3.10 DD - Ideas for discipline please

[notyummy]

DD is 3.10 and an only child. She goes to nursery 4 days a week whilst I work. DH is a hands on Dad, but due to his work is away around 60% of the time. She is pretty bright - not exceptional, or an early reader etc, but verbally very switched on.

Over the past few weeks we have had increasing incidents of her behaving appalling. Trying to hit us, shouting, swearing, throwing stuff. It is basically when she is asked to do something she doesn't want to do. We have always been reasonably firm with her in the past, and used a time out system, however I don't really think it is working as the incidents appear to be getting worse. She says nasty and hurtful things to us whilst this is going on (I hate you and I want to kill you. When I grow up I am going to be a killer and you will all die...!!! Don't you DARE try and tell me what to do. Get out of my room you stupid nasty mummy/daddy..etc) She doesn't watch inappropriate TV etc btw, so where some of this has come from is a slight mystery.

I (and DH) have tried to talk to her when she is calm about why this happens and she says it is because we are nasty and shout at her, so this makes her angry. For this read, we ask her to do something politely, and when she doesn't we raise our voices (slightly) and remove the 'please'. I will admit that occsaionally I do shout when pushed too far, but I have never sworn/smacked etc

We intend to check with nursery about how she has been behaving there, but so far have had nothing but positive feedback about her. She just seems so angry.

We have been trying to praise her positive behaviour (of which there is quite a bit - she can really helpful around the house when in a good mood and until recently was a sunny, happy little girl.)

Has anyone had any success with sticker charts etc? Or just any thoughts/input....

TIA

My DD is just two months older than that and they can press all the wrong buttons, eh?

BUT it does seem very full on, especially if it came more or less out of the blue.. Has anything big happened in her life?

I would say you need to have along chat at nursery and ask very direct questions and not be happy with a simple Öh, she's fine here¨..

Not much to add, I'm afraid, but the fact that she can be lovely and 'normal' lots of the time would suggest to me that there is nothing majorly wrong

She's just getting older, learning new ways of communicating her feelings (i.e, verbally) and sussing out that this is a way that you can get a reaction out of someone

AT 3.10 she won't understand half of what she's saying, really... (i.e the 'killer' stuff) She's probably got that from nursery - kids with older siblings etc

DD2 is 3.9 and quite tempermental atm. She tells me she doesn't like me and isn't my daughter anymore fairly frequently

Thanks ladies - mamsnet - I will push for some more info out of the nursery. Her key worker is gone by the time I pick her up, so I will phone to speak with her specifically. I can't think of any changes that have happened recently that should cause this sort of thing tbh.

Any other thoughts out there?

When you ask her to do something how do you do it and what for?
For example do you say "Put your toys away it's dinner time"
Or do you say "DD dinner will be ready in 10 minutes, you have 5 more minutes then it's time to tidy away"

Children who are getting angry at being given orders are usually feeling frustrated at the lack of control and being interrupted given some warning before hand can sometimes help.

When she gets cross do you ask her at the time what is making her cross?

Thanks thediary - most of the time we do try and give her some notice, but i am aware sometimes we don't and this probably doesn't help. In terms of chatting to her at the time, she becomes so angry, so quickly that we can't get a sensible/polite answer. If you ask her a question she just shouts 'don't SPEAK to me!' 'I am NOT talking to you, GO AWAY!' etc etc.

We are looking at buying a reward ladder for her today, and are trying to be very consistent and calm in our dealings with her (but not being prepared to accept the way she is behaving towards us!)