Am I the only one that yells horribly to their toddlers to the point that they are terrified?

[BiscuitStuffer]

I get so frustrated with my 2.8 year old DD and she purposely winds me up I'm sure. I tried leaving the room today and she was in such an angry state (because I'd ended up having to hold her in a vice grip to get some cold sore cream on to her) that she wet herself just as I came back in to the room.

I tried to get her to come to me off the sofa so I could sort her (and the sofa) out and she resisted and yelled some more, so I yelled back - horribly - through gritted teeth, nasty yelly growly shouts and everything.

We ended up friends but I hate seeing red like that and don't know how to stop myself

But she is actually an angel child who is 98% of the time fantastic. I just seem to have an appallingly low tolerance level.

You are normal. I'm sure a plethora of folk on here will come to tell you otherwise, but I think not many parents don't lose it at some time. Just try and be kind to yourself so you can be kind to her. Get out of the house briefly until the 'rage' passes.

Toddlers are crazy things. I hope you are both OK.

No advice really but just wanted to say that you're definitely not the only one...

DD is 2.3 and I have "lost it" with her a couple of times She too is great most of the time but when she does kick off about something, it tends to be one thing after the other and I can feel myself getting more and more wound up

I've bought the How to Talk book after seeing a thread on here about it but haven't made the time to read it yet [shit mum emoticon]

I do

its very very high on the list of stuff we are working on

'we' being cpn, counsellor, ad's, HV and Cahms.

I think this is normal. I walk away when my DD starts being a turd... which is daily

I've got to the point where I can see when she's about to flip, and I try and distract

have you tried anger management therapy? it could offer you some useful technniques to keep your temper in check.

I think its harder when you have a child who is angelic most of the time as you kind of forget that they are still really young. DD was the same with me for a while - she really knew how to press my buttons - similarly she was angelic about 99% of the time and also had a wide vocabularly so it was easy to forget how young she still was.

i have done too
i'm trying at the moment to ask her for a cuddle when i feel the rage
seems to diffuse the situation

It is easy to fall into the trap of shouting, and it becomes a habit. Take a step back: once she'd wet the sofa, another minute while you take a breath won't hurt.

Use other tactics - stand her on a spot away from you while you clear up, or until she'll co-operate with whatever you want her to do, and explain she's misbehaved, that's why she's there. It gives both you and her a breather and breaks the badness/yelling cycle.

Don't feel too bad, we all do it. Just try to learn from the fact you are regretting shouting so much, and change things.

I found taking an iron supplement raised my tolerance levels, too, I was a bit run down which doesn't help.

And yes, 2.8 yr olds do it on purpose, that's their job

Me too. DD can be v gorgeous, cute adorable. And she can be a right little madam who knows just how to rub me up the wrong way. It's hard because sometimes you know it's just them trying it on, pushing boundaries etc, but I do get proper cross sometimes.

I do find it a LOT easier to put up with when I've had a reasonable nights sleep, but thats rare, with 7mo DS and a DD who has started randomly shouting /crying in the night for no obvious reason.

I do consciously try to give lots of praise whenever she does something nice/helpful/not naughty, to balance it out but we have major jealousy issues here with the baby

don't worry.so many things effect how you react at one given point in the day.you are only human and as long as they know you love them thats the main thing.
i'm the same and so's my dh...sometimes i'll apologize to her and say something like 'i'm sorry i shouted at you earlier mummy was being a grump,you know i love you,but that was naughty.let's forget it now and have a kiss and cuddle'

you arent the only one, i have yelled at my toddler 2.1 when she wont listen, infact most days she winds me up.

I think everyone has at some point.

Pretending that a social worker other people are watching works for me If I use that, the situation always calms down, if I lose it, it gets worse.

Ooops, can't do strikeouts. Is it every word?

a social worker

Got it!

Oh dear, I'm a bit like this. DD (2.2) is actually a lovely mostly well behaved child but I think that because she is so well behaved I too have a low tolerance level for bad behaviour. It's sheer disobedience that gets to me, blatently doing something she is told not to do.

But yelling never seems to scare her as I do it so often! On the other hand DH can do that calm telling off thing which has her in floods of tears. Me she just ignores!

However, the yelling is not ideal, and at the risk of being a pot calling the kettle black you perhaps need to find another strategy. I wouldn't say I am actually that yelly, I'm just quite naggy, but I have been known to shout, and DD gives as good as she gets! Have you tried 'How to talk so kids will listen'? It's probably a bit young to put into practise but it does make you see things from their point of view a bit more.

Going out of the room is a good idea. Could you maybe give yourself a 'naughty step'? Not really a naughty step but a thinking place to calm down and you could try explaining to DD that this is your space and when you are there is because you are cross and need to calm down. That might be a silly idea but just trying to be creative

MissisBoot - I would love to know how to control my temper when I'm cross. What do you suggest?

Thank you so much for replying everyone - I'm sorry other people are having the same trouble as I am but it is good to hear that I'm not alone. I have been wondering if I need to book myself in to somewhere!!!! I so don't want to be how my mum was, which is exactly how i've been today. every day i try so very hard and every day i fail at least once in something or other.

I have been known to turn into a banshee on occassion. DD is 3.9yrs and she is quite a challenging child in that she is constantly on the go wanting attention and just seems to push you as far as you can go.

I realise I am the adult and need to maintain patience, but sometimes that goes out the window and I become a banshee of great proportion. She cries, I cry, we make up, I regain my patience levels and all becomes well for a few months.

I'm not proud of it, hate it in fact (and there are some great suggestions on here that I shall try out) but, I do realise that I don't beat my child, she is happy, well fed, friendly and fun. You should try and remember this too and give yourself a bit of a break.

I do this and hate myself afterwards, less so in the past couple of months but for a while because of my own stress I was screaming at her for at least 1 thing almost daily my goal became "try to get through today without shouting".

I don't know whther she's better behaved now as she approaches 3 or whther I'm less fraught and wound up, the latter I think. and she's a good kid really, she didn't deserve it.

I'm really working on not shouting unnecessarily and not gripping them so tight so it hurts when I'm angry. It's so tempting to just vent all my general frustration in their direction when they're acting up, but I know it's wrong when I fly off the handle much too quickly and it makes me feel like shit afterwards.

My new mantra is 'be the grown up'. I try to think of that as soon as I start getting angry and it actually does help me to calm down and stay in control. I want to lead the way and show them how to behave, not set a really rubbish example and then complain when they copy me.

It's tough, and it doesn't work every time, definitely. It's so hard to change... But every time I manage to avoid meltdown and not raise my voice I feel really proud of myself, so even if I can't always be perfect mummy it's well worth trying on a case by case basis. And yep to say sorry every time you know you're in the wrong - that sets a really good example IMO.

Oh Minx, I know what you mean with the goal. I was the same a short while back.

My DD is 3 and a half, and again, generally very good - every day she has her moments though, usually either when I'm trying to get her to leave somewhere (the park, her Auntie's house) or towards her bedtime. I actually have managed not to shout for a couple of weeks though. If I get that tense way and I know I am about to shout (really loudly), I deliberately grit my teeth and talk very quietly and deliberately instead. It doesn't 'work', in that DD doesn't tend to do - or stop doing - what I ask right away, I realised that the shouting wasn't 'working' either. I feel sooo much better when I haven't yelled at her though.

In fact, I hadn't realised how successful I'd been in not shouting until yesterday, when I did shout at her - she got such a shock that she stopped what she was doing and got upset - while we had a cuddle I mentally berated myself and am now trying again to stop shouting until it may be really needed!