Hi. Im hoping someone on here will have some advice to help me.
I have a 3 year old daughter (4 in August). She is a happy child, confident and loves playing with other children.
Unfortunately she has a problem with her anger and this comes out in the form of hitting and (just this week) biting.
I will share the example of what happened this week which has upset me so much. She has a cousin whom she regularly plays with and loves very much. Most mornings her first question is Can we see Theo today?. He is 6 months older than her and much more articulate (her speech is a little delayed). He can also be quite controlling when they play, ie he sets the rules of the game and will often try and stop her from doing something or take things off her. Her reaction is then to hit. Ive talked to her extensively about how to react to this, ie say no, walk away, come and see me. However, this doesnt seem to be having an effect. Whenever she does hit I pick her up and exclude her for a period of time, but again this seems to have no lasting impact. She knows what she should do but in that moment finds it hard to control herself. This week it escalated when she bit him very badly on the arm. I was so upset I took her home immediately. She then proceeded to cry for an hour because she wanted to stay at his house. The next day I saw another close friend of mine to play with their little girl. Unfortunately a similar situation arose as the previous day. My daughter was engrossed in a game when my friends little girl wanted her to play with something else so started to drag her by her arm. To my horror my daughter then bit her on her hand to get her to let go. Again I picked her straight up and said we were going to have to go home.
I feel at the end of my tether with it at the moment and dont want to let her play with any other children. Ive spoken with her nursery (which she attends 4 times a week) and they have said they have never seen this type of behaviour from her there.
We are due to go on holiday with friends and their children in 4 weeks time and its making me really apprehensive as I feel like Im going to spend a week policing her behaviour.
Help!!!