I feel so low about my relationship with 5 yr old, I could cry

[cantnookian]

We have two DD, just 5 and almost 4. I find my relationship with the older one very difficult and getting worse. I am shouting what seems like every day at the moment. She I think plays up deliberately when the two of them are together (at other times they then play well together). She is openly defiant and will not do something she is asked and apart from rewards or punishment I do not know what to say and when she shrugs and says "I don't care" then I end up shouting because I do not know what else to do.

I feel I have little connection with her and feel awful about it. The younger one can still grizzle and cry at the drop of a hat and I get cross with her, but she has always cuddled me more and been more affectionate and I do not worry about my relationship with her. But the older one I find very difficult. I think some of it is the problem of having two children so close together, she was only 15 monhs old when the younger one was born and I remember thinking how big she looked after the birth of the second child, it was such a shock that she looked so big. I think she has then been treated older than her yrs ever since, whereas the younger one has been able to stay a baby.

Bedtimes have been especially trying and tonight is the first time that the older one has stayed up later as she appears to need less sleep. Hopefully doing that each evening means that she gets some time alone with me and that will make her less combative. I know I need to spend more time alone with her but I do not want to as I find her such hard work, but when I do she is generally nice to be with.

I sometimes dread being with the two of them on my own. I just do not know what to do when they play up and it is always instigated by the older one hence she gets the sharp end of my and my husband's frustration.

I think you have answered your own question, she needs some quality alone time with you, and it will hopefully bring you closer. I have twins (nearly 4) and the bickering/full on fighting can drive you insane! I'm sure the small age gap between your girls makes it extra tricky - I have heard that small age gaps are difficult with little ones, but easier when they are older - I cling on to that on bad days!!! x

I have felt exactly like you in the past. My ds are 6.9 and 4.6. I remember seeing ds1 after just giving birth and he seemed giant, and I think I instantly saw him as much bigger than he was. I still feel terrible looking back, my expectations of him were ridiculous, poor boy!

No easy answers as I think it will always be more difficult with first dc, simply because they are the first, for me anyway. I would suggest one to one time, where they get to be center of attention and not expected to be the more mature one. Also allows you to see them as the individual they are, rather than naughty older dc.

For bad behavior, just started to realise actions speak louder than words, so less shouting/nagging more consequences. It's not easy, just remember she's still your baby!

Cantnookian, my experience almost exactly mirrors yours, except that I have two boys. 22 months apart and very different in character. As the others say, quality time with DD1 is important though, if you're anything like me, you might dread it, but it does pay dividends.

Also, take a deep breath, step back and remember you are only the parent here. Might sound strange, but you are not obliged to be their best friend, nor they yours. When I stepped back enough from my DS1 to stop taking his back-chat, grunts and slammed doors as personal, then it was much easier to deal with them constructively. I didn't feel so hurt, I could deal with his behaviour much more calmly and put it all in perspective a bit more. Upshot is, I'm lessed stressed, he feels less 'got at' and our relationship has blossomed.

Hang on in there. You'll come through!

Thank you for your replies, wise words so thank you again.

I have been for the past two nights putting the smaller one to bed earlier and spending time with the older one playing cards, so hopefully that will help. She is very angry at the moment and I blame myself for that as I have been shouting a lot in the past couple of weeks and things have just got worse and worse.

She is initiating arguments with the younger one over the smallest things, like this morning a little heart that the little one had but she said was hers. So she took it off the smaller one and cue full scale bawling fit from 4 yr old.

I find this sort of thing very diffciult to deal with and normally would get very cross, but this morning did not shout.

I need to take things one day at a time, realise that things will not be fixed overnight, stop shouting, spend some time alone with her every day, try to distract and divert.

It is incredible how helpless you can feel when a just 5 yr old says no (e.g. I won't go and brush my teeth) and then looks as it to say "and what are you going to do about it?" and then because I feel so helpless I either resort to getting cross or generally punishments " no dessert today" and then she just now shrugs her shoulders and says " i don't care" and you know it is not working.

The single biggest thing I have to do is to stop shouting. HappySnail you are right about taking everything so personally. I am telling myself that. am responsible for my behaviour but I am not responsible for their behaviour. You are also right about her feeling "got at".

I am interested in what people do when the children are bickering and what do you do when they won't do something you need to do (like get in the car, get dressed for school etc).

I dont have a close age gap, DD1 is 4 and DD2 is 16weeks.

But its only been in the last fortnight or so that I have been able to give DD1 proper 1-1 attention and cuddles. It broke my heart to realise that when I was heavily pregnant and then the baby was born, DD1 felt like she couldnt ask me for a hug. Now she comes and gives me cuddles all the time. Her behaviour has improved so much, and her little face lights up when she gets time in bed with me in the mornings or when we bake together.

So even though it feels like the connection is lost and the 1-1 time is difficult, persevere. Give your older girl a cuddle, tell her shes beautiful. Even if at the start you are "faking" a connection, if you keep it going it will become real!

I'd also recommend the book, "siblings without rivalry", which helped me in a similar situation to yours.

I have heard of that book, so will take a look. I feel such tension being with both of them and they wind. me up so easily.

I've only got one child but 'How to talk so kids listen and listen so that kids talk' is absolutely brilliant when you've got communication issues with your kids. Actually I really need to reread it because I'm going through a bit of a tricky time with my DS

I feel so stressed at the moment that the smallest things are making me angry. It feels like all the time I am on eggshells waiting for them to squabble and then something small happens and I get really angry. Thank goodness we have lovely weather today and they are outside in the next door neighbour's garden for a while.

I need to get a grip on my emotions so that I can better tackle things.

I have how to talk and need to read again!

I often feel that I do not like being with both of them together, the tension I feel is so high and I feel I am high alert all the time and it is exhausting and I feel angry about it. It is crazy I know but I was just never prepared for how hard it would be to have children and the burden largely falls to me (dh works long hours) no family nearby).

Within 30 mins of being in the house today we had older one cutting in her own hair and the other one's, throwing sand in the face of the little one etc etc. Maybe lots of parents would tell me it is normal, that is just what children are like but it feels so exhausting to me.

I know what you mean about the fighting and how stressful it is being with them. I love love love my DC of course (much bigger age gap, they still fight!) but sometimes when I'm with them both I just feel like I'm counting the minutes until they're asleep and I can just THINK straight. I feel awful about that, but it is very hard work. I never mean to shout, but sometimes it happens because I'm just so run ragged and exasperated, I'm basically letting off steam. I know there are better ways, but it's not always that easy is it?

We have found that very consistent consequences repeated over and over do eventually have an effect. At bed time, DD aged nearly 3 will just get out of bed and run around. She can open doors and the safety gate, so what can you do? We now have a system - we put her back into bed, explaining that it's bedtime, and if she stays in bed we will come and give her a hug in a bit (which we do). Every time she gets out, back in. If she stays in bed, she gets the vist and hug. repeat ad nauseam. Finally, it's working.

I know bedtime isn't your problem as such but with thing like she won't clean her teeth - make the consequence immediate - e.g you have 5 mins to clean your teeth, if you don't then no bedtime book. (or whatever) and follow it through. I'd also talk to her about the litle beasties that live on her teeth and will eat them if she doesn't brush them off - works for my DC! :o

It works best if you stay calm and unruffled (like I said, I'm not always good at that) and 100% cast-iron consistent. The even better thing about this is that if you don't appear angry, then it's easier to get on and have fun with them too.

Another thing I sometimes do is ask my DC - you are behaving in a way I don't like, how can we change it? What do you think I should do? It can lead to an interesting discussion and new ideas.

Thank you Lady Yes letting off steam, getting my own anger and frustration out which is exactly what happened to me as a child and I know how awful it is.

I agree about being consistent and staying calm, I wish I could perfect the art of shrugging my shoulders and saying there we are, that is the consquence and walking away, but I have wound up the emotion and temperature so much that things have not been good.

My elder daughter would just shrug her shoulders and say don't care if I said you won't get a story if you don't brush your teeth so I don't feel ANY punishments will work at all right now and for a few days I am tempted to shrug my shoulders and say if you want black teeth then that is your choice (she has seen the black in my mouth often enough). I need to reduce the temperature sooo much that right now any confrontation is to be avoided. Luckily we have her friend staying this weekend so hopefully it can reduce the tension a bit.

So the three things I need to do:

stay calm

consistent

no anger.

I was going to say How to Talk and Siblings Without Rivalry. Do read your copy of How to Talk, for me it changed things overnight when things got tough.

I absolutely agree with faking it until you feel it. Ds1 has asd and is particularly difficult just before and after school-transitions are hard for lots of kids. I was letting my anger and distress at his behaviour alienate me from my lovely boy.
I detached from the behaviour-I know I can do this because I was absolutely calm and consistent when I childminded. So I did all the things I knew I had to eg removed him from the room when he was aggressive, stopped him going out to play when he'd been mean to his brother, but I stopped shouting and I stopped thinking 'what a horrid boy'.

I also kept telling him how brilliant he was and thinking it too. He may have got his uniform on nicely, remembered his bag, said thank you.I would make myself consciously think 'ah how cute' when he was just sat daydreaming on the sofa or walking off to school. If I don't think ,that who will? I had to step back and remember to celebrate him.

If mine say 'no' I approach it a few different ways. Sometimes I'll have a laugh eg 'obviously if you won't go upstairs the tickle monster will be chasing you up to make sure you do your teeth' -having a laugh was something I'd forgotten to do too. Or I'd say 'whaddya mean no you silly billy upstairs now' . Or I'll count to 3 and I honestly never got to 3, but I suspect yopur dd might and there is a book called 123 magic about that.

She says she doesn't care, but she does care - she just knows this successfully winds you up. I suppose the answer is OK then, 5 minutes are up, into bed, night night see ya later. You might find the next night she does it - worth a try.

I went on a parenting course and one person told an anecdote that they had put their older child to bed 15 minutes earlier than the younger one for misbehaving. They said they didn't care, but it didn't happen again - it sounds pretty minor but actually realising they were going to bed before their younger sibling was unacceptable!

I also know a girl, slightly older, who can be quite unpleasant to my DS. After she had played yet another nasty trick on him I brought it up with her and quite gently said how would you like to be treated like that, she answered back "I wouldn't care" in a ner-ner way that made my blood boil - she's not my child so I left it there, but god was I annoyed.

But the next time we saw them, DS said to her that he didn't believe what she was saying, it was a probably another trick and he wasn't going to fall for it. I said - again quite calmly - that's what happens if you keep playing tricks on people, they won't trust you. She was really upset. Basically, she will always talk the talk and backchat that she doesn't care, but when she came face to face with the actual consequences it did have an effect. I felt sorry for her!

Thank you again. I will get out my copy of how to talk, I have ordered Siblings without rivalry.

I talked to older one last night and said would you like some time with mom or dad on your own and she said yes.

It is just the low level cr&p of shoving or squabbling or teasing that is so wearing. I have to be strong, tell myself I can handle it and most importantly stay calm and give consequences.

Start of a new day!