What discipline techniques worked for you? 4 yo challenging

[rhetorician]

Just interested. DD is 4 and often quite challenging. Defiant, doesn't listen, won't do as she is asked etc. The usual (I think). She did recently have a spell in hospital which has set things back, but if you have/had a challenging child, what techniques worked for you?

Praise the good stuff, as much as possible. Say thank you when she does something helpful or responds positively to a request. Ignore the smaller challenging stuff, redirect, and when highly challenged, explain why its not acceptable. She is 4 she understands. If she needs greater motivation, I'd suggest possibly saying "well we are planning on going out to the playground this afternoon, but we can't do it if you're not going to help me..." or something along those lines. But I would save this and keep it simple. Threats aren't good, but consequences are helpful and have to be followed up on. And good luck as this, like all things will pass.

I would recommend Complete Secrets of Happy Children by Stephen Biddulph which basically recommends clear, consistent boundaries, time outs and lots of love and attention for the good stuff. Good liick! Mine were hideous at 4 but seem reasonably well adjusted at the moment.. (Probably just a phase ;))

She watches about 30 mins of tv most days. Not doing as she is told...well, yesterday she needed to change her top so we could go to the library, which she wanted to do. She wouldn't. Ran away. Hid. Shutouts, point blank refused. Despite saying if you want to go to library you first have to chane your top, she wouldn't. So we didn't go. And countless similar examples.

MaryRobinson yes, it is, but it is equally hard to retrain yourself in the ways you describe. Conflict is a real trigger for crappy behaviour

And before you tell me to pick my battles, I already overlook a lot. Messy eating, just to take one example.

Consequences for bad behaviour, praise for good:

If you don't get your shoes on you will not get a treat at the shop.

Good job!! You put your shoes on as soon as mummy said to!

Sorry I said anything.

We have just started a marble jar (she gets a marble for doing what she's told or taken away if she's naughty. Treat when full). We're using really pretty marbles so she's actually more bothered about them than the treat! It's working well. I'm trying to be v clear and warningy about losing one and have only taken one away in the last 3 weeks.

I personally wouldn't bother about changing tops unless it was a hot/cold issue and then I would take a Cardi and let her find out for herself. I wouldn't make not going out a consequence as gives her too much control and then you're stuck in house with grumpy 4 yr old.

Good luck. I'm finding 4 quite... erm... challenging! !

Please don't fall out! Strength of character, for sure. And Mary's approach much much better than the one I took. I try very hard to be calm, patient and non conflictual, and a lot of the time it works. Yesterday a bad day, made massively worse by tiredness on her part, as always...

1. Have a set of non negotiable family rules and make sure kids know what they are.
2. Enforce those rules every single time the kids break them and stick to them yourself. ("no shouting", "no hitting", ...) Consistent and calm is the way to do this. I usually give a couple of warnings and then it's 3 minutes time out (e.g. talking in a whiny voice).

My 3 year old was laughing all the way to the time out in the beginning but after a couple of weeks of this he knows that the rules are non-negotiable. When he tried to escape the time out initially i shut the door. Basically he needs to know who is boss. This was never necessary with my DC 1 btw, I think some kids are just pushing the boundaries more. You can also make up other consequences for bad behaviour. Like removal of privileges for bad behaviour, much more efficient than dishing out rewards for good behaviour.

1. Ramp up the quality time, and one to one time.
2. Lots of positive praise for the good stuff.
3. Ideally all careers stick to the same punishments and rules, but sometimes hard to achieve...

What never worked for me is ignoring bad behaviour... It just made my 3 year old pushing for the limits how far he can go.

Being firm helps me stay in control and I don't shout at the kids anymore and they are happy because they know what to expect.

Am dealing with all this right now, so it is my favourite subject...

Good luck!