Myself and dh are at the end of our tether with it al.....

[minxofmancunia]

Even my normally eternally positive, patient and optimistic dh has had enough with parenting our dcs....

To the outside world they prob don't seem too bad, "spirited" maybe but not sn (although ds is only 19m) and healthy sometimes happy but we're utterly completely worm down by them.

dd4 is a nightmare..she's defiant, stroppy, babyish, has massive toddler like tantrums, she wails, screams, refuses to play alone is grabby, snatchy, sometimes bitchy, the list goes on and on. she's obviously embarrassingly worse behaved than other similar age children. She's a PITA. I'm ashamed to say it but the constant mortification I feel at her behaviour is beginning to change the way I feel about her. I'm a ball of anxiety every time we leave the house because I'm terrified she's going to have one of her episodes over some shit like me denying her a lollipop.

I'm also ashamed to say my fuse has gone from short to non existent, I shout all the time, I have no patience our days are miserable.

As for ds he can be a lovely sunny little boy but my God does he scream, and scream and scream if everything isn't EXACTLY right. Ie bottle to warm milk exactly in the middle of the microwave, the pan to cook the beans sin't on a certain hob, the bin lid has to be shut properly etc.etc.etc. he insists of being carried almost constantly and is fractious and clingy most the the time. I've considered ASD, this doesn;t freak me out if he is he is, I just want to know so we can learn how best to help him (he's v sociable and a v good sleeper tho which is why I'm not sure about this, although he's fairly slow with language too)

When the dcs are awake we're stressed and miserable they are such f**king hard work and we both try to bloody hard to make life good for them, trips out, nice activities, fun games, everything but they whinge and wail and scream and cling none the less.

DH admitted tonight for the first time ever he regrets having them sometimes, he wishes it were just him and me sometimes. I hate myself for feeling like this but my heart sinks about the next 18 years being like this, I really don't think we'll cope...

Oh god. I do know how you feel to some extent although I only have a 4 yr old DS and a 16 month old DD.

Sorry, how many do you have? Ages?

Im sure we have all had times/stages when we think, FFS, how bloody good was life before. Is this possibly a clash of bad phases and ages or are we talking completely off the record wild behaviour?

I have 2 dcs

dd 4.7m

ds 19m.

they can both be ok but sometimes their behaviour is extreme. With ds to be fair I put a lot of it down to his age but dd has wild uncontrollable violent tantrums, she screams and shout and kicks, she's like a wild toddler, and she's getting on for 5 I thought this "phase" would have passed by now. TBH her behaviour is ruining everything.

I've also got a 4.8 year old DD1 who is exactly the same. I'm screechy, shouty woman at the moment and the Easter holidays have been a nightmare. Roll on next Tuesday when she goes back to school.

Thankyou all for supportive messages and thankyou leningrad for your v wise words. i'm def going to try the reward stuff, if she does what we ask the first time, says thankyou without prompting etc. I will reward straight away (still have lots of easter choc in the fridge).

Re ignoring I will try but some stuff we have to intervene, the incident tonight which prompted this post was her runnning into the road to try to get into her friends dads car as they left so we had to yell at her.

Re breaks it's good for us but seems to make stuff a whole lot worse for her for days afterwards as despite enjoying time with gps she's doubly a fiend when she gets back. it's v v true she wants our time and attention more than anything else but she's an attention junkie, the more she has the more she wants, a bottomless pit of need nonetheless. I took her out just her and me to some woods yesterday and met a friend and her dd also 4 there. All both 4 year olds did was whinge and argue and snipe at each other for 4 hours and if dd said "mummy" in a whiny voice once she said it 100 times. For 6 long bloody hours. It was exhausting. She carried on when we got home "mummy, mummy mummy" WTF!!! I ended up screaming at her to leave me alone for half an hour to have a cup of tea in peace.

I cannot handle the amount of attention kids need, I'm a solitary person, I can't stand constant talking and the whininh is beginning to make me see red.

Oh yes, this sounds familiar. We have 2 boys and one the outside they seem reasonably well behaved but they are so needy and full on. They are not particularly boisterous just demanding of us really non stop, they are so jealous of each other too so I feel like I am being pulled in two. I love them so much I wish everything wasn't such a trial and I could enjoy them more.

oh god poor you and your dh.
do not make yourself responsible for her happiness. you are not. you are responsible for providing her with an environment in which she can be happy, which you are definitely doing.

stop driving yourself so much. relax. don't do so much. do nothing - really do absolutely sod all with them. it's scary at first, but it takes the pressure off, and after a while you begin to calm down.

lower your expectations of yourselves and your children.

stop thinking you're going wrong. believe in yourselves and your ablity to parent, don't take it too damned seriously, it's ironic, bringing up children, is imho,the most important thing in the world, but yet you have to sort of pretend that it's a barrel of laughs, otherwise you literally start pulling your hair out.

have some tickle fights. put the music on. have baths together when there's no time pressure. hide from monsters under the duvet.

be the mother you want to be

I can only imagine. My 11 m/o is ill so I can't blame him for being ratty but when he's awake he's HELL. Screaming if now allowed to empty a cupboard/ is put down/ just feels like it. He's had a lot of illness and a lot of these patches and it's hard.

Space is the only thing that help during these periods.

poor you, I feel your pain

DD (3.3) is an absolute nightmare sometimes and over the last few days I have just wanted to walk out of house (never would obv)

She screams, bites, hits, throwsherself around etc but what I find hard is she is an absolute angel for everyone else I had her nursery parents eve a few wks ago and thought they had got her mixed up with another child as it was so positive etc....

While we were waiting in queue in bank yesterday she slapped a total strangers leg

Today I have made a massive effort not to shout or to warn her I am getting cross and will shout in a minute etc, I have also introduced a star chart (we are only on day1) and she was put on the naughty step for the first time at 2pm today (which is a massive improvement) as before it was at around 8am

I also played with her this afternoon (as I normally do after lunch when she has been at nursery in the morning) and before when I have done this I have said lets get playdoh out, paint etc but today I let her choose and lead the play iyswim and it went much better

DS (5) on the otherhand is the most chillded/laid back kid you could meet (most of the time!!)

I could have written your post. DS1 is 4.8 (have posted about him in despair on several occasions). At the moment the main problem is him just not leaving DS2 and DD alone - he's either tormenting them, or bossing them around, or enforcing things that I have said. DS2 is starting to retaliate and then it degenerates.

DS2 is 2.8 and he has definite OCD tendencies. He has to drink his milk, lying on a towel on the RED cushion and the train on the towel has to be by his feet. If he gets any food on his clothes, he has to take them off immediately.

DD is 1.3 and a dream at the moment - but I worry that she is soon going to be affected by the general stress level and my fishwifely shouting

Yes simpson dds nursery feedback is always glowing they look confused when I ask about certain behaviours. Ditto at friends houses and with my mum, bloody perfect it's just with me and dh she's a monster.

maryz ironically and unbelievably part of my job is doing intensive 1:1 support with parents re parenting when the parenting courses aren't enough!!! Ha you just can't believe it can you!? The Webster-Stratton team office is next to mine!! If I wasn't so bloody ashamed I'd do one in a shot, may have to go to another city to do one!

Because of last night shenanigans she went to bed with no stories v early, she's woken up in quite a contrite mood. So far she's had 2 unexpected rewards, one for being helpful with ds when he was being ocd about his nappy change (mat wasn't lined up correctly you see ) and one for sorting herself out on the toilet without the usual drama (she refuses to wipe herself at home even though she does it independently elsewhere).

She also gets to wear a princess dress today and a crown she made at nursery...

Ds has to drink his milk (after the meticulously executed microwave routine) lying on the middle sofa cushion with another cushion lengthways behind him with his jess cat between his knees, no deviation from this is allowed otherwise he can scream for over half an hour. It's exhausting.

Thanx TSC for offer, v kind x

Sounds like you know a lot about parenting - but reading your post I just wonder if you are trying too hard to please the kids? As someone else said above, sometimes its okay to just ignore them - as long as they're not going to harm themselves. Slightly embarrassed to say but when our DD had her first proper tantrum DP and I both just laughed - not cruelly but it was just very melodramatic and funny - and we've always just let her get on with her bad moods and most of the time she just stomps about for a bit and then goes back to normal. She was being a bit stroppy and rude to me today so I just told her I was going into another room until she was going to be nice to me. End of discussion.

And chances are you DD is picking up on your anxiety when you are going out and playing on it. You mention being terrified that she will have one of her episodes if you don't give her something. Why is that?

minxofmancunia

I empathise with you whole-heartedly.

I have 2 dc, dd is 7, ds is 4 1/2 - dd teases ds relentlessly and ds reacts to it by hitting out at her or by throwing his toys around. They do get on sometimes, but i always have a heavy heart wondering when the next argument will be. Stress levels are always high in my house, and my face shows it, i feel it has aged me. DH has little patience too at times with their arguing, and i don't blame him. Like you, we do so much for our kids whom we really love: days out, visits to/from grandparents and relatives, activities, treats, etc, and i feel that they just do not appreciate how much we do with/for them.

Hate to say this, but i am glad that i not the only one who feels this way, i always thought that it was just me who goes through this : (

OP - just to say - it does get easier - a lot easier - in a year or so. Hang in there!

Mine are 7 & 9 now, but when there were 2 & 4 it was soooooooooo much tougher. I guess since DD1 is 9 I have teenage years looming, but I intent to make the best of the calm before the storm!