disliking a three year old

[sixtwosix]

strictly speaking its her crying, and whining and general stroppiness thati dislike. but when she is having one of her fits,which is often, i feel as if i dislike the person.
stroppy cow is my name for her right now.
its as if that is all there is to her. her wants and needs. and her screaming andwhining.

very often to get a child to change their behaviour, you have to change yours.
if she keeps whining for something then ignore it.

I used to tell my little charge that I couldn't hear her when she whined and tha i'd listen to her when she could talk to me nicely.

ignore the bad behaviour and PRAISE PRAISE PRAISE the good stuff... however little it is

It'll get easier, sixtwosix, it really will.

And then she'll turn into a teenager and it'll start all over again.

Do you ever like her? My 4 year old can be a total pain in the backside and we sometimes have really bad days where I dn't like him very much but then he does something sweet or funny and it's OK. 3 year olds are incredibly hard work from a whingeing/whining/tantrumming viewpoint - do you have any time away from her?

It's the age - ds2 is 3 and is the most whingy whiney child in teh world. He is veeeery hard work - when he is happy he is the most wonderful little person and so amazing, but he does cry and whinge an awful lot and I find it very hard work, very draining.

I think it will get better as he gets older, as his communication gets better and as he gets to school (please GOd!)

Sympathies. I am facing the challange of a very challanging just 3 year old, who seems to have constant temper outbursts etc.
I know it is really hard, but I have been given (by HV) the ignore the bad & praise the good advice.

bubble
yes i know the easter holidays have been hardd on me.
ido ignore the behaviour.and i think thatis where the negativefeelings come from. she is sooo stubborn. she will literally go on for hours on end. and it is soo hard ignoring it. there isno time leftover for good behaviour iyswim.
and she hasall my own bad habits. which is annoying too

I know it is easier said than done - believe me!

well if it's any consolation, six, you're not alone. dd1 is 2.10 and she must be your child's identical twin.

yesterday refusing to come inside once we got home. had to bring her in kicking and screaming.

but then she ran to me for a cuddle when she saw thunder cracking on TV. aw! mummy's here, baby!

but what about when there is no good behaviour at all?
for example. she will scream about being forced to getdressed and in the car to get her brothers from school. then she will scream from the car to the playground coz i didnthold the correcthand/let herwalk on the wall/ shut the car door, , then in the playground she will be clinging to me and saying lets go play in theplayhousee.which i cant fit into. or not want me to talk to anyone else. then she will be screaming on the way back to the car. then she will be screaming coz she doesnt want the seatbelt on.. then something one of her brothers did, like look at her.. then screaming about getting into the house and not to wherever she wanted to go to. etc etc etc.
on and on and on.

is it a girl thing?
im sure my boys were never this bad?

choose your battles!

if she screams because you';re holding the wrong hand then change hands. don't waste energy on the things that don't really matter!

praise ANYTHING she does, no matter how small. ie, if she gets in the car by herself then give her loads of praise, what a big girl you are, you;re so clever! can you put your seatbelt on? etc etdc

dunno. she is my elder of two girls. i just ignore it, tbh. i don't even hear it after a while. i just pick her up and she has to go along. too damn bad for her. she wanted to wear this grotty coat hte second she saw me about to put it in the washing machine. she wants to eat chocolate all day. etc., etc.

also, it's really difficult I know, but try and be really smiley and upbeat with her the whole time.

ie, you get into car and she creates because she doesn't want seatbelt on.
so you just be really happy and smiley and "would you like a tape/cd to listen to?" and distract her as much as possible.
DON'T get angry, because that will make her angrier (easier said than done, i know)... just be very matter of fact and reward her with a tape or whatever once she has the seatbelt on.

sympathize totally
my dd3 as the same fits whinges etc
with us it is sitting in the middle (between dd4 baby and dd3 )in the back of car, holding the buggy walking down the wall dd4 is ahead f her behinfd her we never seem todo anything right

the latest was in peacocks yesterday dd3 and dd2 had the wrong shoes on dd3 would NOT put the right shoes on lay on floor kicking and cryingblackmail incentives sweets all did not work thought the nspcc were going to appear young lad on till thought i was mad --to top it all had to pay with my switch card as could not rememer the pin for the joint credit card.
you are not on your own

I tell her that she is not being good / nice and ythat I don't like her tell her I like and love the good girl that I know she can be.

when my son (just 3) is creating & is in that place where he is in such a state that nothing I say gets through, sometimes it's best to give up trying to calm him down, he is in too much of a state to know what he's upset about. I find that then the best thing for him is too withdraw all attention & put him on time out, at home its in the hall where he is safe but when we are out of the house it is wherever it is near & safe but he has got no outside stimulation & he can just calm down in his own time. It has never failed to work, if not for him, then it gives me a chance to take a breath & work out what to do next.

I've found that with DS2 (2 yo) if he's doing something I don't want him to I turn it around into something I can praise him for.

I was trying to walk out of the kitchen with my hands full and he kept closing the door on me. Twice I told him not to do it and got a door in my face. On the 3rd time I quickly put the stuff down, wedged the door as he opened it and put on super happy voice shouting "Oh thank you DS2 for holding the door open, you're so helpful, come here and let me give you a big hug" Grabbed him in a bear hug and kissed him. The look of bewilderment on his face was amazing!

When I'm getting him dressed he was always running away and climbing onto the back of the sofa so I did super happy voice again saying "You're so clever to choose the perfect place to put your socks on, lets see if we can do your trousers too" And it worked!

I was also having problems with him hitting his siblingsand friends and chose that as the one thing I would not tolerate. If he hit, I'd warn him if he did it again he was going in the naught corner. If he did it again he'd go in the corner.

All other behaviour I would either ignore or try to turn it around. It took about two weeks, (and did feel quite desperate during some of it) but I now have a much happier little boy who I enjoy being with. He doesn't whine as much and I definately don't shout as much either

The moment I get emotionally engaged with my near 3 yr old the worse it gets.

So, what do I do? I try and remain as calm, cool and collected as I can, v difficult at times.

It is on my mind a lot that I am the role model, so when I get fed up I tell him it's his behaviour I don't like (not him)I try and talk about his feelings, give them labels to help him.

3-4 yrs is all about learning about emotions, so giving them labels and recognizing to my child when he is angry, sad whatever I think is important.

I praise whenever I can, e.g for helpfullness, kindness to the cat etc and am never scared of allowing time for the tantrum to end. He has the problem, he needs to deal with it, and like another post says sometimes words from me are useless. I just make sure we talk about it afterwards and how he feels.

End of each day at bedtime I go over what happened in the day (even with c**p days I don't focus on the tantrums too much, but he likes hearing about the day, and tell him I love him.)

I know it's hard, but think it will be worse as a teenager!

LOL lact8 - Super happy voice is called the cbeebies voice in our house

Spagblog, that describes it so well, think Sarah Jane but even more annoyingly upbeat

Totally agree with lact8 and Starlover re being crazily upbeat. Also, if you are going to ignore the whining, make sure she is aware that non-whining will get your positive attention. In our house dd is told she will get what she wants if she asks in a happy voice. Sounds obvious, but 3 yo do need it spelled out to them, they can't work it out for themselves.

This could have been my post a year ago!! Ds1 didn't really do terrible twos, but really went for it with the whingy threes! I really didn't like him a lot of the time - he was whiney, stroppy, miserable.... grrr...!!! We also had a baby/1 year old at the same time, so life wasn't easy!

But something happened when ds1 turned 4 - he's 4 and 3 months now - and he's just lovely! Getting much happier, calmer, definitely not as whingy. He's helpful - for pocket money of course - and generally a much nicer boy to have around! (of course the payback is that ds2 is now hitting the terrible twos..!!)

Sorry it feels like you might have to wait a year for all this, but at least you know it will happen!

Roll on 4 then!!

Oh yes, ds2 is 4 in November - will he transform then?

I really think so..! We've just spent a lovely hour playing Jenga and Connect 4 and doing a jigsaw and he's been laughing away while we've played Jenga - unthinkable even 6 months ago. Honest - something fab happens when they hit 4..!!