Parenting styles to deal with behaviour over tired.

[Lauren8642]

What strategy do you take when it comes to telling children off?
mum really struggling with my daughter she’s 5 and unless she has 12+ hours sleep she’s a nightmare it makes me anxious if we’ve got something planned and she doesn’t fall asleep on time the day before.

At the minute we do 3 warnings but it like she forgets what she’s on for example today she was on warning 2 and she want listening this morning then I was trying to put water in the kettle she kept pulling on my top because she asked for me to do something and I said no so I put on her warning 3 which meant no story.
Then all hell broke loose, we tried explaining why to her we’ve tried telling her strictly she won’t stop shouting I want a story now over and over it’s hard to snap her out of that.

Your warning system sounds too much. Why a second warning for tugging on your top? I consider myself pretty strict but she’s a 5 year old excited to tell you something.

I keep everything as immediate as I can. Dawdling at bedtime is a reminder that he’s running out of time for bedtime stories/some time to listen to his Yoto player. That gets him moving quickly.

@Peaceandcheese i think you read that wrong she kept pulling my top even though i was telling her no over and over not listening to me. She wasn’t telling me anything exciting she was asking me to do something when she knew full well i was making her sister a bottle and its bed time there for resorting in me spilling water all over the side.

I think expecting a 5 year old to remember what warning they are on especially spread through the day is unreasonable and I also think a warning for pulling on your top and asking a question is unreasonable. I keep everything with my 4 year old an immediate related consequence. Tbh he’s really good he doesn’t need a lot but he’s definitely loving to piss about a bedtime atm so if he’s taking forever with pjs, teeth etc even after he’s been told then he’ll lose something from his bedtime routine. She’ll not understand at 5 that the thing she did in the morning has led to her not getting a story at night

I agree with the pp, spreading the warnings throughout the day and expecting her to remember previous warnings is a bit much at 5.

This doesn’t make a difference to what I’ve said. Your warnings system is too much for her and too strict. You can’t “give a warning” because she’s tugging on you asking for something! Consequences won’t land for proper misbehaviour if you’re pulling her up for stuff like this, and she’ll start feeling confused that she can’t get anything right.

When she started tugging your top that’s your cue to put down what you’re doing completely and tell her at her level that you will help her when you’re finished. My “consequence” for similar from my son would be to say “I’m doing X now and can’t help. But I will help in 5 minutes when I’m finished. Go and play/read a book/whatever until I’m ready to help.” If he continued tugging me then that would be a warning of “you’re not listening to what I said. Go and play until I’m ready to help or I will not help you with X”.

There wouldn’t be deferred warnings throughout the day. Saying “that’s your third warning” is abstract, harsh, and unfair. Removing bedtime stories altogether is cruel. That’s your time to end the day nicely- it’s too much to have a consequence that causes so much upset right at the end of the day when she’s supposed to go to sleep feeling happy and secure. How will that achieve the good sleep you want for her? Imagine how hurt and confused she is.

I will warn my son during the bedtime routine that dawdling getting pyjamas on and teeth brushed might mean there’s only time for one story, not two. A natural consequence of time running out for things. But taking them away altogether is too much, especially for something completely unconnected like trying to ask you for something.

She’s 5 and hasn’t actually done anything wrong. She’s right to shout and protest about that.

Distractions are best I think. Mine are older now but some of my friends have younger children and distractions always seem to work best. And being useful, they enjoy that too

Firstly, if you know she needs a lot of sleep, make sure she gets a lot of sleep. Put her to bed earlier or let her nap or let her sleep in.

Secondly, ask her once clearly to do what you'd like her to do ("move away from the kettle please") and when she doesn't physically redirect her to where she needs to be (move her away from the kettle). If this results in a tantrum or her fighting against you move to an immediate time out. After this follow through with natural consequences ("we don't have time to do X fun thing because I'll need to wipe up all this water I've spilt).

Why are you giving 3 warnings? She's 5, she's still developing impulse control - I would give one warning, for example 'stop pulling at mummy, I'm pouring boiling water and it's dangerous' then if she doesn't comply, stop what you're doing and remove her to another room. Deferred consequences such as no story later don't work with very young children. It needs to be immediate. As for being over-tired, there's not much you can do except put her to bed earlier the next night, if she's had a late night.

Ummm. I agree the 3 warnings is a crap idea.

You should just go for something like....
Ask her once. Tell her once. Make her do it.

Or something more immediate than a vague "warning 3...." And it's only 8am...Meaning that in 10 hours there's no book, and she has absolutely no incentive to behave... how many warnings will it take for you to give an actual consequence? 32?

Stop with the wishy washy warnings with long unrelated consequences....she will forget that you already took the reading away as a strange punishment.

Immediate consequences as PP explained.

it’s an awful idea, I have a 5 year old almost and I know that a warning system would never work and also on top of that I’d find something else to remove because a story is wind down they need to be read too for their development. It seems pretty bizarre to me