Daughter violent towards me - please help!

[lilymum]

My dd1, four in 3 weeks, has recently started taking out her anger on me in a physical way - hitting, kicking, pinching. I know that this is borne out of her frustration to be able to express herself verbally when she is cross with me and I am trying to ride the storm when it comes, but today it culminated in her scratching my face quite badly which left it bleeding. I just wandered if anyone had any ideas how to stop her from doing this - or will I just have to wait until this phase passes?

What do you do at the moment? Do you give her time out?

I can sympathise lilymum, DD broke my DH's nose a few weeks ago, she has just turned 4. It has got better, she's not nearly as violent as she used to be.

I find that a time out is the mose effective and trying to explain to her why her behaviour is not on.

Is there any stress in the home she could be picking up on? I say this as DD has certainly been acting out with all the changes that are happening in our house. Could she be doing it to get a reaction?

I would love to hear any suggestions too, but I think in my case DD is under a great deal of stress.

Also, what sort of things provoke her outbursts? it does sound distressing for you.

I've tried several things aloha, ignoring it so as not to give her the reaction she is trying to provoke from me, or making her go to her room, or sit on the stairs until she has calmed down. But it was when I was taking her to her room today for time out after she had kicked me, that she took the opportunity to take a swipe at my face.

pie - ouch! your pour dh! We recently had our third daughter, so I guess dd1 feels she has even more to compete with to get my full attention. She certainly got it today!

She just hates being told she can't have things her own way all the time. Today everything escalated from my telling her to ask me nicely if she wanted a kiwi fruit instead of demanding in a cross voice.

I expect you are are quite right and she is probably angry with you for having another rival! And she's probably testing you to see if you still love her. Do you think it might help to let things go a bit more with her until she feels more secure - ie not pick her up on what she does wrong but only praise what she does well. Ie, in this case ignoring her tone of voice but reacting calmly to the request, and then praising if she says thank you. Easier said than done, I know. It might cut down the amount of exhausting conflict. I think you do have do some kind of time out for violent acts though and it sounds very stressful.

That's a sensible suggestion aloha. I'll try it. It is a bit exhausting battling with her every time she is unreasonable (ie. 100 times a day)! On the positive side, after her afternoon nap she said sorry very nicely for having made my face bleed.

I don't know if you have already seen it, but some time ago I offered advice re tantrums - if you search under "water jug treatment" it should come up! Trust me, it was extremely effective and totally saved my life from a tantrum filled existence.