 'can you find words'? 'Do you want a cuddle?' 'Shall we take your coat off?' 'Do you want a cuddle?' and so on. At first, it doesn't help at all and I'll leave her to it for a couple of minutes, then come back and try again. She's getting used to the routine now and it works a LOT quicker now than it used to, we've had some epics.

Our two have both used the wee-in-time-out ploy.

We haven't yet reached room decimation levels - I don't know whether this is because of this approach or whether I've simply got all that yet to come (she's 2.5).

It is incredibly hard dealing with this when you have a little one - particularly one who doesn't sleep well - to deal with at the same time. I have been there in spades. DS really struggled when DD arrived. All I can advise is to accept that you're simply not going to have the same level of control as you had with one and some stuff you just have to ride out.

I personally wouldn't trap her alone in the room - she's not doing it to piss you off as such, she's too little. They're trying to deal with emotion that is too big for them, even when it's stuff that seems small to us.

I don't know if this helps at all. I really sympathise with you because this stuff sets off my fight or flight in a way I've never experienced before, and I don't have the underlying medical stuff going on.

Hi and welcome jules and rumtum

Oops sorry choccie by medical stuff I was thinking about the thyroid/adrenal stuff but I was mixing up my posts!!

moresnow if you do use earplugs I'd be really interested to know if they make any difference.

Have to stop - on phone and this is taking aaaages but hi everyone else xx

Oh and quick PS, excuse my choice of phrase, choccie - not suggesting at all that you think your DD is trying to piss you off - typing too quickly and not thinking about how it comes across in text. I just mean her behaviour is fuelled by big emotions, rather than intent to annoy. Sorry :)

Also on phone.
Good active from monkey who has been there recently.
Choccie sound like crisis time. This can be positive because it forces you to find solutions and identify what is not working.
First massive well done on not resorting to walloping her, it can be so difficult not to when you have been driven right to the edge with exhaustion etc.
So. A plan:
Time out - not working and becoming a trauma in itself. So forget that for a while.

When a 3 year old has become a big sis there is a lot for them to deal with emotionally and practically. Suddenly she has to be the big girl and it is hard and scary.

Going out to nursery will be tiring and may contain stresses for her that you are not aware of.

A three year old needs time to process questions / instructions. When you speak to her, give her a good 10 seconds to reply / absorb the information before you say or ask anything else. (Count them in your head after speaking) this can cool a situation down in itself. By just slowing things down.
I think I would ask for minimal room putting back after the trashing ( maybe tidy away less loved toys but she can "put somewhere tidy and safe" the favourite books / teddies)
Going back to re-read before I post more.

Hi to new people :)

Choccie - it sounds like you're getting stuck in what I think of as a spiral of wills. Where you react punitively to something your DD has done, she reacts defiantly, you have to increase the punishment to address the defiance, she reacts more defiantly, etc, until the overall punishment (time out for over an hour, shut in room, made to clean up a huge overwhelming mess) has far outweighed the initial misbehaviour.

I would say you have to stop the spiral, or, as you're finding, you get close to being pushed into using a punishment that you don't want to do whether that's shutting her in her room or smacking her or anything.

So first just stop. Chances are she doesn't even remember what she's done, she's probably scared, angry, confused, exhausted. Go in and give your little girl a hug, a drink of milk, apologise for losing it, and then just continue your day as normal with whatever you'd usually do at this time - counting down to bedtime routine or whatever.

Tomorrow clean up the room together with her. Just write this one off and start over. Honestly it is so not worth continuing once it has got to this point. Blank slate. Tomorrow is a new day. Show her that you love her even though she has been awful.

It is SO hard. Three is a MAJOR, MAJOR flash point. With a new baby as well it's just mind blowing. You just have no idea before you get there - you have this perfect baby and they become a toddler and you have a little bit of a battle over small stuff but basically whichever approach you pick works, and then suddenly, Three comes and it's just BANG, FUCK YOU. Parenting methods suddenly mean shit all. You can be as consistent as you like and they'll push the boundaries out of the window. You can be as understanding as you like and they throw it back in your face. What worked, doesn't. What was cute is infuriating. Yep, you get days where it's just a write off. So write it off. I promise you she won't feel like she got away with it.

(Strategy for tomorrow/future later but I wanted to get this posted.)

And I see it's now a few hours later, so whatever happened, if the spiral went even further, if she went to bed upset, just don't stress it. Tomorrow is a new day, it's not too late to start again. Do apologise (I think it's really important), get a plan together with your DH and above all cut yourselves some slack - you have a 9 week old and you're just entering this Three phase.

Hi all. The tantrum has passed. I took DS to Tesco (DD had to stay home because it was one of things we warned her would happen. She didn't seem bothered). I didn't tell DH I'd posted on MN. When I got back he'd made her tidy the room - books randomly shoved in shelf but that's fine; she's three. She was very pleased with herself when I got back. Dragged me off to see it and I helped her tidy her bed.

But it doesn't resolve how to cope with her in the throes of a tantrum. I appreciate the tips on talking etc but DD is lost - like an animal - when in full blown mode. If we haven't headed it off in advance then we have to ride out the storm before we can talk to her again.

It's what to do in the storm that I'm stuck on. Especially when I'm home alone with DS.

Also, we now find that discipline for ordinary day-to-day bad behaviour will set off a tantrum as well. For example, repeatedly putting her feet on the dinner table means warning to go to naughty corner, but she deliberately will do it again. She does it with a challenging expression on her face which is a red flag to a bull with me - I am as strong willed and bloody-minded as she is! Into the naughty corner following method very carefully, and we end up with a stratospheric tantrum on our hands which is worse than the original incident.

It's a vicious circle because we let stuff slide to avoid the tantrum because it gets all out of control and hellish, but she starts to think she can do what she likes. We're really losing the battle. It's like we're scared of her.

I've bought books but really haven't got the time to read them. It's so frustrating and scary because she really is a smart creative little thing. But I feel like there's a gulf between us.

As far as time out is concerned, I've found very limited success with it here.

What kind of stuff is she doing to end up there?

For recurring stuff, like behaving well at mealtimes, I get my two to decide on their own rules (they might choose three).

For a lot of stuff, I remind them of why it's unacceptable and get them to work out a solution.

For inappropriate behaviour with a toy, it gets quietly removed.

Trying to think of others.

I might take them to the stairs to calm down and 'reboot' but I rarely leave them there, just because for both of them in different ways it just doesn't work.

X posts, typing while doing bedtime!! Bad mummy

Have re-read. Lots of "screaming" by your dd. I'm wondering if that is the method she has found to get a response from you (baby screams and gets cuddles....) if you reflect on past situations and find that she has had this sort of tantrum behaviour "rewarded" then you can come up with a clear plan with DH as to a calm consistent response that you can both use.
However the situation has developed though, there are certain things which might help.
In the heat of a tantrum, or as it starts sometimes they just need you to "hear" them.
I used to get down to eye to eye level and say "tell me with words" , and listen carefully and attentively if they stop yelling and talk. Keep your language really simple. She may not have the words to tell you how she feels. You might say:
"It is hard being a big sister" or "is it scary when the baby screams?" Which kind of gives her the opportunity to use those words herself (if you have guessed right what emotion has set her off she will correctly see you as someone who cares about her feelings - which you clearly do- and may get better at expressing them with words. )
I don't want to overload you with suggestions. You must be exhausted.
One last thing though....
Positive descriptive praise can be a real useful tactic when trying to get a small person back on track.
She needs to feel she can do something right.
Did she brush her teeth well? Tell her how pleased you are that she knows how to keep teeth clean and get her choc buttons the next day and say she gets these because you know how good a tooth brusher she is
Did she come down the stairs quietly when the baby was asleep?
Tell her how clever and considerate she is to do that.
I hope I have not patronised you telling you stuff you know, it is so easy to lose sight of things you previously knew when you are driven to distraction by crying screaming children.
I wish you all the best. We have been there. Hope you get a good chat with GP about PND.
Eat well and rest when you can.

Yep. Was going to say similar to AnotherMonkey. I would stop using the corner entirely, and bring in some kind of calm down/time out/strategic removal only for entire loss of temper kind of thing.

For small stuff like feet? Ignore. Seriously. Don't even tell her, she knows. She's doing it to get a reaction and if you ignore it it will quickly get boring. Think about it - it's not a comfortable way to sit and it's not that funny even to a three year old. If you totally neglect to react at all she'll get bored or forget totally about it. It WILL take her longer to get bored than it takes you to get irritated, but fight that patience battle, because it will pay off. Pick your battles :) Remove yourself from a situation which is enraging you. Repeat the mantra "This is not an emergency". Is it an emergency that she has her feet on the table? Not in the slightest. Let go of the notion that you have to make her obey every little request or she'll stop doing the important things that you ask - it's not true and it's unhelpful as a philosophy.

If her feet on the table is genuinely causing a problem e.g. pulling a table cloth off which spills drinks - perhaps let her see what the actual result of this experiment is - let her experience getting her dinner in her lap/drink everywhere just once, which might shock her enough to stop, or take food away and say OK dinnertime is over, (you can give it back when she sits properly, perhaps with a maximum number of chances). Other ideas: eat at different times, put her on another smaller table in another room to eat. Physically move her feet without comment each time. (I can't do responses like this without getting angry. Some people can!) Related stuff rather than unrelated, preventative rather than punitive.

If you're finding issues which can't be ignored, prevented or given related consequences, then you need a consequence which isn't a battle to enforce. Something fairly token, it doesn't need to be heavy handed, pretty immediate - at 3 it doesn't have to be right-now immediate, but it can't be tomorrow or hours later either. I found removal of privileges worked really well - screen time is DS' currency! It needs to be something you can remove in blocks, rather than all or nothing (so not bedtime story/pudding) and something which doesn't require actual co-operation from her.

I'm sure you're aware of/doing this already but it's important for one or both of you to make one to one time with her regularly too - it doesn't have to be a really long involved time, it can just be 15 minutes a couple of times a week but just time where she has her mum or dad totally to herself. You could do lovebombing which is where you do exactly as the child wants for the time period. It's just to reassure her she is still valued and has her place in the family and it's not all about the new baby and she doesn't only get attention when she's getting told off.

Which books do you have? I might be able to pinpoint which ones are best and/or which chapters you can speed read while feeding a baby!

I just lost a big post but a lot of it was what bertie just said
ignore the feet!
It's a game.
This is a good opportunity for positive descriptive praise. Tea time can be hell so praise what she does right (eg ' you ate that yogurt really nicely, none on the floor and barely any on the table. Well done ' ) or whatever.

It is a massive positive that she and your DH tidied the room, and an even bigger positive that she was proud and wanted to show you. That is the sort of thing you need to show her how chuffed you are about.
We can all balls things up, it's doing the right thing to put it right, being forgiven and moving on that matters.
Good luck with tomorrow.

But it doesn't resolve how to cope with her in the throes of a tantrum. I appreciate the tips on talking etc but DD is lost - like an animal - when in full blown mode. If we haven't headed it off in advance then we have to ride out the storm before we can talk to her again

Honestly, choccie, you have just described DD. I hope I didn't imply that we have a little one-to-one and it's all over :). It's simply that, by that stage, the tantrum is happening whether we like it or not. My only hope is that we come out the other side with a sense that I'm not going to pander to this but I'm there for her when she's out of control.

We had one this afternoon. 20 mins face down on the hall floor because in the shop she chose the mini haribos but at home she wanted the Frozen chocolate after all. What do you do. Talk calmly, offer cuddles, put the kettle on and wait for it to pass.

But identifying the cause and avoiding it is obviously a massive step and if time out isn't working, there are lots of other ways around things. Expectations of behaviour definitely have to be lowered with two, too. I struggle with that.

bertie if somebody had offered to do that for me I'd have snogged them on the spot!!

Completely agree with advice from bertie and letsgo. Refreshing my own arsenal too. Love this thread.

Ah yes. Deep in tantrum. You need to just be like a rock. Cuddles, a safe place for their huge emotions to crash against.
No point in punishing that kind of
lost-like an animal feeling. Just be there.
What monkey said.

I just spoke to DH more about what happened. The whole thing started because he got a work-related phone call. I was feeding DS. DD followed him while he was on the phone started yelling at him that she wanted milk. He told her he was on the phone and would do it as soon as he'd finished talking. She started yelling at the top of her voice. He put the guy on hold, then calmly told her to stop the noise, he was on the phone and wouldn't be long, he warned her if she didn't stop she'd be in the naughty corner, and then he went back to his call. She followed him and started screaming deliberately. He had to end the call and went through the naughty corner technique. As soon as she was in the corner she went into the screaming tantrum mode. Pee'd herself etc,

Corner is right next to room where I was. DH tried to reason with her because DS was sleeping there but she was already gone into mad-mode. So he picked her up and took her to her room away from baby. She didn't stop screaming.

He said he told her she needed to stay there until she calmed down. That's when the room trashing and screaming went on. DH kept opening the door to check she was OK and ask her to calm down. He now tells me she'd also stripped naked while trashing the room!

DD's behaviour was ratcheting up levels during my pregnancy. I had SPD and was disabled - sometimes all I could do was stand clinging to the mantlepiece all day. So DD got very little physical outings with me. We were also selling our house and moving, so our weekends were taken up with viewings. It was a crap year for her.

I can't honestly say I've seen a worsening since DS came along. She's been nothing but loving towards him. If anything, she is mirroring everything I do with him with her favourite toy dog. Caring for doggie, changing nappies etc. So she's still fascinated by what we do with DS. I've even given her an empty bottle of Infacol so doggie can have his medicine too ! I'm sure it will change though.

I'm x-posting while on my phone. Will read back to see what I missed. Thanks so much for suggestions and support.

Oh yes, sorry, I did skirt over the most important part there

DS (now 6) was like this at 3 too and still is occasionally, he was today, I've got better at handling it but also he's got more mature. What I did today (restrained him safely until the issue to fight over was gone, screen banned him for hitting me, shut myself in a room rather than him in his and then talked to him sympathetically when he broke through to tears, which took me by surprise - he doesn't usually cry in a sad way, just angry).

I remember whispering brokenly at him in tears "HOW CAN I MAKE YOU DO STUFF WITHOUT SHOUTING. HOW CAN I WORD THINGS BETTER." While he just hummed away at me infuriatingly, pretending to swim across the kitchen floor, and one time I bumped into my next door neighbour on the way to take him to the childminder, late again, she innocently asked me how I was and I burst into tears on her and said "I can't make him get dressed or eat or leave the house on time and I am such a failure as a mother" (She was lovely and totally lied about never hearing me shouting through the wall and said we've all been there and not to worry!)

If you're in a position to do so you can restrain while she calms down - position her body facing away from you, you sit down on the floor, hold her arms with your arms, but that doesn't work if she bites you and/or pushes down on the floor which is what DS used to do as his legs were stronger than my arms. Also might not be possible when your younger one gets more mobile.

If you have no option and they won't calm down and you can't separate any other way then you do have to put a closed door between you. But I know that can make some children panic. I don't know what you are supposed to do in that situation.

I did find that making the sanction no-cooperation-required did help because it reduced the kicking out against it. Yes DS would rage and/or cry about it when I said you're now banned from screens for the next 30 minutes but he'd get over it more quickly than I thought he would. If the tantrum is relatively non destructive like AnotherMonkey describes then yes leave her to it and wait until she's ready for a cuddle. Always give a cuddle. If it's violent or destructive then you have to try and get her to a place she can't cause any damage or do the restraint thing like I described.

Also remember - it's really not nice for kids to tantrum. They don't enjoy it, they don't do it on purpose to manipulate. When they're doing it it's because they feel like they have no other option, either because they don't know another way to deal with the situation, they don't feel heard/understood, they don't understand what you're expecting them to do, they feel scared or pushed into a corner. If you can work with her you can massively reduce the tantrums because you can help her see she has other options. Of course they will still happen - she's three - but hopefully they will be less frequent and less prolonged.

And don't worry if you and DH have different ideas and approaches. I was so scared of letting DH do things his way at times but sometimes DS responds a lot better to DH's way even when I don't think it was the right way to handle something. Let him try things - you can't expect him to take your methods seriously if you don't let him have his go too. The only exception would be if you felt he was doing something really counterproductive or something you're not in agreement with e.g. smacking. But talk to him - he's human and he gets it wrong like you will, we all do. Give him the benefit of the doubt and remember you're in it together and you try to support each other as much as you can.