What are your Parenting Flashpoints?

[NotQuiteCockney]

What makes you furious with your kids? Do you think any of your flashpoints are ok? Are there ones you're trying to fix?

I'll go first - I have two big flashpoints. I cannot stand cruelty to animals, of any sort. I'm keeping this flashpoint. I also completely lose it when DS1 cries with frustration, but I'm trying to fix that one (see other thread).

Oh, drinking bath water annoys me too ... but why? Why does it matter? Why do I have to get bothered?

Not a lot.
I get annnoyed if they are rude to guests because that's not how they've been brought up. And the interrupting a 'phone call thing. Not too keen on being followed into the bathroom, either (no, it doesn't lock).
Wouldn't call them flashpoints, though.

I think it bothers most of us because we had already said don't do it.. (about 1000 times over a year).....

God hundreds

Pulling clothes
Saying "excusemeexcusemexcusemeexcuseme" when I talking to someone.
Interupting on the phone - usually WHISPERING like that helps matters.
Rocking on a chair clacking the feet of the chair
Playing with cutlery

Basically being seen and heard at all

ANY child screaming makes me mad

My own chlidren know better than to attempt screaming

But if we are with friends children who start SCREAMING I usually can't control myself and bark at them

Picking up DS - although to be fair the poor kid seems to thrive on it

Interrupting on the phone - but DD is only 3 so we are still having that battle.

Telling tales - I'd rather one child be swiping the other's toys than the other one come telling to me.

Not accepting NO for an answer... the constant re-asking just incase things have changed in 2 seconds (again, only 3 though )

I sound very stroppy

Definately fighting and winding each other up when I'm on the phone. If I have to make an important phone call I send them to their rooms. I've learnt from experience and they can not be trusted. Dd is 12 & ds is almost 9, when will they grow out of it?!
Also not doing things when asked ie setting table, tidying things away, it's always "in a minute".

Flashpoint 1. Deliberately fighting and winding each other up for the heck of it.

Flashpoint 2. DS1 (a pre-teen) answering back or making faces when he thinks I can't see!

Having DS2 clambering on me, sticking sharp elbows into boobs + stomach, or treading on pubic bone is fairly annoying, but so far I haven't shouted!

My dd is only 2.5 so my flashpoints are more related to my stress levels and how bad my insomnia has been recently.
Flashpoints are:

• unnecessary screaming when she has simply dropped a towel or a piece of paper isn't situated in precisely the right way on the table or she can't reach something
• asking for something not once but a million times in very rapid succession at increasing volume, despite the fact I said yes to the first request
• pulling clothes
• deliberately (IMO) pissing on the floor

I cope by opening the fridge putting my head in and silently screaming a swearing "for fcks fcking sake just shut up!!!!!!". Then I emerge with a fixed tense smile, just managing to keep it together.

pmsl at fridge trick rubles

Oh and the all time favourite - bickering in the back of the car, to the point where you can't concentrate on driving.

Dh has been known to slam on the brakes and hoick one out for a roadside 'discussion' if it goes on too long.

When dd3 screams.

When ds and dd1 blatantly ignore me

when ds and dd1 fight (physically).

I don't get furious with dd2, but I don't like it when she strokes my ear

When DD chases the cats - not to hurt, she just wants to sit next to them and stroke them - but they dont realise, so we have an onging battle to stop her doing it, which ends in me or DH either shutting the top stair gate so she can't get to them or letting them out until she's in bed.

The other is when she puts rubbish in the recycling bin, which then has to be fished out and put in the proper bin. She thinks it's a game, but it's gone on so long now that we are really fed up wrangling in bins everyday.

Shrieking. OMG, goes right through me & makes me mad. DD can shriek in a way that makes the inside of my ears reverbrate & sing when she stops. Big flashpoint for me.
Bickering is the other one. Grrrrr, so very irritating. Can manage to block it out for a while & then I end up roaring.

Also when DD1 screeches - think glass shattering pitch..... and when she throws a wobbler for no apparent reason or because i'm doing something essential for DS1....ahh sibling rivalry.Back arching in car seats is also v annoying.

Tinygang, I stop the car when they start to bicker in the back. And I don't move the car until they stop. This is very effective.

We had a little chat in the car before we left the house today!

My big bugbear is them just dropping stuff around the house and expect other peolpe to clear up after them....mine are 6 and 9

Whingeing, the constant, wah wah, want want, of it. I am trying not to let my temper go when it gets out of hand but it is hard.

When she gets up at 5.30am, I bring her in with me but of course she won't go back to sleep and so she rolls around, talking, moaning, asking to get up. I am so tired and it makes me mad.

Depends how I'm feeling at the time - not very consistent I know .Hate : whining, hitting, when dd says 'NO!' to me, running away when I'm trying to dress her, standing infront of TV when Neighbours is on(!), eating one mouthful of tea then saying she's had enough even tho' she's been moaning for half an hour that she's starving!, I could go on...
On a good day, I can usually deal with most of this calmly or with a joke, but if I'm tired or already wound up then....

Ds1 (2.3) shouting at me from his bedroom when he wants to get up - just GET UP!!!

Running away, very very fast...him, not me.

dumb insolence. Drives me batty. DS1 is a specialist.

Ignoring me when being asked to do something to the extent that I fear I may have become invisible - and DD1 is only 3.5!! Also waking me up repeatedly in the night on trumped up excuses like 'I think there might be a spider in my room' when I'm already being woken twice nightly to BF DD2 (6 months). I must admit that the occasional 'For F$*KS sake' and threat to smack (although I haven't yet) does slip out... I would like to control my flashpoints and sometimes can but not if have PMT or am really sleep-deprived. Self-medicating with alcohol helps

My DS1 is going through a charming stage of kicking when I change his nappy. I am 7 months pregnant and he knows full well, but he just stares at us and does it anyway. Drives me totally insane and no amount of trips to naughty step seem to work.....

trying to work on distraction techniques and/or get him potty trained asap.

ds insists on climbing onto my shoulders whenever i am changing dds nappies. Over the 7mnths since she was born I have tried: moving positions so I wasn't near any furniture, he just used the back of my trousers as a step, asking him politely to get down- he completely ignored that, tipping him off onto the sofa or chair- thought that was great fun. We are now at the stage where I ignore him for as long as possible before gently pulling him off with no comment. Unless it is a bad day when I scream at him like a hunchbacked banshee!

right now it's the 2 boys squabbling and being verbally hurtful. Twasn't always thus, but one is fast approaching 'know-it-all 9' and is constantly putting the younger one down with snidey comments. GRRR