Dh generally does bath and bed time, but for the past few months it really has been like a battle zone. The pair of them end up yelling and screaming at each other and it's driving me up the wall.
He asks her to do something, she ignores him. He reckons he can ask her 15 times and still no response. So he yells. And then she screams back, so he yells some more.
Bedtimes are dreadful. She won't go to the toilet before bed, so we end up having WW3. Tonight she wouldn't take her hairband off and the yelling and shrieking that ensued probably had the entire street gossiping. Eventually he gets her to take it off, and she ends up shouting, banging her legs on the bed, crying and distressed because he's lost it with her again.
Last night he smacked her. We have always said that we would never smack or use physical punishments with dd, but he felt that he didn't have anything else to use as a punishment. She doesn't respond to anything else he does.
I think she's pushing the boundaries to see how far she can go. I also think there's an element of winding him up because she knows she can, and then watching the cabaret that he puts on when he blows up. But even so it ends up upsetting her as much as it does him.
I don't know how to tell him to deal with this. I've told him how I would handle it, but he reckons he's tried and it doesn't work. I've told him he needs to pick his battles, suggested he tries counting to three (always works for me), time-out - you name it, he reckons it doesn't work for him. I've tried to tell him that the more he shouts the less she will listen, but it doesn't wash - he'll be up there again tomorrow night yelling and screaming at her, and I'll be down here sobbing my heart out about it.
The only thing I can do is do it myself, because I don't have any of these problems. But he doesn't want that either, because he wants to spend time with her and he wants to do the bed and bath thing. He just doesn't want the battle that goes with it. He doesn't seem to see that he's half the problem. He's always been quite hard on her, and I've told him before that he expects more from her than she is capable of giving.
She is winding him up though, I can't deny that her behaviour for him isn't what it would be for me. But that said, she's only 5 and he is the adult ... I just don't know what to tell him to try and help him get that balance back again.
He hates it, she hates it, I hate it. What can I suggest to him to make life easier? What can we try to stop these tantrums (from both of them)? I keep telling him to remember she's only 5, and actually she's not a naughty child, but still he acts as if she's much older and much naughtier than she really is.