Is it illegal or just frowned upon to leave a 3 yr old brat screaming in her room whilst I go out for the afternoon?

[Flamesparrow]

Please don't tell me brat is offensive - she is mine and if you were around to hear "I DON'T WANT TO BE IN MY ROOM" You would use exactly the same term.

She wanted to go in the park after school.

I have things to do, have to wait in for a parcel etc, so I said not today, but tomorrow we are going to go to the park with X and have a picnic.

"I want to go to the PARK TODAY"

No - you can go tomorrow with X, we cannot go today.

continue with the park chant/yell.

If you continue saying that you will be in your room for 5 mins time out when we get home.

It got bumped to 15 by the time we got to the car.

If you are a nice little girl the whole way home then you can earn back your freedom.

"I want to play games on the computer"

No. You can have 20 mins when I cook tea - when we get home you can play in the garden... you can have a bowl of water etc to play with (she likes that).

"NO!!!"

So we get in. I put her in her room behind stairgate.

Screaming, slamming/opening door.

The alarm is now going off to say her time is up in there, and I don't want to let her out as she is still being a possessed demon child.

Fed up. I always seem to be on here begging for help. I try everything you suggest and she is still evil. Yes, I know I need her to grow out of it - but then you lot come and tell me that 4 yr olds are worse

One thing I am grateful for - this is a normal preschooler tantrum, not an AS one

Olive you must be more experienced than me, DS only been like this for a bit, he is 2.5...

oh good god, it rarely works on toddlers, dd2 is 3 in August and most definitley a gigantic pain in the arse!

on dd1, who is 4.6yrs, you get a tad more reasoning

with toddlers I find time out does not work, I ignore, or if she is throwing herself about, I hold her tight and say shhhhhhhhh, and eventually she calms down and we have a cuddle

she said to me the other day after a spectacular kick off "am tired mummy, busy day"

lol

All calm now (and actually been able to work)

Have given in with tv for a bit...

I have managed to get pink dye down my fave cropped jeans though

I can't stick her under the stairs - she'll find the hideous toy ride on fire truck that "broke" a few months ago

If the time out hadn't been done she would have just done it downstairs whilst I tried not to throw things at her

Methinks it is just how we are going to spend the next 15 years or so

Kimi, you are just too funny, thanks for the first laugh of the day.

What amazes me most about these tantrums is that they really do start within seconds with my son and they stop just as quickly. We use a combination of time out (he hates this with a passion) and ignoring it. I tend to tell him that if he is ready to listen and use his words rather than his "body" then I will be there. He has a right to be angry about not getting his way, but not a right to scream down the house/street/car/anywhere. I am trying to teach him that there are other ways of being angry. Amazingly it seems to be working - it has only taken 3 years now. He has just turned 3, yep he started his 2-year tantrum fits almost the minute he was born, so the opposite of his big-sister.
Whenever my daughter does not go bed nicely, she loses the privilege to choose her own clothes the next day. That apparently is extremely important to her, especially because she loves dresses and mummy and daddy tends to choose skirts or even worse trousers if they have to choose.
I would have put her in the room as well but have gone in there every 5 minutes to ask her if she was ready to be nice/stop screaming and talk to you nicely.

Olive thought we were talking toddlers as OP is re 3 year old.
Are you saying there is nothing I can do with my DS and his tantrums - oh no!!
Have to say the distration trick has been known to work as has offering him sweet things, bics/ice cream etc which I never thought I would resort to!

bribes and distraction in this house for all ages

fake enthusiasm added in when they get older

oh good feel better now

She sounds just like Dd1 (3.3)

She wanted to go to the park earlier but dd2 was asleep, she wanted to leeve her at home because she could'nt wait for her to wake up, she through a rite tantrum, timed her out for ages only to go through it all again.

In pleased im not the only one

By the time they are 4 or 5 you can get the video camera out . Used to work a treat when my 2 boys were fighting. The minute they saw it, everything stopped and they were united in their disgust that mummy would dream of recording them.

Locking her in her room? Mean Momma, Mean Momma! Mind you, I'm a Mean Momma too - and my dd is 15. Not that I have to tell her to go to her room - she just never comes out of it any more. I SOOO want to take her to the park to count the little fluffy ducklings and watch the grass grow - you should see her face when I teasingly suggest it, instead of her hiding from the sunshine in her darkened, blinds-drawn chamber (how Emo!) - so enjoy the tantrum - one day she'll grow out of it and then there'll be another stage to drive you mad !!!!