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.

yawning I think you handled it just fine. It is totally appropriate to send him to his room for being violent, imo.

He also sounds very "concrete" in his thinking (I'm a boy not a frog, etc) which is a trait of ds1's as well. I believe this is common for children with sensory issues (or indeed Asperger's). Still it can be hard to communicate with them without accidentally causing upset and tantrums. With all of the Christmas excitement we have definitely had our ups and downs this week.

Happy Christmas everybody

We can all look forward to our DCs bringing us christmas breakfast in bed at 10.am oneday! Ho ho ho but you never know .xxx

merry christmas everyone! yes, a toast to that distant and joyful day sky! big hugs and have a lovely day xxx

Belated Merry Christmas!

Now I'm counting the days until ds1 goes back to school

Did Christmas turn other people's kids twice as hyper as well? I think they have been overstimulated and are now finding it hard to readjust to a more 'boring' life. I keep feeling like I have absolutely no control over them and then I get anxious. Although too much build up of alcohol over Christmas and being tired makes me anxious anyway

Definitely more hyper. Today and yesterday I've tried to concentrate on just going on as many walks as possible with them however everyday, although they moaned and groaned at leaving the house, telly, toys etc. And it was lovely to see them just running around in the sunshine (or mist as the case may be) Also one of my new year's resolutions is to go to bed much earlier, and feel better tempered next day as a result. One bad night and early start, has made me realise how terrible my mood is when I'm tired, and its really not the children's fault. So I'm off to bed now, leaving kitchen not very tidy and most things undone, just to kick start the new routine.

Happy New Year everyone, been off Mumsnet due to RL christmas. The DC and myself have been pretty well-behaved really. I lost it a few times over the festive period, but not too badly. The DC went back to school today, including DD for the very first time. Thought I'd feel incredibly sad, but it seems right for us all really.

Acting Normal- did you and the DC manage to get out much over the holidays? We seemed to spend a lot of time cooped up inside which makes us all very hyper. A bit of fresh air tends to make us all calmer. Probably me more than the DC.

happy new year everyone! we've had a strangely relaxed xmas - it's been lovely. though i can't say i am sorry the tykes go back to school tomorrow ! my main battles at the moment revolve around trying to shield 7 yr-old DD from the nefarious world of mobile-phone-age-8/sparkly mini skirts/inappropriate vest tops/precocious interest in make-up etc, espoused by her current best friend at school. who is a nice girl underneath the teenage accoutrements. modern parenting is fraught indeed!! and DS battered his pal with a metal golf club today, accidentally i hasten to add, and left him with a mini cauliflower ear. great. looking forward to his mum picking him up in an hour or so !
speak soon x

Thought about having NYResolution of "Shout less at DCs" then thought it's not as simple as that is it. You would have to have so much self control it would be almost impossible and then if you were angry but repressed it every time, eventually it would build up and explode and you would end up being really horrible to them and this would cancel out how good you were being by not shouting to start with.

A better approach, more likely to work, is to work on not feeling angry with them in the first place! I will attempt this by:

• Telling myself that when they are naughty it is a good thing really because it provides an opportunity to talk to them about why they did wrong, what they should have done instead and teach them about moral issues and about how to manage their emotions. If they don't make mistakes they can't learn from them.

• The 'visualising them as tiger cubs frolicking around' technique so that I don't forget they are children and I shouldn't be overcontrolling them and turning them into mini-adults with loads of self control.

• Getting much more sleep and not binge drinking so that my anxiety and irritability is not made worse. When I feel anxious that unless I overcontrol the children they will hurt themselves I end up shouting at them.

• The 'star chart for Mummy' technique when I spend time interacting fully with them so that I feel motivated rather than irritated that I have to 'work hard' by doing stuff with them

• Remembering that when they keep interrupting what I want to do/my thoughts with their demands they are not enforcing hard work on me which I don't feel like doing. They didn't ask to be born, I CHOSE the job of motherhood and thought I was up to the job so I must now find the strength to do it properly, and if I know in my heart that I have done reasonably well then I will tell myself to be proud of my job as a mother, a job that is hard but I'm still managing to do it.

• Being aware of when I am overreacting to something they have done because it is not really them that I am angry with but they are triggering emotions from an event in my past.

• Replacing my habitual negative ways of thinking and inward-focussed irritation at the world's negative intrusions into my head by positive feelings, by meditating regularly on the children, focussing totally on them and blanking out everything else and actively noticing all the things about them that I love and all the things that make them THEM, letting myself feel the positive feelings and 'emanate' them to the children.

Any ideas what to do about this?

DD (5) is very demanding of DS's (3) time and attention (as well as mine). He will be playing nicely and happily on his own when she comes along and starts bossing him about, telling him to play the game she has just dreamed up and then going on and on at him about every little detail of what she wants him to do. He HATES being told what to do and says he doesn't want to play but she won't accept it and keeps hounding him and getting angry with him if he won't do exactly what she wants, exactly the way she wants it. He gets so ovewhelmed by her (see it's not just me!) he starts screeching and shouting and lashing out and eventually cries and sometimes gets hysterical!

I tell her to leave him alone if he doesn't want to play and to give him space and to try leaving it 5 mins and then ask him again. I try shouting (shouting generally has no effect on my children just makes them worse). I try physically taking DS away from her and trying to involve him in something else. But she seems unstoppable and keeps following him and won't shut up!

She seems to want constant attention. When other people are having a conversation she interrupts and tries to take over. If I didn't stop her DS would hardly have a chance to be heard at all! When we aren't talking to her or looking at her because we are busy with something else she is jumping about, making a noise, trying to get everyone's attention and saying "Look at me, watch me do this" etc. Is this my fault? Am I really not giving her enough attention? I feel like I am. DS doesn't seem to want more and more and more all the time. It can be SO draining!

I've had an idea. You could be a mirror (do I mean that?) where you model the right sort of play with ds. Set up some play activity that you enjoy (not something unbearable)a tall tale, a fantasy game and be very unbossy during it, encouraging their suggestions and letting it go in all sorts of unexpected directions rather than preplanning the outcome. I tried this on the kids yesterday when they were fighting. I told a made up story and kept saying what do you think happened next, letting them take turns. It sort of worked. Then I gave up and put them in a bubble bath at 5.00!

AN, swan, and others, hi! it's been a while. AN, my DD used to often be like this with DS - still is at times. usually (in contrast to your situation) with his consent initially. would drag him into some nightmareishly complicated game, becoming more and more intense and demanding over the rules being followed exactly how she wanted them to be, with him (2 yrs younger) with no hope of being able to follow the increasingly complicated instructions and getting bewildered. eventually he would put a foot wrong and she would EXPLODE. i used to cringe at this so often and wonder when/whether to intervene - DS was always keen to begin with but you could see he didn't know how to formulate an exit strategy! i used to have to take DS aside and say to him, look, it's okay, you can tell DD when you want to stop the game. now he's much feistier with her i notice and has quite a lot of spirit of his own . back soon but must go pick them up...

Thank you Katie and Swan, I will try your ideas. Tried to play Frustration with them today (fairly simple game with counters and a dial/dice). I WAS frustrated, and pretty bored. DS (3) was better than DD (5) - she just can't seem to focus and has to leap about and try to cheat and make loads of noise when it is somebody else's turn so they are distracted. I think we will keep practicing though (games with simple rules). DD seems to have a big problem with having any self control at all! But it isn't ADHD because she can concentrate and focus and sit still at school!

Hahahaha, I made DH play the same game with them today. It actually lasted quite a long time before the hysterical crying started!

I hate to say this Acting Normal, but games (where you win or lose) with dd were FLASHPOINT and always disaster. Apart from Happy Families (easy version with numbers and letters)and Pairs. It seemed to bring out the absolute worst in her.

And I hate playing board games anyway! Looking forward to teaching them bridge.

Guess Who seems to be ok, and Snap. The madness of it all is making me think I should do it more in case it teaches them something useful. Some days I enjoy the pain hahaha. We did loads of stuff with them today and I would have thought that would make them 'calmer' because they have had the attention they are so demanding of, but DH said when he took them to bed they were utterly nuts! I think we are accepting the fact that whatever we do they are just, nuts!

I know that nutty bedtime well AN.
I think one has to make a distinction between Entertaining and just Being with children. Sometimes just walking down the road to the newspaper shop is good enough attention wise. I am now struck by the way that when I stop trying to please dd but accommodate her sort of emotionally ie: I'm doing something like tidying a drawer (v boring I know) and chatting to her she is perfectly happy. I think that's how teachers do it.

Swan, I like the thought that we don't need to make a huge effort and do a big proper activity in order to give them enough attention. I can see that it is true that sometimes they like the simplest things the best! I wonder if DD was just as happy today when I sat at the table with her while she did her drawing and I did mine and we just talked about what we were doing, as yesterday when I put loads of effort into getting them to play 'proper' games (which was tiring)!

Oh my God! I have just found this thread again after a HUGE break from it (I am rachelp73 but changed my name on a whim ages ago and so missed the Threads I'm On, and just got out the habit of reading this thread I suppose). Had no idea it would still be going.

It's fabulous that people are still finding it supportive.

For my part, I'd just like to say that my highly-strung, whingey, demanding, draining DS2 is now fast approaching 3 (in March) and has really got a LOT easier to handle these past few months. He just seems to have grown into himself somehow and just seems more contented. As a result of this, I am not losing patience with him so much, I find, and so as a result of THAT, his behaviour is improving even more! Don't get me wrong, he is still a right whinger. The whingeing is the worst thing, but it is less than what it used to be. I've recently taken to whingeing back at him in a silly voice, and he seems to recognise this for what it is and it makes him laugh and forget he was whingeing, or he realises that there's no real point whingeing or something.

I am putting a lot of the improvement down to him doing 3 mornings a week at a fab nursery where he is kept VERY busy and he just loves it there so much that he'd go every day if he could. I have also realised that he's really very bright, and in the recent past when his language wasn't so good, a lot of his bad behaviour was probably down to an inability to articulate his wants and needs, and getting frustrated with himself. Now that he can say and do much more, he is like a changed child. He does need a lot of stimulation though but has recently learnt the alphabet and can recognise all the letters by sight too and name them, and so is kept occupied by various electronic alphabet toys which he got for Xmas.

But the nursery thing has been brilliant for him. I also have LOVED having those few hours a week away from him (and don't mind admitting it - it really has made a difference to my ability to cope with his strong personality!) I can't wait until he does 5 mornings a week after Easter as he really seems to be thriving on it (kind of makes me think I was at fault before for not providing enough stimulating activities at home for him - maybe all the bad behaviour was just because he was bored?)

I haven't had time to read all the huge amount of posts added since I last looked, but just wanted to pop on and say hello, and wish everyone all the best with their demanding little ones. It's lovely to see some positive stories and I sympathise with the "1 step forward, 2 steps back" type of ones. But I just wanted to add my little update and say that there DOES seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel for some of these behaviours.

Oh, and I just wanted to add that I think in one of my posts as rachelp73 I sheepishly admitted that on the quiet, just between my DH and me, we'd both agreed that he was hard to love quite a lot of the time . Now I am very proud and happy to say that he is very easy to love now, he is a lovely, funny, charming and charismatic little boy.

(hope that's not too sick-making!)

rachel!! i am so pleased to see your posts - i missed you these past few months! to me you will always be rachelp73 - not that i handle change badly or anything . so great to get your update. what a massively positive tale. must dash but back soon

Hi again, KatieK! Well, I've had a bit of a mixed day with my DS! Very good at occupying himself on the whole, (even though no nursery today) so I was able to get on with housework etc, but he has had a fair few incidennts of throwing himself on the floor moaning and crying if he doesn't get his own way (which he doesn't - I don't give in to him but he STILL tries it on) but lately it seems that he doesn't get entrenched in his own little tantrumming world when it happens. I can usually manage to reason with him or change the subject or distract him whatever and get him out of his crying fit. Something which it was always quite hard to do before his language was so developed. He is still so demanding compared with 5 year old DS1, but it is all definitely improving with age.

How you getting on Katie?

I have just found this thread, and thank goodness for it.

My DS is 5, in year 1, and has the most spectacular meltdowns and level of unreasonableness. I thought I was alone. I thought there was something wrong with him. I knew there was something wrong with me as I often deal with it so badly.

I have spent the last 3 or more hours reading this and feel so relived to find it's not just me, or him. I have already seen a few ideas which I'm going to use to see if it helps (not least the fact that hunger and low blood sugar could well be a factor) and I'm off to search amazon for some of he books people have recommended.

I hate myself when I shout and I hate myself more when I see his angry face crumpled up in rage as I know that he has learned that face from looking at mine. He is very sensitive, a terrible eater, gentle and thoughtful and kind, and yet he is also so angry and cross with the world. All my fault for setting an angry example. I am so sorry.

I am going to think of some strategies and use lots of your ideas, ladies. Thank you for bothering to share your info with everybody. I really am so glad that I found this thread.

philmassive 'all your fault for having modelled angry behaviour' - not necessarily! please don't blame yourself. of course modelling anger is hardly ideal, though we are all guilty of it sometimes, but anger seems to me to well up of its own accord in some children with a certain temperament. then again perhaps i would say that given my DD's tendencies in that direction ! lovely to have you on the thread.

rachel - great to have you back, it really is. i'm doing fine, thanks. DD definitely continuing to settle with age, thank goodness, in fact DS has been more testing in recent months - guess it was his turn . i get him doing lots of sports, which he loves, karate, football, swimming etc, as he is a terrible tv addict and i try to keep him away from the screen as much as poss.

our main problem at the moment is with nights - they have both always woken at least once each but often more, and at 7 and 5 i bloody wish they'd STOP! in DD's case it's usually anxiety/nightmare-related, but in DS's case it's pure habit (indulgent mother patting him on head too often in the night in the early years ). must work on this. new star charts went up on fridge door this morning...

only other issue is DD's best friend lunching every day on chocolate and crips, having a telly in her bedroom, pierced ears,mobile phone, ipod and own horse - has just turned 8 . leading to some interesting discussions at home!!

back soon x