really struggling with 4 yo screaming at us

[GertrudePerkins]

dd2 is nearly 4. She's always been rather feisty, but currently we are really, really struggling with her. Any gentle attempt to enforce basic boundaries is met with full on screaming of the "NO I WON'T DO IT! BAAAAAA!" variety, and she won't stop for a loooong time. We're not a very shouty household, and her older sister is pretty calm, so I don;t think this is behviour she's learnt from us. We generally try to stick to natural consequences as much as possible (right now she's screaming because I won't play a board game with her. I told her there's no room, and she needs to tidy a few toys away with me to make room first). This happens many, many times daily, and as a result it seems that she is not very happy for much of the day.

Anyway, my nerves are increasingly shattered by the constant screaming, and I'm worried for my poor neighbours as we're in a semi-detached. She's an angel at preschool so we don't think it's SN of any kind. Otherwise it's that bad that I would be worried about this. Any top tips?

What do you do when she shouts?

I tell her quietly but firmly that I don't like being spoken to like that

It's a hard age, DS was similar. I used to tell him he could go and make the noise somewhere else or speak quietly in here. And then cart him off to bedroom if he continued. I'm more on the "gentle parenting" side of the spectrum too but it's not OK for them to stand there giving everybody a headache. Yes feelings etc, it's fine to be angry but it's not OK to make such a noise about it.

That makes sense but there is no consequence for her behaviour. I think I would put her somewhere safe and away from you and tell her to come back when she's calm. Lots and lots of attention when she behaves in a way you like.

When my 2.4 yr old DD screams or shouts at us, which she regularly does, I get down to her eye level and say calmly "if you shout/use the whingy voice nobody is going to listen to you. You will get what you want/need much easier if you use the gentle voice". Or "take the no's over to the corner, put them there and come back with the nice voice please".

Shes a little too young to go in her room on her own at the moment and would seriously pitch a fit if I put her in it so im using gentle, calm words until shes older and can sit in time out for a while. I have put her in time out before when shes been losing the plot over something but tend to stay with her and talk her through it.

I spend a lot of time telling her when shes good and saying "mummy can see how good you're being and how nicely you just spoke to that little girl." Also I try to "catch others being good" in the sense that if another child says "excuse me" to get past, I make a deal of it and say "did you see how nicely he just spoke to us? Wasn't that a nice way to talk to someone?"

Its such a challenge when they demand and scream and shout though, its very draining, you have my sympathies!

I don't like removing her, as while it probably works for some, I think in her particular case it feeds into it, and she then begins shouting about being put out of the room, and keeps coming back in shouting, ensuring all attention is on her.

I am trying to be very, very positive during the three or four minutes a day when she's not shouting.

My son was like this. He screamed and hit us if we tried to enforce any rules or boundaries and it made our lives miserable as it was constant. We took the radical step of lowering demands on him - so we didn't ask him to tidy toys up, we didn't make him do things he didn't want to do, we didn't insist he did X before we did Y. We said yes as much as possible and made no issue at all out of things he refused to do - we just did them. It had worked although not quickly. As the atmosphere in our house became more positive he became more cooperative and pleasant to be around and is so much happier. It has lowered his stress levels and ours which had meant we can all be more flexible.
Also, it could be related topreschool, even if she seems to be okay there. My son was always said to be well behaved at preschool but I think he found it very stressful and held it all in, releasing the stress after preschool.

Then you need to not give her attention for the shouting and make sure she stays in her room. Really, removing her when she's shouting is the gentle solution. These are the options as I see them.

(Oops, I got carried away writing the options and thinking about them. I still think I would go with removing from the situation if the shouting is not stopping but there are a couple of different things you could try to stop it first.)

1. Ignore her. Firstly that isn't working to reduce it at the moment, and it's also not sustainable, because it's unpleasant and stressful for the rest of the family to listen to. (Buy ear plugs?!)

1. Give in on your original argument to stop the shouting. Obviously not a good solution long term.

1. Shout back louder. Unlikely to help the situation or your headache

1. Threaten or give some kind of consequence such as time out, removal of privileges, etc. From your post it sounds like she's not really "with you" when this happens meaning that she's not likely to take any such threat in or be able to process it, especially if it's not immediate. There's an argument that she might stop to think next time she's getting to that stage, but I have a feeling that wouldn't happen because I think it's a sign she's feeling out of control, not that she's doing it for manipulative reasons. I mean, yes, of course she wants something and she's hoping it will change your mind, but it's not the same thing as doing it out of cold manipulation IYSWIM.

1. Remove her from the situation. You don't have to necessarily leave her alone doing this, you could have somebody sitting with her. (In my opinion but not everyone's) attention isn't some kind of currency, the important point is that you don't give in on your previous boundary ie that the game doesn't come out until the mess is cleared up. IME though some children need to have alone time to be able to calm down because any input from others, no matter how calm and patient, just winds them up more. But YMMV.

1. (Possibly in conjunction with 5) Validate her feelings so that she doesn't feel the need to shout to get them across. You could make a "calm down" space which you use at times she isn't misbehaving for calm, quiet activities and then take her there when she needs to calm down. She could hit pillows, tear free newspapers. throw small beanbags, scribble on paper, watch a lava lamp, listen to a calming CD, etc.

1. Explain to her how her shouting makes you feel. You're doing this now but it's not having an effect, probably because it's happening at the time when she's already out of control and not very able to pull herself back from the brink. You could try talking to her when she's calm. You need to keep it really really neutral and without blame. Just talk about how you feel very stressed when somebody shouts at you and it makes you feel even less like helping them. Perhaps ask her how it feels for her when she gets to that point of shouting. However tempting don't add any expectations or instructions on the end of this conversation like "I know you can do it" or "Next time you should X, Y, Z" (although you can talk about options of what else she can do when she feels angry, just don't use this conversation as a vehicle to push this as an expectation)

1. Look at how you're wording stuff in the first place and yes, external stressors. Chocolate is spot on that sometimes stress at preschool or school comes out in difficult behaviour at home. This is especially likely to be true if the behaviour is markedly different in the two settings. It doesn't necessarily mean something's badly wrong, either, just that they are finding the whole deal of preschool quite stressful. And I wouldn't be worried about SN over this - IME four is just horrific, a worse version of three. Whoever invented the term "terrible twos" had no idea! :) How To Talk So Kids Will Listen is great for giving pointers on good ways to word things. However even reducing all stress and the way you ask, you're still likely to have times when your child is angry and feels like everything is unfair - they are four! So IMO you also need a way to deal with the shouting even if it's reduced.

1. One last thing which you could try is to have a "do-over" or "action replay" where basically you say "STOP! Let's start again." and take the entire interaction back to a previous point. Sometimes it snaps them out of the cycle of "Raaargh, you're so unfair! Now you're making me do MORE STUFF! UN-UN-FAIR-ER!" etc etc and allows them to actually think about what they want to say or do before they do it.

Sorry for the book

hey, no need for apologies for a great post.

i think you're spot on when you say "she's not really with you", and this is the nub of the problem. she's so hard to stop once she's started because she's not in control anymore. the focus needs to be on avoiding getting to that state. I think a calm-down area sounds good. I might get her some new cushions from her bed and treat this as positive time.

you'd never believe that I've already been through the angry toddler stage with dd1, would you ?

Three and four is so much more than angry toddler, though, isn't it?! Gah, so glad that DS is past that stage! We cleverly decided to move country when he'd just turned 5 which extended it for a lovely 6 months.

The key things which I found. Consistent boundaries. If you've decided that the room needs to be tidy to play games then that's the rule. Make it clear, though, and consistent means it's the same rule every time - you can offer to help her clean up one day rather than making her do it alone, but you can't shove everything to the side or say "Oh just this once we'll play somewhere else instead" etc. Even if it's inconvenient. They need the solid boundary to be just that.

Next if you're having trouble getting her to do something, try meeting her halfway or making it easier or more appealing for her to do it. Maybe she's not clearing up the mess because she's overwhelmed by it and doesn't really know where to start. So instead of framing it as "We can't play the game at the moment because the floor needs cleaning first" say something much earlier like "Oh, we'll get this floor cleaned up in no time and then we can play a game, or make a train set, or have a tea party, or do some colouring." Don't wait for her to ask to do something and discover the impact of the messy floor, state the benefits of the clean floor and then make it easier for her to manage - give her easy to handle, clearly marked storage that she can chuck things into, give her a pictorial list of how to clean your room with tasks in order, or give her one task at a time (bring all of those clothes over here to put into a pile), do things with her - you can get her to do equal amounts by making it a race or counting one for you, one for her, etc. She's too little to be able to look at a messy room and understand that she can break it down into smaller tasks, and she's also too little to be able to make the connection "If I'd tidied up earlier, I'd be able to play now", she just understands "Mummy isn't letting me play right now just because my room is messy. She's so mean." She's not going to make that leap to "Oh, I'll just clean it up and then we can play". (That last one is trying to see it from their point of view and understand their thought process and level of development).