Feel like a bad mum

[Georgialouises]

HELPPPP

Hi everyone, I'm really struggling with my almost 4 year old little boy recently because he just does not listen!! Today has been absolutely awful and I've said a few not so nice things to him and now I feel so bad and thing how could I be so awful 😞.

Some of the things I've said:

"don't ask me to go to the park or anything ever again because the answer is no because I don't want to go anywhere with you whilst you can't listen"

"I do all these nice things with you and nothing is ever good enough is it" - to which he replied no 😭.

I feel like such a failure. Plus I am planning on homeschooling and days like this put me off.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I've got a three year old boy as well. I don't think any of them are good at listening, and they all do things you don't want them to do.

It can be frustrating, but you might need to adjust your expectations here a bit. He's still learning and growing, and as difficult as it is, the best thing to do is to try and be a calm presence and not escalate emotions and say things you don't really mean. Enforce whatever boundary you have, and change situations so he can't keep doing the thing he's doing (e.g. if he's not listening to you telling him to stop hitting things with a toy, remove the toy and tell him why you did.)

But also, of course, be kind to yourself too. We're never going to get it right all the time. But you just have to take a step back, reassess and try and do better next time.

Actual bad mums don't worry about being bad mums ❤️

Look, saying those things isn't ideal but as the parent of a nearly four year old I know the bloody feeling! You spend so much mental energy trying to say the 'right' things, when they keep not listening sometimes something's got to give. It's incredibly frustrating.

When you're both calm I'd give him a cuddle, apologise and tell him you love him. At the end of the day they're just babies really they can't be reasoned with!

As an aside we got a magnetic star jar from Amazon and started spontaneously rewarding good listening and DD has got so much better at doing things first time. We give the star after the good listening (like putting shoes on) rather than saying 'if you put your shoes on you can have a star' as we felt like then we still had to give the star ones the shoes were on even if it was a battle. (Hope that makes sense!) When the jar is full she gets a plastic tat magazine from the corner shop.