Calling all Mum's of demanding kids - are your fuses as short as mine? :( sorry, bit long)

[balanomorey]

Am wondering if I'm normal or in need of anger management!!
My coming up to 3 yo dd is so demanding, I seem to spend 3 parts of my day bawling her out or saying no - it's so demorilising - I'm sure for her too, although I know I have to set boundaraies, don't I?

Her speech and awareness of what's going on around her is, imo sometimes gobsmacking for her age. She knows exactly what she wants, can ask (demand) for it very articulately and comes out with expressions that very often floor me! She seems to know too much at a young age. But as she is so young, she is obviously so very immature in many other ways and always wants to run before she can walk ("I do it" is her favourite expression) and when i say no, because imo what she is asking for she can't do or it is dangerous to have etc, she goes off on one. She also takes forever to do what I ask - all in all, she can be SOOOO frustrating - but at the same time, adorable and I lurve her to bits!

However, as I said all this continual conflict of interest is wearing me down as I am constantly saying no and shouting to the point where she will say 'don't shout at me' before bursting into tears or she will panic if she knows or thinks she's done something wrong as she will say "sorry, sorry, sorry" over and over and looks genuinely scared I'm going to tear her off a strip .

Feel really bad this morning as we were late getting to nursery and she suddenly decided just as we were going out the door that she needed the potty. I was not best pleased as she has used the potty as an excuse lately to keep getting out of bed or stall bedtime...she sits there for ages insisting she needs to go and nothing happens, so assumed she was playing this game again. This happened last night at 3 in the morning (the sides have just come off her cot, and I think she thinks this is a great excuse for disturbing the household in the middle of the night now that she can get out and tell us she needs a wee)...so this morning I bawled her out for needing the potty (frazzled on the back of a bad night, maybe) and felt awful as she then proceeded to do a big wee...told me to say sorry for shouting at her...and told me how much she loves me ..so have been feeling guilty and crap mum all morning.

Just a bit of a rant really, but make me feel better by telling me I'm not unusual to shout - I hate shouting and am fed up of spending a large part of my day bawling and getting wound up. Am I alone in this?
Thanks for reading, sorry so long, just needed to vent. x.

My DD (5) has been very demanding from the age of about 3 and I often end up feeling really guilty for shouting so much and being quite horrible. The other day she looked at me with an expression that seemed to say "You are horrible and you don't like me do you" and I felt horribly guilty for 2 days after. I realised that normally she just 'takes it' from me. I get so wound up by her constant demands that I end up not wanting to do anything for her and saying no to everything and telling her to leave me alone. I feel she is in my face all the time and taking over my life. I forget she is a child and shout at her like she is an adult.

I'm reading Raising Your Spirited Child at the moment and finding it quite useful as it gets you to think about your child's spirit in positive ways instead of how hard it makes your life.

I try to say, when I have done x I will do something for you, then when I've done it I ask her if there was something she wanted. Sometimes I don't have the calmness to make myself do this though.

Hi my 2.5YO DS is exactly the same.

Don't worry about it you do have boundaries of course, is there any way you could just go into another room or something wehen she does this? I have to do this sometimes just to clear my head because it's not right for either of us for me to end up a jittering wreck wanting to shout my head off. It doesn't work this I have now figured out.

She sounds normal and I think you should try to ease up on her. I DO IT is normal for this age and so is crying when they can't do it, distraction still works though I bet.

And does it really matter if you're late for nursery? So if she does want the potty can't you let her?

I think you need to take a step back. Three year olds can be immensely draining - just decide that, until you drop her at nursery, you are going to be Mary Poppins.

My 2.2 year old is also very demanding and difficult. But I don't shout at him because my parents used to shout at me and my sisters constantly and it was horrible. I don't think it achieved anything - they didn't get us to do what they wanted by shouting so I think it was very ineffective parenting. It just made us all miserable and anxious.

What I have tried to do is to work out what makes me particularly stressed and then try to defuse it. The worst points of day for me are trying to clean up the kitchen in the morning and get out the house and making dinner in the evening while ds is demanding that I go and play trains or shoving me around the kitchen. So I now arrange the morning and evening so he watches some tv at those times. I would prefer he played rather than watching tv, but at least this way we are both happy with each other and we actually get more good time together than if it took me hours to get everything done while he whinged.

If he is doing something dangerous, or if he won't go where he has to go or leave when we have to I give him a warning, ask him nicely to go and if that doesn't work I pick him up and carry him away. I can't see that shouting does any good in this kind of situation. He might get upset at being carried away but it is very short lived and I try to apologise and explain why I had to take him.

Sorry, this probably doesn't help and sounds rather smug. I worry about my parenting all the time too, but the one thing I have managed to avoid so far is shouting...

ActingNormal - so emapthise with you over the taking over life point and not wanting to do anything for them as you have just had enough - i too have told dd to go away so many times and have felt awful for saying so. The book sounds interesting - thanks, will give it a go.

I wish I had time to control my outbursts - they just seem to happen and I just explode. Maybe i need to take the time out to count to 10 or scream into the fridge the minute I start to get a bit annoyed, to try and avoid the full blown explosion.

WickedWitch - you are right, I do need to ease up on her, but it's hard to know what fights to pick when 3 parts of the day she seems to be doing the opposite of what I want

Tryingtoleave - I take your points on board. Am encouraged that dispite being shouted at yourself, you are so anti-shouting...another of my worries is that dd will turn into a shouter too, hopefully that won't happen - especially if i try and calm down a bit myself now.

Thanks for all your advice. x.

My 3 yo is exactly the same my glimmer of hope is that her brother was just as exhausting (if not worse) at this age and is now very easy to live with (nothing to do with me, he just grew out of it).

My tips:
Pick you battles (and ignore the rest).
Look hard for the good things and make the most of them.
Try and spend some time one to one playing together (let her boss you around as much as she likes)!
Make time for yourself!!

My ds has just gone 1 but is both a good walker and highly spirited which is a pretty testing combo at times. I rarely shout but I did yesterday - twice and I felt like shit about it. Still do actually. He is going through a very whiney phase and after a full day of it with minimal naps and crap weather which stopped the usual play in the park I just roared at him when he started to go for the bin/cat food/stereo etc.

I don't want to go down that road because I got screamed at all the time, and most of the time I can control it but yesterday was a bad day.

Balanomorey, my niece is very precocious like you describe of your dd. Her parents can get very sharp with her very quickly - which surprised me at the time because though my dd was around the same age and equally demanding, dd was less developmentally precocious and more babyish in her demands, which did not push the same buttons.

Now that dd is older and has more sophisticated language at her disposal plus my expectation that she should know better (as compared with ds 2), my fuse IS shorter. I know now why my SIL used to blow up and was harsh with her dd.

Just sympathising. I am also trying to be a better parent.

I have 2 very demanding little boys, they are 4 and 2.

My 2 yr old is a real handfull and is incredably violent which we are seing a child psycologist for as i have had a few suspicious dr's look at my eldest ds and question me about his cuts and bruises that ds1 has done.

I have a short fuse and used to find myself constantly screaming at them and like you i knew it was neither fair or getting me anywhere.

I use time out for my 2 and they go ino thier bedroom when they have been naughty, i shut the door so i can't see them and although it seems to have taught them sweet fa since they just come out of time out and repeat the offence but ut gives me a few precious moments to calm down.

My eldest is a challenge becuase he is so clingy and sensitive and cries at everything, i cant blame him really he has cf and has been through alot of trauma the last few years but its still very frustrating and tireing when i literally can't go to the toilet without him screaming th place down.

So i do know how you feel so im going to give you a virtual hug.

My DD (3) has been exasperating me so much recently I have almost started a thread like this several times.
She has been very easy up until the last month or so. She can start school nursery in January and I was feeling it was too soon, but perhaps she is ready for it.
Like your DD she has been confrontational and always says 'no' to me, even when it is something she likes doing.

What does your DD enjoy doing? Perhaps if you decide you will give her 15 minutes undivided attention a couple of times a day this will help to prevent a negative spiral developing.

The advice about getting time for yourself is good. It is always easier to give more to your DC if you feel some of your own needs are being met.

Oh dear, am ashamed to say since my last post, things have gone from bad to much worse and am ashamed to say have just had the biggest ding-dong ever
Just picked dd up from nursery and dropped into the garage to get petrol. She asked for choc and chose some minty aero bubbles which i said she could have. We were next in the queue and the man had scanned the aero when she gave me a kinder egg and said she wanted that instead. I explained we had already paid for the areo, so noshe couldn't have it and to put it back.Then she proceeded to tantrum and hit me repeatedly on the bum. All flustered, I managed to pay and drag her out the shop. Told her she had been naughty to hit me and told her i was going to put her choc in the bin at the garage which i did and when she got home she would be on the naughty spot.
When we got home, she kept getting off naughty spot, told her to stay or not go to ducks as promised - kept getting off. By this time I am seething.......ashamed to say I went nuts. Slammed doors several times, ranted, pushed a chair across the kitchen, threw my purse, car keys, house keys...god knows what neighbours must be thinking. Am SO ashamed I couldn't keep a lid on it. All the while I was going mad,..she was, of course so upset and frightened...what sort of mum must I be to do that to her. After I'd calmed down I was cuddling her and she said she was never going to make me cross again and was also saying how much she loved me from the mat while I was stropping....God, I've never felt so awful in my life..I could have damaged her for life, although she's running round now like it never happened. Oh God, I feel so bad.

ahh sit down and take a deep breath, you are not a bad mother or else you wouldnt be so upset about what just happened.

i have lost my temper a few times because of my dd'd demanding behavior, we all do, and i most definately do alot of shouting.

there was a anger management lady on the radio yesterday and she had a good few points.
dont get me wrong, i am not judging you, cause i am exactly the same, but what she said has helped me aviod arguments, with both my mum and dd.

she said when you can feel yourself getting angry, just take a step back, will getting angry achive anything or make matters worse.
look at the long term, getting angry will not help and just stepping back from what you are doing csn help calm things down.

now i am one of the worst people to mamage my anger, uauslly i just scream at the nearest person, but hopefully, i am going to keep trying this step back thing and think about what i am doing.

Balano, don't beat yourself up. I have been where you are many times. It's usually when I am very stressed, feel backed into corner with nowhere to run.
You haven't damaged her for life. You have shown her that you are human and can only be pushed so far before you get tired of her difficult behaviour.
I think you were right to throw the sweets away, but probably should not have carried it on went you got home.
I would now have a cup of tea, put the television on for DD. When you are feeling calm, apologise for getting so cross, cuddle her and read a story etc.
To prevent further episodes follow the advice given by posters.
Don't worry though

Sympathies. I've been like this with my ds1 (3.5 and also very demanding) recently, we've been having similar battles. I decided I needed to burn my steam off somewhere else because if I deal with him calmly I get much better results. Went out for a run. Seems to have helped.

Don't beat yourself up too much. She is only two and if this kind of tantrum from you is an isolated incident, she probably won't remember it.

But I do think that you need to work on your anger management. How can she learn not to tantrum if you don't set her the example?

Perhaps lowering your expectations of her would help? DD is coming up to 4 so a year older but I wouldn't expect her to understand about the hassle it causes other people to change your mind after the item has been scanned. Things like this need explaining in advance "once we start queueing at the till, we can't change our minds" and if something unforeseen happens, you have to accept that the childs anger is normal.

I don't think it is fair to punish a frustrated child of this age by throwing away the chocolate. Learning that it is the original choice or nothing is enough.

Thanks for all your positive support - not that you wish others in the same boat as you, but it is comforting to know I am not alone in this and others have had similar feelings and outbursts. Posted my last point very sheepishly and felt I was deserving of some slating - thanks for not making me out to be too bad!

Makes me feel a bit more human and that maybe I can forgive myself - I guess I'll have to for dd's sake - she seems to have forgiven me!

Have just been to feed the ducks as we both needed to get out and blow away the cobwebs and feel better for the fresh air.

Tomorrow's another day and I know I have to curb my frustrations. Not an excuse, but haven't been in the best of health lately with creeky knees and back and bending down to put dd back onto the naughty spot for the umpteenth time made my knees go again - that certainly didn't help an already bad situation. Though that's not dd's fault and I shouldn't take it out on her ....Roll on tomorrow!!! Thanks again for listening. x

Agree with otherside that your expectations are the problem here.

She is acting completely normally.

I'm afraid to say you are the one with the problem. Agree with otherside that you tantrumming will not help her one bit.

A child DOES take over your life completely. Your day WILL be spent doing stuff with them/for them. She will change her mind on stuff, she will want her independence etc etc etc, she will be illogical and want the impossible! I know it's hard, they can drive you demented; the key is how you deal with it.

With the chocolate incident yes she needs to learn that you don't hit people but throwing it away AND sticking her on the naughty step at home is just over the top IMO.

I think by completely changing your expectations, it would help you to keep calm. You really do need to be calmer. I'm not usually so direct with people but you need to change the way you are behaving to your child. In my opinion having you fly off the handle and effectively tantrum about things, will contribute to her feeling insecure. She needs security to develop to her full potential, to be the best most confident, self assured little girl she can be.

i love with my parents and i find it quite hard to cpe when they go away on holiday.

i make an extra special effort to be calmer and nicer to dd.

it does work wonders, the more i shout at dd, the more she shouts back and learns to shout more.

we have alot less tantrums if i take a nicer approach.

You've have loads of great advice so I won't repeat.
Sympathies though as it seems that you must be stressed out to be taking it out on her.

Today, in a long queue, I had to jsut stand there and count to about 25 to calm myself and then him: my ds drives me nuts. A lovely lady helped me while others were getting v. impatient!!!!

Otherside & Honoria - I think you both have hit the nail on the head. I do have high expectations and because she is so forward for her age, I am losing sight of the fact that she isn't even quite 3 yet.

Not going to bore you all with the history, but have been thro some shitty times that have left a mark and my mantra now is 'i want an eay life' and at the moment I'm not getting it. All this is borne from frustration because that need isn't being met....I know I am being unreasonable, but it gets to me some days how hard it is (& I know I am one of many, but it's how you feel yourself, isn't it?). Juggling this with having the bones of what feels like a 90 yr old some days makes life a drag.(Sorry, don't want to sound all poor me, know there are many more deserving hard luck stories, but good to vent).

Having said that, please believe me I am taking on board all the advice here, I never want a day like today again, and dd's development and security are of utmost importance, so I must ease off and remember she is still so little.

God, it's a hard job, isn't it and it grinds you down when you feel so crap at it all the time

Thanks to all for posting. x.

that makes you feel worse doesnt it when people are tutting and sighing.

every wednesday we go to a coffee shop and 9 times out of 10 there is a old lady in there. now sometimes my dd is a little loud and once had a full blown tantrum in front of this woman, she just sat there staring and shaking her head.

if i was more confrontational i would have said something, but i just tried to stop dd getting any worse. there was nothing more i could do.

but even if dd is just playing or talking, she looks over like she has a bad smell under her nose.

Maybe you should change your mantra to "I love my daughter" or "I have a happy life." Whatever you repeat over and over, you'll end up believing. It's how the mind works.

I totally, totally sympathise. I realy considered a course in anger management a couple of months ago as my daughter (nearly two) began to get stroppy and impossible.

I don't have the time or money for an anger management course, so I just pretend to be a chilled-out person instead, and I do what a chilled-out person would do, and the more I pretend, the more I become it.

Balanomorey, I totally sympathise, my 2 year old is a whingeing demanding sod most of the time. The few times he is in a good mood he is a littler charmer. But if we have a run of whingey, whiney, difficult behaviour, I find my patience wearing thin.

I agree totally with the posts from people like HonoriaGlossop. If you can change your own behaviour and expectations, I think you will begin to see improvements in DD's behaviour, which will stop things escalating to the point where you are ranting and raving and losing it.

It's good that you posted about your experience with the chocolate as people have been able to advise you what they might have done differently to avoid the the end situation you describe of everybody being unhappy. What I would have done was to expect a change of mind over choice of choc (totally normal at that age) and be prepared in your mind as to how you are going to deal with it. Does distraction technique work with her? ie. as soon as she says she wants the kinder egg instead, you say "No, the aero has already been put through the till so we have to have that, oh look have you seen that squirrel on the wall over there?", all the while getting out of the shop and away from the point of contention.

I would also definitely not have put the choc in the bin straight away unless you'd specifically warned her calmly, loudly and clearly, bending down at her level(so that she could hear through her screaming) that if she doesn't stop crying/whinging you will put it in the bin. If she understands that and carries on, put it in the bin. She will learn that tantrumming loses her nice things. If she stops, she gets the choc and she has learnt that it is better to behave well as she gets a good result from that. With my DS, no matter how bad his tantrum, as soon as he stops the whingeing and behaves well again, I praise him for calming down and behaving nicely, and usually we have a quick hug. I have noticed his bad behaviour escalates the more I lose control myself by shouting at him, so I have learnt to appear calm to him even if I'm going nuts with anger inside! (a bit like what whoopee does in her post).

Sorry to sound more negative towards how you handled it (not really intending it to be, it's supposed to be constructive criticism LOL, just letting you know what seems to work in our house), but I would definitely not have done the naughty step either. It is physically far away from where the choc tantrum episode took place, and I think that at this age they are just too young to connect the naughty step at home with an incident that happeend out of the house earlier. If you are going to use the naughty step, use it only for bad behaviour at home, so that they go straihgt on the naughty step immediately after the episode of bad behaviour. There can't be a time gap.

Someone else pointed out that she'd also been punished twice, and it's true - she'd had her choc thrown in the bin, AND she'd been put on the naughty step. If I were her, I'd be feeling a bit badly done to as well, and a tad angry and frustrated, and I'd be getting off the step as I'd feel it just wasn't fair. Sometimes you have to try and put yourselvs in their place and try to imagine what they're thinking to try and figure out WHY they're behaving like that.

One more thing, you say you got flustered in the shop cos of her behaviour. DO NOT give a shit about what other people are thinking. It is not affecting them, it is nothing to do with them, so just go ahead and discipline your child as you would at home without feeling flustered or embarrassed. I really have learned that it doesn't help matters if you are worried about what other people are thinking, as you won't handle the disciplining as well. Actually if you catch a woman's eye as it's all going on, you may get a sympathetic, knowing look as she's probably been there herself!

oh, another final thing.....I DO get mad a lot at DS2's whingey, demanding personality. Believe me, from time to time I get as angry as you describe. The difference is, I just don't let him see me when I lose it. I go in another room where he can't see me. Preferably upstairs where I will punch pillows on the bed, or even scream into a pillow. Also, 5 mins upstairs physically away from them just diffuses the intense anger usually enough for me to think and behave rationally again rather than just be a nasty shouting ball of rage!

It sounds like you desperately need some time for YOU at the moment. Is there anyone who can babysit or even have the kids overnight? A bit of time away from them does me the world of good and really refreshes me (until the next tantrum LOL).

I really feel for you, but you CAN improve things - take on the good advice given in these replies and see how it goes. Good luck!

i totally sympathise with you. Is your dd your first born? We usually expect too much from our first borns as we treat them very specially, like little adults/friends, having deep discussions, conversations with them, including them in decsion making, etc. when they start behaving smartly, we think they can think like adults too and expect more out of them. They arent defiant on purpose, they are too immature still at this age (and maybe for a few more years)due to the physcial underdevelopment, to listen to instructions and to take them on board and carry them out maturely enough.I am starting to just leave them be, less nitpicking, making mountains out of molehills, as we forget that our children are only that- very young children. If we shout at them, they will shout back. We smack them , they will smack us/siblings/other kids and so on. We react fiery to situations, they will leanr from us that is how to behave in such and such a sitution when they come across one. It is a vicious cycle, and it is hard to break.

I just also want to say that there is a book i'm reading at the moment called 'Parenting Your Defiant Child: The Kazdin Method for Managing Difficult Behaviour'. I read it and it totaly descirbed me and my behaviour that most parents get caught out in. Try and see if your local library has it. It had 7 myths about parenting which was very interesting:

1. PUNISHMENT WILL CHANGE BAD BEHAVIOUR. It wont!!
2. MORE REMINDERS LEAD TO BETTER BEHAVIOUR . It doesnt!!
3. EXPLAINING WHY A CERTAIN BEHAIVOUR IS WRONG WILL LEAD THEM TO STOP THAT BEHAVIOUR. Only until you're red in the face but it still wont get you anywhere!!
4. LOTS OF PRAISE SPOILS YOUR CHILD. Positive parenting is the key in this book
5. DOING IT ONCE OR TWICE MEANS YOUR CHILD CAN DO IT REGUARLY. Because we assume kids can copy us and expect them to carry it out fully is highly unrealistic
6. MY OTHER CHILD DIDNT NEED SPECIAL HELP/TRAINING, SO THIS CHILD DOESNT.
7. MY CHILD IS JUST BEING MANUIPLUATIVE. They arent.

I hope i'm making sense here and not just rattling on. I just want to reassure you that you arent a bad parent and things will get out of hand until you see it from their point of view. Perhaps this book can give you the help and reassurance you need.

All the best of luck. Be calm, and just remember that they're children and that they're still very young!!