I feel so upset/angry with myself! HELP

[JellyNump]

I have 2 year old DD and I know about the 'terrible twos' but she has been fairly good so far. I am lucky I can take her out with me and she will sit still and quietly in her buggy and we can go into restaurants etc. The past few days she has been whingy and moany and if you ask her to do something or help with something she just says 'NO'. If I ask her to help put her toys away and she won't and then say 'well they will have to go in the bin then' she just says 'ok' or will even sit herself on the 'naughty step'! She has been faffing about and fiddling about with things when I have told her not especially so when we're tryingto get things ready to go out or presently packing suitcases. I'm so annoyed with myself tho because today I got really angry with her and really shouted at her. We live with my mum and dad (since I divorced) and Mum came up to try to help but just made things worse by saying 'oh you're really angry with everything' to which I replied 'yes I am!' I don't know why I am tho and feel like i've taken it out on DD. I lost DS when he was 9 weeks old and remember thinking if we have another child, I don't ever want to be really angry at it, cos I should be grateful to have another one and DS never got the chance to grow up and be 'naughty'. I just don't know whats wrong with me...

How long ago was the divorce? Maybe you're angry about that, and about living at your parents? And about the death of your DS? That's a lot of difficult things that have happened to you, no wonder you're having a bit of a hard time - anyone would struggle.

Do you have any support, anyone you can talk to about all this calmly? Did you have any counselling after the death of your DS?

Thing is, all these changes must have been really hard on your DD, too. If you can, try to think of her behaviour not as 'naughty', but just as normal for her age. She sounds like a pretty normal 2-year-old - they do grow out of this sort of behaviour.

I do understand where you're coming from, with such a terribly sad experience with your ds, but you mustn't let it make you afraid of being angry with your dd. That way, you are just setting yourself up for failure. And your anger will get worse.

People who love each other do get angry with each other. Life is like that. It's allowed. Of course we try hard to be more composed and better behaved than our 2-year-olds, but everybody slips up from time to time. It is all right to stop in mid-shout and say 'sorry love, I didn't really mean to shout at you, you do have to do as you're told but let's do it calmly'. Don't beat yourself up!

Can you plan so that if you have some special packing or whatever to do that your Mum or a friend takes dd out from under a feet for a short while?

I agree with Cory, I shouted at my 2 year old who is acting in much the same way as yours and I have none of the history you have. I was just mad at her and although I felt very bad about it afterwards and I did go and apologise to her, I think on some levels you have to accept that sometimes even mummies get angry or sad or fed up etc and trying to cover up these emotions 100% of the time can't be any more healthy than demonstrating them 100% of the time.

People do get angry with uncooperative people - even when they're kids/toddlers. It's quite natural. And it's not helpful when someone else comes in and somehow devalues that/undermines you in front of the child. Your daughter needs to know the boundaries and someone else saying oh mummies a cross patch removes the responsibility for your dd's behaviour from herself, and if it happens too often she will just think that your anger is irrelevant to her and she needn't pay attention. What she needs to learn is that certain behaviours are unacceptable to you and that she should take heed and behave differently. She won't learn that if your mum does what she did this time. I have had personal experience of this, with both dh and mil, who would always make it my fault when dd was behaving badly, with the result that dd just carried on being uncooperative or unhelpful. DH started being the brunt of it too, and of course started yelling for the Child Psychologist. We had to work quite hard to get her to understand that it wasn't bad temper on our parts, but bad behaviour on her part; she's 8 now and still has her moments (but I think that's normal!)

It's completely normal to get angry, shout at your kids and then feel guilty later. You've had a tough time and being cross with your dd does not mean that you are anything else but human. I would just reassure your dd that you were a bit cross earlier but now things are fine. She will probably continue to challenge you as she goes through her 2s and 3s but again, this is normal. I hope you feel better soon.