Please help me to help my 4 year old DD

[Blueanddelta]

My amazing DD starts school in September. She is lovely, imaginative, often affectionate and is doing well at preschool. They said they have no concerns at all, except that she does need reminding to use the toilet and does sometimes have accidents.

At home, she can be very happy, but other times like today I cannot get anything right for her at all and just can't seem to help her to learn to do things she'll need to do for school. I don't make a big thing of it I hope, just quick, let's get dressed (choices or otherwise doesn't seem to make a difference) and then we can come downstairs. She can get herself dressed efficiently if a reward is in the offering, but if I ask her too otherwise she shouts "I can't I can't" and deliberately does it in a silly way so she half falls over and so the clothes won't go on etc. I have read How to Talk and didn't want to get into rewards but ended up doing that for some things like using the toilet, as it needed to be resolved for preschool when she went through a regression whereby every wee or sometimes poo was in her knickers after months of being trained.

This morning she has been furious from the moment she woke. She wanted beans on toast which I made but the beans weren't right because they fell off the toast, which she said she couldn't cut or pick up but was deliberately doing it in such a way that everything fell off her plate and was screaming so much I couldn't even hear what she wanted. I took her away from the table and said that we couldn't have it while she was dropping it on the floor but that I'd take her back when she calmed down and help her to cut it up more (I had already cut it up for her). We tried again shortly after and the same thing happened again, and then she screamed that she didn't want it anyway and has left it.

Her little sister was getting upset by all the noise so I've explained that we are going upstairs to get ready and will be down in a moment but she is screaming the house down. Lately this has been constant from the moment she wakes up and until bed, but she has been unwell recently so I think she is tired and irritable and I don't know how to help as she seems patronised by all the things I've read to say, and just shouts at me to stop talking to her or even looking at her.

It isn't always like this, and sometimes she seems very happy but it does go in phases. Her sister is 1 and a half, and I do try my best to have special time with just DD1 although it can be difficult if DH is working very late. We have two days in the week where she is home with me (we often go out to various activities) and she is at preschool the other three which she has been for a while.

I love her so much and want to help but don't know how

Just reading this and I remember my second child wasn’t good at dressing for school. I just did it for her, rather than expecting her to do it. I am not sure if that’s the right approach but we just needed her dressed asap. I read somewhere it’s more about an emotional need when they want you to do these things for them.

as for toileting could you ask for a referral? A friends child had a special watch that buzzed to remind her she needed to go to toilet occasionally

She's trying to get your attention.

It's a scary time for them, all this talk of going to "big school" in September, knowing that changes are coming, not knowing what to expect etc. My ds is starting in September and he has not quite been himself lately.

Add in to that that she has a little sister who takes up a lot of mummy's time and she's just acting up to get your attention. Personally I think it's important to teach her that screaming and purposefully being difficult is not the way to get it. I would ignore her when she's screaming, she tells you not to look at her or talk to her anyway. But try to give her as much time and attention as you can when she is behaving. I think she is just feeling a bit wobbly atm and needs a bit of security and reassurance.

I've posted on another thread about this - my DD is also starting school in September and is also having a big behaviour regression. I think it is anxiety inducing for them - everyone talking about the change but they don't really know what it means.

If I was you I'd just dress her, as a PP said it sounds like an emotional need and I'd give it to her for now, you can reassess in a few weeks/months. How is she with toileting at preschool now?

As others have said - pick your battles and just dress her yourself.

My son js very closely approaching his 5th birthday and he’s only reliably been able to dress himself for the last 3 months ago and even now needs some occasional fell, especially with his socks and getting his head through he head-hole.

I think you handle her meal time disturbances well as it’s important children learn what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour.

At the end of the day she’s only 4 and obvious feels anxious about something so as I said, pick your battles and let her emotionally settle back down and then you can start tackling things again.

I think this is just Four, I find it an intensely irritating stage TBH. I know they can't help it it's just infuriating. I have to keep myself in check a lot!

But I think you are worrying too much about it. You say that she can get dressed in return for a reward, so she does have the skills. In that case it doesn't matter whether she does it independently or not when she has the choice. Just help her neutrally/matter of factly, when I get DS2 (3.10) dressed I tend to hand him the clothes as though I'm expecting him to put them on, but if he lies there with his leg outstretched towards me then I just put it on for him without trying to persuade him etc. They won't want that input forever. Sometimes he will do it himself and sometimes he asks me to do it. When she needs to dress herself at school, she won't have the choice and she will just get on with it. Yes she'll get things the wrong way round, but it doesn't matter. You could explain to her explicitly that school teachers don't help with clothes, only mummies/daddies help with clothes.

Sometimes they seem to get out of bed on the wrong side. The way you handled the food was fine. Just try to be calm, neutral response, don't get dragged into the emotional reaction, and don't be angry/stern as it's not likely to help. You can be empathetic as in How To Talk, we often say things like "Naughty beans! Sliding off the toast! Just stay where you are!" just don't get drawn into fixing it as you won't be able to. Recognise that it's not about the beans/toast, it's just a difficult feeling, and it will pass.

Something I picked up from watching a talk with the HTT authors (they have a few on youtube/FB watch if you search how to talk or their names, the younger two who wrote the little kids one) and also some Janet Lansbury stuff (she has some useful free podcasts) is that just stating their feelings can be annoying for them, but if you actually match their feelings in the tone you're using then it makes a big difference in them seeing that you DO actually understand/are being authentic. There is a difference between "Oh, that's making you really cross" in a sympathetic/flat tone, and "UGH!! Those beans just WON'T STAY ON! Stupid beans!!" (or use another word if you don't like stupid) likewise "You don't want to get dressed, I know" in a sympathetic/soothing tone can sound patronising to a four year old but "Argh! Getting dressed is SO annoying! You want to PLAY, not get DRESSED!" It's really hard to put across what I mean in text but basically, if your friend told you her husband was cheating, would you say "Oh no, that sounds so hard for you" in a sympathetic voice or would you say something like "WHAT?? OMG I can't believe it, what a twatface he is!!" And what would your tone be like? That kind of authenticity (with child-friendly language!) is what they want.

It's just a change - the soothing/sympathetic phrasing works great for one and two year olds but past three, and particularly the later end of three moving into four and beyond, it annoys them because it doesn't feel authentic.

There is an app for How To Talk by Mythic Owl, it's not free but I've found it brilliant as if I'm in a situation where I'm thinking "FFS" I can just quietly withdraw, check my phone for what I "should" be saying and it usually helps. It's like a cheat sheet. There used to be a free PDF cheat sheet that went around the MN boards that you could print off and stick on your fridge. This is just a modern version of that really.

@BertieBotts thank you so, so much. I totally get what you are saying and I think you've pinpointed exactly where I'm going wrong! I tried to put it in by practice by saying "if only this was made of chocolate instead" about something I genuinely felt that way about and she threw herself on the floor screaming "no mummy because then there would be too much sugar!" (Not something that has troubled her too much before nor incidentally anything we go on about!) but I will get that app and perhaps with a bit of practice I'll start to get it right.

Our day has improved hugely so far as I managed to get her sister engaged with something so I could sit and build a Lego dinosaur with DD1 which she really enjoyed so I do think it is attention related much as a try my best. Sometimes my mind has probably been elsewhere with study, job applications and other things and she probably notices more than I realise.

I don't have additional advice but want to tell you that I can feel the love you have for your dd in your post and I think both your children are lucky to have you.

Its not easy, especially when children cannot articulate the underlying issue properly, but I think you're doing all the right things and you'll get passed this phase together.

Hope you're not feeling mum guilt about this x

@KilmordenCastle @Flowermarket @Perplexed0522 thank you. Perhaps I will back off a bit from the getting dressed thing (and it's using cutlery properly too, though I know she can). I always say I'll help if needed just want her to try but it infuriates her! I think there's so much talk about kids not being school ready or prepared properly and I worry I'm not doing my job properly but I do hope she doesn't pick up on it (I don't give it a huge amount of headspace just note that it's something to work on)

I agree it's probably a scary concept as there's so much talk about school and she doesn't know what to expect. We have some transition sessions coming up and I wonder if that will help her conceptualise it a bit.

She is usually ok with the toilet now at preschool and can go weeks without an accident and then have several little wet incidences where she leaves it too late. This normally happens when her key worker is not there. It is unusual for it to happen at home and if it does it isn't usually a full accident, just a little bit. She did have some major regressions but some were linked to other things that happened and were understandable (like a hospital admission last year for surgery)

I was reading a thread about mums messing up their kids and I just so want to get it right for her but feel like I'm bumbling on awkwardly getting it all wrong and she knows it! I cannot imagine what the teenage years will be like as she seems so exasperated by me already a lot of the time! But other times she is so sweet and funny

@007DoubleOSeven thank you, that is such a lovely post, we cross posted but yes I have mum guilt terribly! I know I'm trying but feel like I'm falling short of the mark in so many ways. Not dwelling on it or anything though and our day is a lot better now - she is with DH at the moment while DD2 naps and I'm catching up on laptop

Oh bless her, she's been through a lot!

Please don't beat yourself up, we can't always heal people's emotional needs overnight but consistency in responding well to them works and that is what you're doing. She'll grow up loving you back always :)

She'll adjust, just keep doing what you're doing and stop being so hard on yourself!

A lot of the threads where people talk about parents messing up are full of ridiculous frothers who seem to think the only real discipline is a good old smack and that anything else is namby pamby. Just ignore them as they are talking total nonsense and it will wind you up unnecessarily. Kids will generally be fine. You actually have a huge wide swathe of leeway by which to get it wrong and it won't matter. The most important thing is that you love them and you have some kind of input, the actual method doesn't really matter too much. If it was that easy to mess children up by not doing parenting exactly in a certain way, there wouldn't be millions of parenting books all with a slightly different method. There would be one, with scientific research backing it up. There would also be a lot more messed up children around! Most of the adults you know are probably decent human beings - and I bet their parents didn't agonise over modern parenting methods.

She sounds absolutely exactly where she should be and you sound spot on too. The insight with the lego dinosaur for instance - great instinct there. You do not need to be perfect, so let go of that particular worry.