4 yr old driving me up the wall!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[texasrose]

Hi there,
I'm feeling really low tonight because I'm struggling with my 4 yr old dd

She is very highly-strung and has several tantrums a day. If she doesn't get whatshe wants, she screams and shouts and tells me it's my fault for making her sad. She point blank refuses to do what I ask her to then when I discipline her (naughty seat etc) she howls and cries and blames me again.

I've had this all week now and I am so fed up and just feel like crying. I know there are reasons (half-term just coming up so she's tired, her dad has been away) but even so I don't know how to respond to her behavoiur. The things that trigger her tantrums are mostly beyond my control anyway.

She's very bright and asks questions all the time. She suffers from severe excema and is allergic to several foods. I know her behavoiur at nursery school is perfect. I really don't believe in smacking and the 'naughty seat' doesn't seem to make the blindest bit of difference.

She is very loving but treats me with such disrespect...I really don't want ot bring up a spoilt brat and I don't want her to grow up thinking it's okay to be so rude to me. What do I do???????????????????

texasrose you have to hold strong and not deviate fro your routine regarding her behaviour, its more wearing for her to persist so she will give up.
remove her toys maybe , star chart for a big treat come half term or for when dad comes home.

ban the treats from weekedays, i am trying to do that now with my 2, and they are only for weekends, mine are 4 and 2 so i am trying to teach them time - days of the week and they have to wait. its trying but i have to persist.

Maybe I need to try and do this 'positive parenting' thing a bit more consciously - like a star chart if she can talk nicely for blocks of time (like morning afternoon evening etc?)

what do you think? the negative disciplines (like taking toys away) just produce more hysteria and tantrums. We tend not to have 'treats' in the week anyway; because of her food allergies I have to be very careful what she eats and I don't like the idea of using food as a punishment/reward knowing how I have the tendency to do that now myself as an adult (oh, I've done so much work today, I'll reward myself with this big bar of chocolate!! not good....)

Ironically it's her parents' evening tonight and I just know that the teachers are going to tell me how fab she is...and the thing is I know she's fab, I love her to bits and I think she's a fantastic individual. I just can't stand the way she talks to me sometimes

I'd definitely go down the positive parenting route. Lots of praise & hugs, letting small things go, ignoring backchat and rudeness (I mean not responding at all), plus early nights, enough of the right things to eat and drink.

treats arent necessarily food texasrose.
surely by saying you have food treats at the weekend that is a type of reward system.does she have to eat all her dinner for them or does she get them willynilly on the weekend? theres nothing wrong with associating boldness with not having a specific toy imo. shes 4 not exactly a reasonably age. in a year she will be all different mentally and pyscholiogically.
does her schoool have a method in place for good behaviour? and could you not use that?
what happens to a shouting child there? at my kids montesorri school they have star charts and anyone who disrupts is removed from the active area of the class. so theu dont get ot play (be that a group thing or a toy thing they are playing with).

Hi, yes I know that 'treats' doesn't always mean food.

THis evening has been better - I've realised how tired dd is and I've got her to bed earlier. I'm knackered too - I work in a school and we are all suffering from half-term-itis. I sent dd to her bedroom for a couple of mins earlier for hitting me...

The thing is dealing with the behaviour as well as understanding the reasons behind it. It's sooooo much easier dealing wit the kids at school!!! I've found a fab book called 'how to really parent your child' which talks about being a proactive rather than reactive parent, and anticipating what your child needs rather than reacing to what your child does. I'll let you know if it's any good.

and no, she doesn't have food treats willy nilly at the weekend! I'm sure she'd love it if that were the case but no! she gets the occasional little chocolate bar but eats very healthily. We (the 4 of us) share a packet of crisps with our Saturday lunch. I try to be careful not to use food as a bargaining tool.

It's not easy sometimes, eh?

Hi texasrose. We also found the naughty chair wasn't working for us. I'm usually hurrying ds to get out somewhere & he'd do somethings & be sent to the chair which would make us even more late & need to hurry even more & then he'd get even more unco-operative etc etc.

Now we're collecting red / green pasta. Green is "good boy pasta" and red is " try harder pasta" (his names). If he does something really bad (like biting his sister) he gets five red. I put it in a bowl all week, then on Saturday we count it up. For every red pasta, a green one is taken away and for every green one left he gets 5p for his money box. Then he counts all his money to see if he's got enough to buy anything.

We had to engineer it a bit for the first few weeks so that he had more green than red. But that helps too because it makes you think of things that they've done well that you can reward them for that normally you might not comment on...walking quickly to play group, being quiet while you were one the phone etc. ANything you can think of gets green pasta.

Also, when we count the pasta up he can normally remember what things it was that he got the red pasta for and you can discuss how if he hadn't done those things he'd have got more green pasta etc. He thinks about and then tells me how he's not going to get any red pasta next week!

He's really into numbers and counting at the moment so this suits him. It might be worth a try.....Good Luck.

It did take a couple of weeks for him to engage with it though & once he said he wasn't doing it anymore & tipped all the pasta in the bin! But he's just bought a thomas train with his savings he realy sees the point of it now.

Hi, texacrose, I feel for you. my boy is 3 years old and he can behave the same way as your little girl. Naughty step doesn't help him. In fact he finds it fun and often asks me to put him on a noughty step! I find distraction works miracles. You know your daughter better then anybody. You probably often can feel the tentrum coming. try to find something interesting for her to do. Counting, colouring, I spy game, teddy story time. When it's bed time my son often doesn't want to go to his room and starts misbehaving, I pick up his teddy and in teddy's voice say;'Please can you come with me, I really want you so much. Can we listen to the night time story together?' and my son stops crying and runs upstairs to his room quicker then me. Silly voices and mimics usually does the trick. i know though when we are tired ourselves it's sometimes difficult to compromise. each time when i tried to be firm and eventually won the battle with him i felt like a loser, not a winer. it's so important not to let emotions run high, stay calm, talk in a soft voice with your child. Best of luck! please, let me know how you're getting on. Thank you.