3yo DD cries ALL the time, how to handle?

[DontCallMeBaby]

Honestly, she's driving me round the twist. She really should have the little curl in the middle of the forehead - when she's good she's fantastic, when she's bad she is HORRID. And she's horrid a lot at the moment. The behaviour that's particularly bothering us at the moment is the crying. Anything goes wrong, the slightest thing (can't get DVD out of case, doesn't like dinner, we didn't listen to her), it's straight into tears. We resorted to ignoring her after her bath just now, and needless to say she'd actually hurt herself (erm, boy who cried wolf, anyone?!) but after a short while it was obvious she was furious about being ignored. She gets into a real rage. This is quite a challenge for us, she wasn't exactly a doddle as a 2yo, but she didn't actually tantrum. Now we get tears in reaction to EVERYTHING, which if not checked descend into screaming rage, it's becoming really unpleasant to live with?

Any thoughts? I have 'How to talk ...' if anyone wants to point me at the relevant chapter and adapt for a 3yo

bump?

DD (just turned 3) does the crying thing quite a lot as well - she's always been a bit of a drama queen so I'm a bit oblivious to it now! We have taught her a "calm down" technique for those moments where she loses control and has those huge really body-wracking sobs - it involves rubbing her chest and blowing out gently. If she's really really upset, I just hold her and shush her until she calms down but those moments are quite rare nowadays.

Generally if she has an absurd reaction to something minor, I ask her to calm down or leave the room. If she doesn't calm down, she knows she has to sit on the step where she has to be quiet. I don't ignore her - I hand her a tissue and tell her to calm down and generally she does. If she doesn't then I make myself busy nearby (the sink's not far and there's always washing up to do) and keep tell her a couple of times that I can't talk to her unless she's calm. Afterwards we have a cuddle and talk about it but her general response when questioned as to why she behaved that way is "Because I didn't want to"

Most of the time this works for us but I guess what's important is that you're consistent in however you handle it. What I think makes a difference to DD is giving her back control (handing her a tissue, letting her know the rules etc). hope that helps

Thanks ... some things to think about. The trouble is she's managed to find a behaviour that pushes both my and DH's buttons, neither of us can stay calm for long in the face of it. Unfortunately this leads to us not setting a very good example!

She sounds just like my DD1 (3 next month). She is driving me absolutely insane. Sometimes she is adorable, funny, chatty, intelligent etc, but like your DD at the moment that seems to be mostly losing out to an utterly horrid alter ego. The minute I say no to her (even if I'm not cross, just telling her not to do something), or if she tries to do something and fails (e.g. your DVD example, or simply trying to load up her fork when eating lunch and the food falls off), she collapses face down crying and screaming. If I touch her or talk to her it gets worse and worse, but if I totally ignore her, she works herself into a fury so I can't win. I don't know where to go with it.

I am also at my wits' end as to how to actually tell her off when she's been naughty as I can't get through to her when she is lying face down on the floor sobbing. If I bring up whatever she might have done to try and talk about it calmly and non confrontationally once she's calmed down (i.e you really must not push your baby sister over just when she's starting to learn to walk), she will either avoid eye contact and talk over me very loudly so she can't really hear what I'm saying or it's straight back to face down sobbing again.

I know there are jealously issues re DD2 but those aren't new (DD2 is nearly one) and this behaviour is.

Time out works well for both of us in that we have some space to calm down, but I'm never sure if she learns anything from it.

So someone, PLEASE, any advice????

Aaaah - I see now! The dreaded parental reaction

I must admit that when DD first started having tantrums (just after she turned 1 year) I would have spectacular emotional responses - shouting and actually bursting into tears myself when she cried because I couldn't bear the fact that she was "in pain"

Things really improved immeasureably when I managed to get a hold of myself. I had a chat with my HV when she started breath-holding tantrums and she really really helped. Gave me the shushing tip and just generally helped me see that I was never going to teach DD how to manage her emotions unless I was the embodiment of calm myself.

I do occasionally lose my temper still (like tonight when she smacked me in the face at bedtime) but use lots of anger-management type techniques to hold off from shouting at her like counting to ten, singing in my head, making myself busy (think "stroppy tidying"!) and that really helps.

I also find myself muttering under my breath like a nutter through gritted teeth "It's just a phase" or "It will pass"

I think I might start putting MYSELF in time out. Maybe not a minute for every year of my age though. Nelly, DD talks over me as well, it's so obvious she has decided to move on from whatever the problem was, while I want to talk to her about her behaviour, but no, instead I get running commentary on something, or her latest song ... argh.