At breaking point with parenting; have lost hope of it getting better

[kettlesonnow]

I have posted about this before but not on this board. I don’t know how anybody can help me (so if I seem to be saying no a lot please don’t take that personally) but I need to reach out.

Basically I feel I made an absolutely huge mistake when we decided to have a second child and this haunts me almost daily. I have read threads on this and most seem to be from women with the youngest child aged under one, so things are still shaky. For us, well, we’re nearly three years in and it’s still fucking awful!

My two are five and nearly three. Apart, they are OK … definitely not perfect but manageable.

Together they are unmanageable and I have really tried to follow the advice and read the books and it hasn’t made any difference at all and I’m still miserable.

They work one another up, they won’t leave one another alone, if one is happy and playing quietly the other intervenes to ensure that ends. They become different people around one another and people who in all honesty aren’t very nice. I am frequently mortified by their behaviour to be honest and I’m conscious that makes me tense up and things more likely to go wrong.

I am now at the point where it isn’t advice on parenting I need but how the hell I can survive this without becoming someone I dislike too. I’ve become irritable and tense, impatient and easy to anger. I’m also absolutely filled with regret for the life I could have known. And I know I need to get past this because I can’t do anything about it now, but I just can’t.

Because I have no one to have the children. Counselling is no good if I can’t go!

Besides, it wasn’t ’do you want counselling? We can sort that.’ It was ‘well there’s counselling available, I’ll send you some links.’ All with a loooong waiting list.

I don’t actually think I need counselling. I think it’s effectiveness can be very overstated.

It does sound like you do want things to improve though so if Counselling is out because you don’t have time and you aren’t convinced of it’s efficacy and you don’t want to start medication because of weight gain then I’m not sure how you can turn this around?

Like another PP said, I was surprised when I went in SSRIs in the difference they made, although I did have a counsellor alongside.

I was probably on the SSRIs for around 6 months. I was very open with the GP that I felt I wasn’t looking to stay on them permanently and they helped me to come back off them when I was ready.

That was a very funny gif I liked it a lot 😅

I just had a thought, my two don't care about a lot of consequences (and definitely didn't at 5 and 3) but they did respond well to rewards. Not marbles in a jar over a week, they didn't have the patience, but dd2 for example always wanted someone to stay with her at bedtime so we would use that as a carrot.

Is there anything relatively easy to implement like that you could use to say stop bothering your brother and we can do XYZ?

I separate my DC (4 and 7) when they are winding each other up. If I need to stay with the younger one in order that they both get some space, then I do that. Or I would try to keep an eye or be aware and be available to intervene and say "No, DS is having some space, you go downstairs and watch TV." Or take her and find something to engage her with. I am trying to teach them that it's a neutral thing to do, not present it as a punishment, but just like if you need a wee go to the toilet, if you need to move go and jump on the trampoline (not the sofa), if you need space then go and have some space. It's OK, everyone needs space sometimes. YY it doesn't feel great when one DC is getting sent off alone, but OTOH if they are the older one often they go to bed later than the younger, so you can try to get some 1:1 time in then, which helps balance it out a bit.

I only tend to have the scenario where they are magnetically attracted to each other and hell bent on destroying themselves/the house/my sanity when DS2's ADHD medication is wearing off (or before he was on medication it used to happen if I didn't occupy 80% of school holidays with engaging activities), or when one of them is extremely wound up for one reason or another, because it seems to send everyone's nervous system haywire. That is almost impossible to handle when they outnumber me, because if I try to be stern, they don't recognise my authority, they just team up as though I am their enemy. If I ignore them, they start doing insane/dangerous shit that I have no choice but to intervene in. They don't notice or care about any kind of consequences given in this moment. Sometimes I can go in all enthusiastic and give one of them a distraction in the form of some kind of task/challenge which will send them to the other side of the house, and while they are distracted I might be able to appeal to a sense of reason, empathy or even threat in the other one however the moment the wild sibling appears, all is lost because whatever I said just evaporates in the explosion of dopamine they have on seeing their sibling. This kind of frenzy usually ends with someone getting hurt and everyone crying, so when I notice it happening now, unless I know DH is literally about to come home and we can revert to 1:1 which is what they ideally need in that scenario, I just break out a high value distraction. So it's something very sensory orientated like let's all have an ice pop, or I will bundle us all outside, or I will announce that we are going somewhere that I know they will want to go, or I will announce some high value fun thing but then add some kind of condition to it like but you need to tidy up (this really easy thing to tidy up) first - just to try and get them into a more cooperative, sensible mindset. That will only work if it's truly an extremely coveted thing. Or sometimes I just install them in front of separate screens, (Shoot me!) especially if I know it's happening because they are hungry etc and I need time to actually make food.

But that only really works because it's a minority of the time. It's a specific state they get into. I don't actually think it's behaviour which can be trained either way (I know people will say some of my responses are terrible because they reward the wild behaviour). I just don't think it's an especially conscious choice they are making at all, it's just when they have got each other all whipped up into a frenzy. It happens less and less the older they get, and now DS2 is on medication he's just as likely to be the one who can be talked out of it as DS3 is (who was generally the more sensible one previously). So it works to do a reset/scenery change rather than it just being seen as more of a reward. If it was happening more of the time, then it would probably be more rewarding.

I don’t understand how parents lost the power. Why are these kids so bold? We were quelled by a glare from my mum. I think there does need to be some fear and respect for the parent child dynamic to work. Not much but there needs to be some or you get this miserable mayhem

Our local outside pool has a strict half hour booking system. After that time you get out and the next person swims. Is shocking how many parents literally can’t get their primary age kids out of the pool. They stand there ineffectually shouting “Oliver time to get out” and the kid totally ignores them. The lifeguard has to step in Mortifying. I would never dared disobey my mum.

Do you think any of that’s helpful in a thread about mental health @JuliettaCaeser ? Just asking?

‘in my day we’d have drowned ‘em …’

Thanks @BertieBotts . I relate to a lot of that. It hopefully will improve.

How are you today OP? I’ve been feeling miserable today. Flat, depressed, that awful knot in my stomach.

It’s been a tough week. DHs injury is cancer. Feel very guilty for having been so critical but I also realise just how much I’ve been carrying. We’re waiting on tests etc. it’s likely to be a hard road ahead but in many ways as awful as this sounds it’s helped - I am no longer a woman drowning but I am drowning for a reason. Sorry if that sounds awful!

Oh God I am so so sorry to hear that. What awful news. Sending you my very best and hope your DH’s treatment goes well.

So so sorry to read that. Sending you and your DH strength and fortitude.

I’m so sorry to read that OP.

So sad to hear that. Wishing you lots of luck and strength in the days ahead 💐