Help me be less shouty mummy

[ShoutyMummyNoMore]

For context, I'm a single parent, DD goes to her dads two nights a week. I work part time and study full time, life is a little stressful, not that this excuses the shouting.

I'm struggling with DD a lot at the moment, she's four and very strong willed and always has been. Recently her behaviour is testing my patience and I'm struggling to cope with it. If I tell her not to do something she already doing, or say she can't do something she wants to she either looks at me and continues or if I'm doing something else does the thing she's been told not to really quickly before I can stop her. It doesn't sound so bad typed out but it's driving me insane and the only way she stops is when I shout 😕 it's particularly bad if we have family over, she's gets excited and jumps ll over them and I tell her no, remove her and repeat until I yell basically.
She gets as much one to one attention as I can manage, we sit and play a lot of games and draw together. It's deffinatley worse when she comes back from her dads so I suspect it's a tireness thing as she has long days with him. I just don't know how to deal with it anymore. The naughty step doesn't work, removing her from the situation usually makes her do the thing faster before I can stop her, there's only so much I can do to preempt her doing something she shouldn't.
I don't know if I've explained it very well tbh as I'm typing this quickly on my phone but after another stressful shouty morning I really need some different ideas 😕

Sounds like you are tired and stressed too. It's much easier to be calm when you feel calm!
Do you give her a time warning? Like 5 minutes and then we need to go out? Or whatever you're doing, so she has time to adjust to the transition?
What kind of things are you telling her not to do?

How to talk so kids will listen is worth a read and may be helpful. At 4 I found playfulness and humour was key in getting my DD to listen and do what I wanted. In terms of not stopping something I would for example take the toy from them, explain why I'd stopped them from doing x and then have some time in - I'm not a fan of time out/naughty step does nothing to help children learn how to regulate.their own emotional responses to things. I try to pick my battles, does it really matter, only stopping those that matter. With your family getting excited and jumping over them - rather than removing her can you support and model the behaviours you do want. I can see how excited you are to see Granny, remember we give her big cuddles.
I think holding onto how little they still are at 4 - their brains are still developing massively, helps with the patience she isn't doing this to test you (though it might feel that way) but because she's learning and growing.

It's a question I always wonder with these types of scenarios, but have you talked to her? I don't mean in/around the heat of the moment, but at a completely different time when you're both calm and enjoying time together. Maybe start with "how does it make you feel when mummy shouts?" into "do you understand why mummy shouts?" into "do you think we can work together to make mummy shout less?" or however the conversation flows. Don't get me wrong, it's not likely to be a 'one conversation and done' kind of job, but I still think it's very underestimated how important and often helpful communication with a young child can be.

I think playfulness is a really good quality to cultivate with children. It's actually very easy to distract/deflect rather than use time out etc. Sometimes I would just do the behaviour back to DD - which usually made her laugh, interrupted the flow of whatever she was doing and then she was more interested in following what I was doing instead.

Pzyck I have talked to her, about listening to mummy when she asks you not to do something as mummy doesn't want to shout and obviously it upsets DD. DD always agrees she will listen more, I promise to shout less but nothing is changing.

I also try be playful to encourage her to do stuff, and it works! It's getting her to stop doing things that's the main issue.

The problems are mainly not jumping on visitors (be it friends or family), not helping her self to things in the fridge/certain cupboards (I can't keep her out the kitchen as it's all open plan and she is able to undo any child locks now), not telling alexa to turn the lights off/switching lights off, getting up constantly at tea time (we have tea together at her little table but she always 'just has to do x/y/z'). But she will repeatedly do these things over and over until I shout and then she understandably cries and I'm grumpy. There's other things, none particularly serious.. its not like she's sticking knives in plug sockets, but the repeatedly not listening is driving me insane.

I guess there is some issues, now I'm thinking about it, getting her to put her shoes on, or put toys away. She always "just has to..'do something else first or simply doesn't listen till I start losing my patience.

I think also giving instructions/requests in the positive
So instead of "no jumping" say "this is how we greet our visitors" or "nice sitting"
For me I pretended there were hidden cameras inn my house

I also do warnings . And have my phone do lots of instructions
Eg a particular bell for when we have to leave the house
And another one 10 mins later