dd (4) gets so angry she stands and screams endlessly

[familyfun]

feel like this is my millionth thread about dds behaviour
she can be good as gold listening, being kind and helpful and playing nicely.

but she wants 100% attention, if i leave the room she shouts mom where are you what are you doing and follows me round even if i walk to the bin and back. she never wants to play alone, its what are we playing now mom and if i say im doing a job she asks fo tv on (which she doesnt get very often) and then sits by me till ive finished.

i cant give her 100% attention i have a 7 month old and jobs to do and feel like she is suffoctaing me with her clinginess and whining and she is ruining the fun times by clinging and moaning.

when she gets angry, when we say no to something or tell her to wait or tell her to do something, she will stand and scream and scream and do a loud fake cry, wah wah wah as loud as she can shich usually turns into real tears.

we use the naughty step if she doesnt listen and she gets reward tokens for good behaviour, small treat for 10 tokens, she has got no ttreats in 10 days

she wakes up 3 or 4 times a night screaming and shouting and trying to get in bed with us, waking everyone and we are all knackered.

we try t make lots of time for her, but its never enough. at the park she wants me to follow her round every piece of apparatus. we flew a kite at the weekend and she was hanging off dps legs as he ran, she follows us round the house, she cries when dp goes to work ( 7-4 so not ong hours), she cries when dropped at nursery soemtimes even though she has been there a week, she wont go to soft play as i cant climb round with her, she wont go swimming lessons as we sit on side, she wont go dancing as we cant join in, she wont go to groups with kids and if she does she sits on my lap.

i need help with her clingness and her rudenss/answering back, saying no constantly, and worse of all the screaming.

I know it sounds quite overwhelming and tiring but she is only 4 and obviously just had a sibling some kind of clinging is to be expected

I may be out of line but how did you prepare her for the new arrival?
was she involved? happy about it? was she made to feel important and did you emphasise how great and grown up she is and what a fantastic thing it is to be the big sister?

also does she get to help around the house? is she reassured or in your feeling of being suffocated do you treat her as a nuisanse, I imagine it is hard when you are tired and feeling warn out but some gentle reassurance now might well pay off

does she go to nursery? what help are you getting there and at home?

are you and her dad consistent in your attention to her and in setting her boundaries?
personally I am not a fan of naughty step and reward chart but I guess each to its own, however as you say no 'treats' for quite a few days, maybe it is just adding to the tension

I am sure someone more experienced will come along and give you advice
however I realise it is a hard time for you and it is quite understandable to feel tired and fed up

she goes to nursery 3 hours a day 5 days a week and although she is doing well there and is well beahved, she always wants to sit on the teachers lap ar hold her hand.
she wanted a sister, was talked about a lot, she got to choose baby things and her sister bought her a present when she was born andshe adores her aleways kissing her hugging her and telling her she loves her and can settle her easily.
she is jealous, she has told us this and we always kiss cuddle her and she gets separate time where we read to her, do her homelink from nursery, do her toys while sister sleeps.
her dad is very soft on her imo, says he is ignoring the bad so it doesnt escalate but imo he is ignoring it as he doesnt want to tell her off.
she can be playing happily oneminute and then just start stomping about, maoning and whinging for no reason.
in shops she just whines for food/drink/toys from start to finish, we say no and she kicks off, we dont give in but she wont stop.
last night i told her to stop leaning on the glass shower screen in the bath as she was soaking the floor and could hurt herself and she said no, so i told her to stop and she stod and screamed, i lifted her out the bath and she was screaming get off me get off me i dont love you, i just dried her and put her in her rom for 4 mins to calm down, then she said sorry and ddint know whay she had doen it, but this will happen 5 times a day,

you know I always get the feeling that the more warn out sand tense we are the more testing children become

the bath incident I probably would have dealt with in a similar way.
I think also children notice dissent and push a bit there to find the boundary

have you tried distraction? or planning ahead? sometimes I find that sitting down nicely for a few minutes before going out and being all positive run through he events coming up, like going shopping, saying things like, we are going to the shops I know you quite like it and want to help mummy/daddy here is the list. we must get before doing the next thing and be specific about what the next thing is. does not have to be a treat.

it can be challenging to refocus their attention when they start whining, but it is worth a total change of tone and put their attention somewhere else with some enthusiasm

• look what is that? very pretty don't you think? tell daddy about what you saw today,

I think she needs to learn and be comfortable playing by herself for short periods of time, but to get there she needs to feel secure and something seems to be bothering her at the moment

I expect at nursery she does not sit on the teacher's lap all the time and how is she on separation?

I am sure you are doing your best but it is draining, however it is probably best to find a way of dealing with this that does not always end up in confrontation

what she said about not loving you, it is just something children say when they realise their words affect others, when mine has done it I always oh but I love you, often in an exaggerated jokey way (not always easy or possible)

My 4yo and 19mo dc are a bit like this, too. It's like having two stalkers.

i always tell her i love her anyway.
she gets lots of positive attention and time but a lot of negative as she is relentless.
if she kicks my chair and i ignore it she will kick and kick till i snap, she knows i will snap eventually i suppose so keeps going.

I feel your pain familyfun, it can be so hard when you feel like you can't have a single second to yourself.

One thing I tried when my ds had a similar phase, I couldn't just ignore stuff, so like you if he was kicking my chair I'd ignore ignore ignore but feel myself getting more and more stressed until I snapped and shouted and over reacted to him. So I started to sing whenever he did something annoying. Sing anything that came into my head, twinkle twinkle, baa baa black sheep, Foo Fighters! It gave me something to focus on that wasn't the annoying child kicking my chair, and often ended up with ds singing along with me and it turned into fun.

This won't help with your dd's clinginess (sorry don't really have any advice for you) but might stop you snapping and then feeling rubbish about it later.

Hugs
x

Poor you. What a nightmare - and no sleep either. This is clearly driving you to breaking point and you need to calm it down as it will be affecting the whole family. Try to disengage from her tantrums and remain relaxed when she's trying to push your buttons (that's clearly what she's trying to do here). You've got separation anxiety, sleep deprivation, sibling rivalry all rolled into one.

I would let her sleep with you at night (just so that you can get some sleep), then try and crack the separation anxiety during the day. Try and play hiding games, keep smiling to keep it light when she tantrums. Make a game out of her running somewhere ahead of you (in a safe place of course). Sit with her in the dark at bedtime so she learns to relax with you and that Mummy's not all bad (!).

Try to remember that it will get better, it will pass, believe me this is a phase and one day she will get over it.

dd went through a phase of this. Eventually my tactic was to remove myself rather than her from the situation to avoid any further confrontation. I would go and sit in the lounge with a cup of tea, very loudly enjoying myself. Whenever dd came in, I would tell her to go out as I was calming down after her behaviour. I would make sure that I looked like I was having fun even if I was invardly crying. If she started screaming again, I would tell her the longer she screamed, the longer it would take me to calm down and could she go and scream in her room. Forced calmness and totally ignoring the behaviour eventually worked for me.

The other thing I did when she would go to her room and scream for hours was to give her a warning to stop and then explain that I would come in every 5 minutes that she carried on and remove a toy. If I removed 4 toys, they would all go in the bin. Harsh, but it was that or kill her!

This is the second time this week I've suggested this - and it worked the first time so fingers crossed - but instead of being so emotionally involved with everything (quite understandably!) try the bored policeman approach. Basically, you're a reasonably kind, rather bored policeman in charge of a group of rowdy football fans or whatever. Stay calm, stay fairly uninvolved when the behaviour is bad but don't take any crap eg - stop the chair kicking immediately firmly but kindly instead of ignoring it til you pop. Does that make sense? Four is still small but old enough to start appreciating other people have feelings too IMO.

yes i might try the bored policeman
i have tried singing and it annoyed dd even more so she just screamed louder.
i have tried walking away and saying i needed to be calm and dd seemed to find this a challenge by folowing me and hanging off me and crowding me out to the point i nearly snapped
at the park yesterday there were only 3 kids there, i played a bit then sat on a bench and gave hre challenges to run round the park in set times etc and she did this running all round the perimetre of the park and going off to playa bit, then a family of 4 turned up very lively and charging about and dd immediately sat on bench refusing to move so i think its crowds/lots of kids/over busy places she hates like soft play etc.
at nursery there are only 13 and she can handle that, they are all just 4, but on days with 26 kids when the older class are there too she cries and hates it.

Sounds like something's working ff - keep it up. The more you engage with her on the positive things, the more she will respect you when the negatives kick off.

It's perfectly normal to be wary of boisterous crowds etc, if she's overly anxious you're doing the right thing by exposing her gradually and taking her mind off it by focusing on games in the park.

yes she has picked similar children as her friends at nursery, quitequiet and play quiet games together.

I heard somewhere that although the tendency is to want to pair your quiet child up with a lively one, it is better for them to make friends with children of a similar temperament. Kids are all SO different. One thing that occurred to me is that she may have difficulty with her hearing - some dcs feel pain when noises are too loud. Have you had that checked?

hearing was checked as a baby and was fine but it says in her notes sensitive hearing, she hates loud noise it scares her.