keeping a 5 year old dd happy

[hatstand]

she;s driving us nuts at the moment...all her toys are "boring" and "babyish". Playing with dd2 (3) is boring. She is impossible to play games with coz one whiff of defeat and she has a huge strop and says it's not fair. She is incredibly stroppy generally at the moment. I'm not sure whether it's a fair word to apply to a 5 year old but she seems very selfish - determined to strop even with very little reason. She's cheeky and deliberately naughty - in order - I believe - to provoke a drama. eg at lunchtime dh said "don't play with that while you're eating or I'll take it away" - kind of clear and straight forward, you'd think. but no. she carries on playing with it and, with a little grin on her face says "I'm playing with it". It got taken away. strop ensued which more or less lasted an hour. arrgh. she's got various crafty activities, colouring, hama beads, but just seems incapable of entertaining herself and staying happy. help.

My dd will be 5 in October and is the same. She cannot entertain herself for 5 mins but if anyone plays with her she is the king pin bossy boots so needless to say the game ends - ds won't play with her because she wants everything her way but poor Granny has had to do pass the parcel all afternoon. I couldn't even get to speak to Granny because dd had plans for Granny. Dd is happy so long as she always wins. She's not too bad with friends over but really she could do with a little slave who wouldn't argue back.

Oh thank god, I thought I had given birth to satan. My dd will be 5 in december and as much as I love her she can be stroppy, selfish, bossy and at the moment incredibly jealous. It's making meeting up with friends almost impossible.

Yay! yay! yay! Im not alone!!! WIll show this thread to DP when he returns from thrashing his anger and frustration out on his supa dooper fast motorbike! {grin]

When ds1 was about this age I was given a tip (on here of course!) to create a 'busy box'. I made lists of things he could do, and wrote these neatly onto cards, with pictures cut out from magazines and catalogues. I colour-coded the cards:
green - things he could do alone
red - together with little brother
yellow - together with me
blue - outside things (all of us)

It took a while to set up, and I put it all in a pretty box I made. But it was time well spent. Whenever he was looking aimless, I suggested we get out the "busy box" and he could choose a card. If I was busy I would suggest he could choose a green card, and if he played nicely for half an hour, then he could choose a yellow card.

Gosh, it sounds really twee written down, but it worked very well for us.

Oh also I banned the word 'boring' as I really loathe it. I told them people who use it are simply advertising their inadequate education and imagination! It worked - they never ever use the word.

Dd is exactly the same, she's 5 in november but seems like a teenager already! She's moody, stroppy and thinks she knows everything but she's also wonderful for other people.
Xp went to tuck her up the other night and she had shoes on in bed so he told her to take them off, she said no he said again to take them off and she said well ill just put them on again when you've gone downstairs
And she did!

oh Pesha - that sounds so familiar (not the shoes but the tone) if we say (as we often do) if you do x we'll take away y, she just pouts and says "well I'll find it and get it back". She too, is a good girl at heart, but, tbh, right now, a royal pita.

She is getting slightly better at the mo but a couple weeks ago i decided to start a good girl bowl, get a marble when she's good, lose a marble when she's naughty, 5 (soon reduced to 4!) or more marbles at bedtime and get a treat. Dont think we ever got passed 2, the first day of trying we finished on minus 2! I said to her if you dont be good you wont have enough marbles and wont get a treat and she said oh well ill be a good girl tomorrow instead then!!

it's astonishing how premeditated and calculating they are isn't it? sometimes they really do seem to decide whether to be good or bad, while we labour under the illusion that outside events have something to do with it. the other day after a 40 minute strop she calmly confessed that only 20 minutes of it were real, the rest was - her words - fake.

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oh wow, this has descibed ds2 to a tee. myself and dp have been really really fed up with him of late and i even said that at the moment there was nothing i even like about him (it had been my birthday tea and he had spoiled it)

the whole summer he has behaved like a completely spoilt brat!

he's 6 by the way.

peaceandlight - I'm finding it pretty hard at the moment too. when's she's mid strop I just can't bear it. What's almost worse (and perhaps this is not wholly unconnected) dd2 can currently do no wrong - I have recently fallen head over heals for her all over again - my heart just melts everytime I look at her. how bad do I feel???