need advice with 3 year old.. tantrums..

[louisewilliams]

Can anyone offer advice.. we have a 12 year old, a 3 year old and a 10 old week old baby. The 3 year old girl seemed to have settled in with the idea of a new brother but over the last couple of weeks her behaviour has deterioriated... tantrums morning and night and trying to hit her brother as well as taking his socks off and hiding them. She has been very good at nursery but now her behaviour has got worse there too... refusing to eat lunch and starting on the poor kid next to her at lunch today. She has active and regular schedule.. nursery every morning and goes to ballet and swimming lessons as well as plenty of attention from us. Please help.........

not from my own experience as I've only got one so far.. But had this conversation with a mate who's a child psychologist. She said, an elder kid at that age (we were talking about 2-3 y.olds) would never hit a younger (or any kid for that matter) out of spite. They'd have to have some serious grudge. The job of the parent then is to find out what that was, and try and find a way to alleviate the problem. Easily said then done, but tough love just won't help here.
Then I said, ok let's say we've dealt with the here and now, but how do you deal with an underlying problem like jealousy? Because to the 3-year-old, it was their mum and dad, their house, their toys, etc. etc., and now this impostor turned up and took it all away! Surely that's as serious a grudge as it gets. She said, the only thing for that would be to find some way to make the elder feel important again. Say, you can stay up till 8 with mummy and daddy coz you're big, and little bro has to go to bed at 6 coz he's only small. That sort of thing. And keep telling her these things she CAN do because she's big. Just avoid things that your younger would very soon become interested in. Another important thing - every kid should have their OWN set of toys. Sounds like a waste but actually what is their property should remain so. Unless you sit down together and your daughter agrees - wholeheartedly - to part with some of the stuff she clearly doesn't need anymore, like baby rattles. As for sharing, that's appparently best done with food. Get her to give her little brother some food, but let her have her VERY OWN toys.

Hope this helps

you can also let her make "decisions" about day-to-day things, e.g. take her shopping and let her pick which kind of bread to get, "what do you think we should get daddy for dinner", that sort of thing. Just make her feel important

OMG so many typos bed time for me!