I can’t go on like this

[allovernothingagain]

I can’t cope any more.

Two children, aged five and two.

I am right on the edge of my sanity. Five year old comes in from the garden with some old ball, nothing special. The two year old decides it’s the most special toy ever and follows the five year old around sobbing and crying ‘mine, my ball, myball.’ Two year old is nearly three and this has been going on for months, years even. Attempts to distract her, find a different ball, just don’t work. Only that one will do, so the five year old ends up giving her that ball just to shut her up.

This time I lost it but in such an awful, cold way. I said something like ‘happy now, spoilt, selfish little shit? Enjoying your ball? Get out of my sight.’ And they both did, looking subdued and scared.

I’m not surprised. But I can’t live like this any longer. Honestly I just desperately wish I hadn’t had one of them; life was manageable with one but two is impossible. Where one is easy the other is awful and vice versa. I love them but I do resent them as well.

And what does DS do while I grey rock her @BristolHelp ? While he’s having his hair pulled or shoved as she tries to wrestle whatever it is out of his arms?

Easy with one child, isn’t it? I am sure that’s why mag advocates of gentle parenting stay at one actually 😂

Low arousal/low demand parenting is the only type of parenting that allows me to stay sane. It’s not permissive - it doesn’t reward bad behaviour. It’s about reducing anxiety across the board - for parents and kids.

Low arousal parenting whilst having many good things going for it can become counter productive and very difficult for everyone in the family to live on a daily basis.

The problem with many of these faddy parenting styles is that they only last as long as one's patience, which in my case is very limited. Inevitably they either look like permissive parenting, or look like limiting daily life to an extremely strict routine with no resilience to change.

I'm sure these techniques are necessary for kids with very particular SEN needs but it doesn't sound (to me, based on these snapshots) like OP's kids have them.

I think it'd really help op to get her older one on side with pre-emptive strategies (like the distraction one). Older siblings love feeling "grown up" and in cahoots against their younger siblings, who they can patronise.

One thing we do is spell things (the 5yo is learning to spell and the 2yo obvs can't).

Eg "you said I could have a T-R-E-A-T after school today?" My response: shh! Later! Exaggerated winking and pointing at DS.

All this you're-the-older-one stuff helps DD let it go when DS grabs her ball. It's got to the point where usually when DS is kicking off, DD just looks at me and patronisingly shakes her head about him and neither of us get upset and so it doesn't escalate.

I'm sure I'm breaking all the gentle parenting rules but it works for me.

I also show her videos of herself aged 2 to remind her that she was exactly the same, eg insisting on swapping for my adult sized spoon at the dinner table and so on. (We seem to have taken approx 100 videos a day of our PFB haha). So she knows it's not to do with DS personally, just being a 2yo

Out of interest, when was the last time you cuddled your children? I mean really cuddled them? They are so little still.

I have a few sayings OP

toddlers are terrorists (seriously, they do not give a shiny shit, as you experience daily)

Wine exists for a reason (all those pretending parenting a toddler is really that donkey)

and lastly, just keep swimming.

Your approach of getting through each day is the best approach right now. It clearly doesn’t feel like it but you are doing a great job. This won’t last forever BUT it will be
a complete bitch before it ends.

Donkey?! That should say easy.

@Kingdomofsleep I'm sure these techniques are necessary for kids with very particular SEN needs but it doesn't sound (to me, based on these snapshots) like OP's kids have them

Without knowing it we did low arousal with my son for many years. It was way back in the day (he’s 35 now) and it was instinctive to me/us. It was good but eventually everyone else in the house started to feel as if they were autistic as well. My son is profoundly disabled and severe autism is only one of his dx. Anyway I started googling ideas to see how we could change things up a bit and I came across a Prof Andy McDonnell who really is the father of low arousal for those on the autism spectrum and it was only after reading about him I realised we’d been doing low arousal all along.

I contacted him and arranged to meet him and attend some of his training courses but when we were discussing dates he said to me - just leave it a few months as I’m currently reworking the approach as i think we may have gone to much the other way and people are finding it difficult in care settings. I knew what he meant because we’d gone A bit too much the other way also but I still believe in it but only as long as you get the balance right.

Thank you for sharing, it's really interesting. I do think instinct is so important, you know your child best, and if it feels instinctive then you can't go far wrong.

I have a friend who really lives by parenting books and is always quoting experts but her kids are terribly behaved and clearly lashing out for some reason (both at home and school), they're horribly rude to her and other adults, and she's frazzled trying to follow this or that Principle rather than what feels right.

Parenting books are filled with shit advice that doesn’t work, makes some people money though I suppose.

I also reached a point where I was so depleted by it all, I couldn’t face reading another parenting book or trying one more strategy. The way I cope now is to prioritise regulating myself- especially when I have almost nothing left in me (which sounds like the point you’re at). I regularly have one earbud in listening to a great podcast, comedy or my favourite music. Which means I can still hear and interact positively but I’m getting to keep a piece of myself. My child’s need is that, to put it bluntly, it doesn’t matter how hard I try to be the best parent ever, she’s still going to meltdown multiple times every day. So I’ve stopped trying to run myself into the ground to apply the rules of some parenting technique (which has never worked for us) and just try and survive with my sanity intact. For the sake of my children and of course myself as they depend on me actually being a functioning human being.

I know many posters are right in saying it’s ‘just a phase’ and I heard this many times myself, but, in our case, it wasn’t just a phase and keeping my head above water has been more effective then trying to hope it will pass as they get older. Of course, super hopeful that it does get easier for you, just adding my perspective as someone who has been in that ‘phase’ for many years now.

Thanks @Hibbutyhop . It is a phase and logically I know that but it also feels never ending and very difficult to manage.

I do notice that a lot of the much loved parenting books on here assume you only have one child. I think toddlers are probably just a bit unmanageable 😂

I also find it helps to take a geographical and historical overview of parenting. For literally millennia, the main focus was keeping your child fed, warm and away from predators. When you zoom out enough, the middle class social norms we have today which involve every parent - sorry, mother, for the main part - having fucking PhD levels of knowledge and strategisation for their children’s ever-changing psychological vicissitudes is, frankly, mind-boggling.

We achieve some educational and professional freedoms and lo, the patriarchy finds ingenious new ways to keep us down - discuss.

I’m massively demand avoidant myself so any kind of advice book or manual sends me running for the hills, instead of a set of rules or regs for living I tend to stick to some very basic principles: don’t sweat the small stuff is what it all boils down to for me. That and ‘a dysregulated adult will never regulate a dysregulated child’

I think you need to work out which coping strategies are acceptable to you. Not all things work with all children but you are very ready to dismiss a two year old as unsolvable.

Parts of this will resolve with age, parts won't.

You need to be in charge but that means you get to choose the boundaries.

On a practical level, where are all the toys? Would those for your older child be better in their own room? They are big enough to play there now - or do they share a room?

Put a stair gate across the bedroom door so the two year old can't get in. If your older child brings them out, it means they are for sharing and they can't get upset when their sibling wants them.

Tantrums can't be reasoned with. They just need a safe space in the house to get it out. You go back and ask are they ready to play. More tantrum, you ride it out.

I think you are exhausted and making change feels like too much effort but if you don't, every day remains exhausting so you are currently stuck in a vicious circle.

@allovernothingagain if it’s toys that cause all the problems between the two of them, then box every single one-up, put them all in the shed or attic never to be seen again.

Tell them why you’ve done this and that when they learn to behave and treat each other nicely, they will be given one toy each. In a few weeks time I would buy them both a ball, identical so there is nothing to fight over.

Yes, they may get bored, but so what! Let them. Take them occasionally to the park, then back to their boring house without toys.

Train them to do as you say, or lose their items.

I'd take an alternative view which is to have lots of really engaging 2yo appropriate toys easy to reach. I've found when my 2yo is bored he's much more likely to bother his big sister.

I find sometimes we are more focused on what our older one is "into", like lego or football or whatever, because they talk about it. And we forget to update the toys for the younger one.

I've had to make a deliberate effort to keep updating my younger one's toys and books and have them nicely accessible and not just expect him to tag along with what his big sis is doing.

My 2yo likes mega blox, his farm animal set, jigsaws, paw patrol toys...they're in boxes or drawers near the floor. My 5yo likes sport stuff, crafts, and board games so they're in drawers higher up out of the 2yo's eyeline.

I only cracked this levels-of-access thing in the last couple of months and it's seriously helped. My kids bother me a lot less now and just get on with it. Screen time has reduced too.

This is a good suggestion too.

OP, I have been in a similar place. Sure, some details were different but I was really struggling and particularly hated my younger child (girl). She didn’t respond to ‘normal’ parent techniques at all. The thing that helped things improve for me was short dedicated one to one time with each of them. It didn’t always go to plan but showing myself that I could enjoy time with them helped me find the energy to get through. Small steps. I also had a DH who was very good at reminding me of the positives of each child and of the good times (even when I thought there were none).