Dont Flame me, im emotional as it is. I can't cope with DD

[AshamedAwfulMum]

im a reg. (red rugs, judge flounce,Knicker elastic for crimbo, sausage rolls, fruit shoot and grapes at the till)

I am sat her in tears because despite being very highly qualified in dealing with children with challenging behaviour i just cannot cope with DD.

She is 4. she has an older brother who has ASD and yet i have never felt so useless as i do with her.

I can't explain it really. she is incredibly clingy but also very manipulative( how the fuck can a 4 year odl be manipulative) she throws tantrums about everything, she screams over the slightest thing, she is spitefull to her brother and has started to be agressive.

I cannot even go to the toilet without her kicking the door and screaming.

it all sounds so trivial written down. She is 4 FFS! and here i am in a right state.

I have actually said that i hate her and if im honest i have had to walk away from her because i have wanted to hit her. I never have and never would of course, but jus the fact that i have felt myself want to disgusts me.

I know that some of it may be that i am just stressed over other stuff (don't really want to divulge as it would give me away - in case you havent already worked out who i am)

I actually spoke to my mum about it today because i was tempted to call in SS myself.
she goes to pre school for 2 hours a day and if im honest i actually feel my mood depress slightly when it comes to collecting her.

I can't stand being around my daughter and it is killing me. I love her with all my heart, that goes without saying. but she really is horrible most of the time...but only ever for me.

Today for example, i collect her from pre school. she comes running up to me for a cuddle and kiss like always. i pick her up and we have a cuddle, she says "i want a sausage roll" i said that i didn't have any but we cold go to the shop and see what we could find. she erupted into a tantrum. screaming and crying and yanking at my bag.
as we walked out of the door one of teh staff asked her if she wanted a cake (someone had had a birthday) instantly she returned to sweetness and light and took a cake, said thank you and smiled.
as soon as we were outsde and teh door was shut she was back into full swing tantrum.

We went to the shop just outside the pre school, she chose her sausage roll. tehn she started screaming that she wanted them opened. i said that we had to pay first. more screaming and shouting that she wanted them open, standing in front of me tryimg to push me back.
i tried distracting her by asking if she wanted a drink as well. we walked to teh fridge with teh drinks and i asked her whch one she would like (she was still whingy) finally she stopped, scowled and said "just buy me one"
(it is not unusual for her to be this rude to me - she really is like a stroppy teenager a lot of the time)
I got her one of those capri drink's (that or cola. crappy shop) when we were walking out she started again whinging abotu opening them. i went to open her drink when she screamed she wanted to do it, i gave it to her and it squirted at her when she put the straw in. she now screams "thanks a lot" and is whinging some more.
we get to teh car and i she is tantruming about not wanting to get in her seat, i push her in and put the straps on, lots of kicking and screamin.

screaming all teh way home, refuses to get out of the car. i drag her (not quite drag her buy ynwim) out of teh car and bring her inside. she slumps in teh hall and continues whinging and shouting she hates me and wants her dad (he is a twunty arsehole)

i go to the kitchen and blub.

she is like this all day every day.
I do not know how much longer i can go on like this. every time i think its a stage and she will grow out of it she deos....but the next stage always seems worse!

please dont flame me...im not usually fragile but i am tonight

She's 4 and at nursery - is she very tired? Half-term is coming up so she may just be worn out.

you are not a crap mum

Being a mum is the hardest thing in the world

Can I telll you tht there's not a day goes by when I don;'t regret having my ds

Bloddy awful#

And as I say to my friends on a very regular basis

"On what level is this pleasurable?"

Can't wait for the time he leaves home

Please don'e feel bad for feeling as you do
You are amongst friends her darling

if she's seeing her dad once a month does he give her tonnes of stuff in that visit?

for example, PIL see my dc very rarely and when they do its like fecking christmas, nice but my eldest now expects it iyswim?

does he give in to her every whim and fancy when he has her? can you speak to him about discipline and boundaries or is her really a twunt?

and please don't think you're a crap mum, the fact that you're seeking advice and reassurance just proves that you're not

You take her everywhere with you? This may be a bit of the problem, she thinks she's in charge already and gets to go out with mummy all the time. Perhaps spend a bit more time away from her and enforce a bit more of the parent/child relationship.

Another place where she thinks she's in charge is where you get too tired to enforce boundaries. You know not to pick a battle you're not prepared to win

You have already recieved lots of advice from others, so feel free to ignore this! It helped me, but of course I don't know very much about your situation and it may be not helpful for you at the moment.

There is a great book by Carolyn Webster-Stratton called "The incredible years - a trouble shooting guide for parents of children 3 - 8"

The first chapter talks about how playing with your child can really help them to behave better. The book recommends you child completely taking the lead in play and you acting like a kind of sports commentator on what they are doing. E.g. "You're putting on your princess hat now and picking up your wand. The princess is jumping up and down and doing a twirly dance etc". The idea is that your child gets to exert some (legitimate) control for a change and so you eliminate the need for confrontation. I tried this during a time when my dd was being a complete nightmare and it made a big difference to our relationship. We had at least one point in the day when she got my undivided attention and she got to be in charge.

neolara - i actually helped teach the incredible years parenting classes whilst at work.

It's what add's to my shame. what a fecking hypocrite i am.

yes their dad spoils them rotten and allows them to whatever they want. there is no discipline from hi at all. he is a twunt of teh highest order. no chance of him having them more often as we are currently mid court case over contact.

I actually agree that we probably spend too mcuh time together. but there is no alternative. she gets her 2.5 hours a day wort of pre school as per the council grant thingy and i can't afford any extra time.
My mum does try and help out when she can but she suffers severe depression and my dad is disabled so she is his full time carer.

Mum collected DD from pre school last week so tha i had an entire day to myself and it was bliss. but she can't do that very often.

I sound so whiney.

Lots of sympathy for you. DS is lovely but capable of awesome temper tantrums at the moment. He has also developed an insatiable greed for 'stuff', not sausage rolls but Halloween tut. But he wants more and more. I've cut him some slack because his dad works away a lot but I've given in to his demands more often than is healthy (for him).

However, I've learnt not to tolerate his rudeness, I say ' You get no response from me until you can be polite' - his anger increases but he has to think fast when I refuse to engage with it. I say something like, 'Did they give you extra grumpy lessons at school today?' Yesterday that got a laugh but today he screamed even harder (he is 4, nearly 5), so I didn't respond till he stopped. Sometimes being quiet and not giving him 'distractions' helps us, I find.

Usually I can tell if he is tired and the change from school to me, just infuriates him for some reason. Today when I was quiet (not responding to his shouting) he said 'ARE YOU DEAD?'

I also like that 'How to Talk to Kids...' book though ought to properly read it.

thank you all for your words of encouragment. theyhave helped, im no longer crying.
i realise im just beng a whingey child myself.

I know what i should be doing. Im just too selfish or lazy to be doing it properly.
seeing it all in black and white has helped. i can see just how crap i have been, I am going to try and wake up with a renewed sense of purpose.

i shall let you know how i get on.

You know what, you are not being "too selfish or lazy to be doing it properly". If it helps, I am an ed psych and my daughter refused for months and months and months to poo anywhere other than in her pants. I felt exactly like you did, that I should KNOW what to do. After all, my job was helping others manage their children's difficult behaviour. But the pooing made me so bloody cross that I lost all perspective. It was only after I had a session talking things over with the deputy head at my dd's nursery that I managed to let go of the anger, and it was only after I had done this that I was able to do what I needed to do to get her to poo in the loo (e.g. ignore, ignore, ignore). I know that if I had been giving myself advice I would have said exactly what the deputy head said to me, but I was just too caught up emotionally to do what I needed to do. I needed someone to hold my hand through it all.

I think you should give yourself a break from beating yourself up. Can you chat things over with people from work? Or with someone independent but who knows about this stuff? You need someone who can be kind to you about how you are feeling.

Good luck.

Not lazy and selfish - just worn down. My dd is 3 and we have spells of this kind of thing - and when it happens I feel just as you describe - as though I can't stand it and will snap.

Do try to consistently act on the rude, bossy behaviour. Dh and I despair that we are pretty weak on the discipline front but that is one area we try to keep going as dd is very bossy with us.

The screaming and wailing just makes my brain melt (that's what I told dd and she cheerfully tells other people). We just got out of a really hideaous spell of about a month - and it was clearly a spiral where we were both getting more and more crabby. It's definitely worse when I'm stressed and grumpy. Of course she is absolutely angelic with her childminder

Is there a particular issue that really lights the touch paper? For us it has been potty training (it may send me completely insane - I can't stand it...).

I find I do what you just said - it all goes downhill then one day I just get with the program and drag us both out of our spiralling grumpiness.

Message withdrawn

AAM - you are NOT an awful mum. You are having a difficult time at the moment, but I am sure that you will find your way through it.

There's a lot of good advice on this thread, and I am sure that you will look carefully at it, and tailor it to suit your family. I do think you need to pay especial attention to the advice given by hatwoman and others to look after yourself - between the problems with your dd's behaviour and your ds's ASD, you are carrying a heavy load, and it's no wonder that's leaving you feeling fragile.

Could you perhaps find something that you could do whilst she's at nursery that would relax you? Read poetry in the park, have a go at watercolour painting, do some gardening, go swimming or do yoga, for example. I used to find that a warm bath, candles and a good book at the end of a hard day would help a bit.

My eldest ds used to have major tantrums when he was in the terrible twos. I well remember one morning, when he was in full scream/cry/kick on the floor mode, and had been for nearly an hour (having had a similar hour and a half long tantrum the evening before), and I was in tears on the phone to my dh. Suddenly it went quiet, and I realised he had gone to the kitchen bin, which was nearly full, and was eating the doritos that had been thrown in there the evening before. My first thought - 'At least he's stopped crying.' He survived that experience, we all survived the tantrums, and he's now a grumpy teenager who spends every available minute out on his bike.

oh sunny the dorito's made me laugh, thank you.
today has been better. she has thrown some tantrums but i was strong and firm.
I had to go into town so i told her we would be going and that i would let her choose a sweet at the end if she had been good.

Well she was quite well behaved at first but we walked past Macdonalds and she started demanding nuggets. (despite me giving her quite a large lunch before we left)
I said "no we have already had lunch haven't we. maybe another time when we aren't so rushed"
this did not please Miss Diva so a tantrum began, I ignored for a few minutes but she continued. I dropped down and said "we have already had lunch and we need to get a lot done before collecting DS. so are we going to walk nicely or shall i take you back to get the buggy?"

She ignored me and just kept screaching on about the blardy nuggets so i said that that was it we will have to go and get the buggy.
I went back to the car and got the buggy. she wasn't impressed as she hasn't been in her buggy in about 6 months (you could tell, it was filthy ) but io managed to get her strapped in and off we went shopping.

She continued screaming for a cvouple of minutes so i turned her round, dropped down and said that if she didn't stop then i would have to take her home and i would be very angry as i wouldn't be able to do all the things i needed to get done.
She sulked into teh side of the buggy but she was actually reasonably quiet teh rest of the afternoon so as we headed back to the car i stopped at a shop and said she could choose a sweet as i was pleased at how well she had been behaving.

we then had to go back to watch DS in his harvest festival assmbly (v.v.proud mummy about that) and she was really good. she stood on a chair at the end of the row so she didn't block anyone and danced along to all teh songs.
It was nice to actually see her as a cute adorbale little girl again....if im honest i haven't been able to see her as anything but a screaming witch for a while.

she has been a bit cheeky and hs pushed buttons but on the whole we have had a good day.

Thank you all so much for your kind words. they really have helped. I think putting it out in teh open (kinda) was just what i needed.