Did I deal with this right?

[EatDessertFirst]

My DD5 came home from school exhausted as usual. Snack and early dinner with no problems.

Cue massive tantrum because she didn't want to tidy up her drawing before bathtime. I calmly gave her a set time to clear up with a countdown and then let her bath out so she didn't have one. (We have time before school in the morning for one so the 'clean' issue is solvable).

Then, she hit her brother (3). I told her off sternly, turned my back on her and then made a huge fuss of DS.

THEN another massive tantrum because she wouldn't brush her teeth properly or let me check that she had. So I refused to read her a story at bedtime.

I asked her (when she was calm) why she was being horrible and if there was anything bothering her. She seemed genuinely sorry (as much as is possible for a 5yo). We have agreed to 'start again' in the morning. She just says she is tired. I really am against punishing her just because she is tired but I don't feel her behaviour is justified.

(She is now reading to herself calmly in bed after our heart-to-heart).

Am I being too strict? Did I react badly?

Genuine and constructive advice please. I really can't deal with being flamed at the moment.

Don't beat yourself up, sounds to me like you did well. Y
You made clear to her what was expected of her and made the "punnishments" immediate and reasonable. Good job I say!

Thank you very much.

School has been a massive adjustment for all of us. I'm very grateful that she is angelic at school so I only have to worry about her behaviour at home!

No probs. my OH has a terrible habit of making ridiculous threats to our 6 year old dd, such as " if you don't tidy that up I'll chuck it in the bin", she knows he never would so he is ignored and can't understand why. Maybe you could give him a few tips!

I think the clue is in your first sentence ie 'exhausted'.

Making a huge fuss of DS possibly wasn't helpful if you'd just given her a bollocking. She is very young and school is a big deal as she has to contain her frustrations whilst there. So they are more likely to come out at home where she can relax.

She won't understand why she's being 'horrible' and you did the right thing by talking about it and moving on. Small children live in the moment and I suppose she was having a moment!

In the grand scheme of things whether you over-react slightly or not doesn't really matter if she's secure ( which I'm sure she is, or this may have escalated). She's reading calmly so you may be over thinking it. Don't beat yourself up about it - no parent gets it right all the time.

I have a long list of ' should have done that differently' if that makes you feel any better

Thanks campion. If only our little monsters cherubs came with a manual! I think I'll have to look at picking my battles after school for a while.

I've heard a lot of children improve as their stamina gets better, normally after Christmas from what I've read/heard. Fingers crossed! Xx

I think you sounded really calm, but agree with pp that I would't have made a fuss of DS in front of chastened DD.

My son is 4 and by teatime is always exhausted (I dread to think how he'll cope with school!). I do make allowances for his tiredness as he does play up so much more at the end of the day than the beginning of the day.

If it was me, I would told her that her drawings needed to be cleared up and would have offered to help her do this rather than making her do it herself (as I know my son reacts well to 'shared tasks' a lot better than solo ones and for me, making him do it himself at the end of the day, would be a sure fire recipe for him having a tantrum - however, I'm sure many people would consider that too soft). If he refused to take part in the shared task, then I would have followed through with my threat.

Re: the teethbrushing, we have also made that threat (of no stories) but we've never had to put it into action, as after making the threat (and when he goes ballistic, crying!) I normally get him to calm down and agree that he wants a story and to acknowledge that the only way that will happen is if we check/supervise his teethbrushing and so he then 'agrees' that's what should happen and we get to do his teeth - takes longer.

Totally agree though that once you make a threat, you have to follow it through, I've never made a threat I've not followed through, but I have (after making the thread) tried to get DS to change his position (thus many times I don't need to carry the threat out).

If I was marking you though, I'd give you a 9 out of 10, I think you handled it well :-)

Thank you Eletheomel.

The 'sharing task' idea would work really well with my DD. I'll be trying that tomorrow!

I'll also use your idea about getting her to change her position regarding different things. I'm going to adopt the idea myself and try to look at things from her point of view as well.

Thank you all for your replies. I was really scared that I'd gone WAY too far with the following through!

My DS3 was horrible to live with this time two years ago when he was in reception. He was constantly moody and had a hair-trigger. He was exhausted by school and we decided to stay firm but cut him some slack - and things did get better. It took him until easter to be back to his old self. I don't think the christmas holidays are particularly restful for them. Now he's a bit older he's much better and we have the odd day where he's moody rather than all the time - like tonight after he stayed up to watch some of children in need last night. Bedtime was a battle when normally he's happy to go to bed but we stayed calm and he went to sleep. I think you handled it well. We always tried to make the consequences a natural outcome of his behaviour - if we have to battle to clean your teeth then we won't have time for a story etc - that way whether he got a story was entirely his responsibility.

Sounds like you had a heck of a night and it's hard to remain calm in situations like this especially when you have other children too. Sounds like you handled it very well, you told her off for hitting her brother which was wrong of her but you listened to her as well to see if there was a problem and you're starting afresh the next day and not dragging it out. Sounds like very good parenting to me - try not to over analyse, sounds like the day ended calmly (well done!) and she's just over tired. We all do the best we can at any moment so try not to worry xxxx

Both my children found school exhausting when they first started. I used to pop them into the bath when they got home from school so they could chill out. It may sound odd but it worked well.