four year old dd being VILEY Mc VILE at the moment, answering back, general cheek and obnoxiousness... how/whether to punish her ass?

[Aitch]

she went to bed straightaway last night, no stories, just milk and cheese on toast delivered to room rather than promised home made pizza, but i fear it had little effect as tbh it prompted monumental tantrum anyway.

today, lots of talk about beign good but little evidence, or to be fair periods of good behaviour followed by back on the wind up ant then apologies when this afternoon's party is mentioned. don't really want to disappoint kid who's having party as lots on hol already, but how can i get dd1 back in line?

she's normally a really funny spirited lively but essentially polite and loving kid, it's just recently that she's turned the volume up a bit on rude and obnoxious. i've spoken to her about whether she's nervous about starting school and she said that she is already missing nursery teachers but other than sympathise what can we do?

oh dear, must bump. party in forty mins.

We had a turn round in behaviour with Ds just before half term in the spring term - he was 5 in April, so Reception - older than your dd.

He had been getting worse and worse in his behaviour - he had me in tears - I was seeing the teacher everyday to hear what he'd done wrong that day etc.

I ended up having to have a conversation that you don't expect to have to have with your (then) 4yo - I said that he wouldn't be having a birthday party. The part was at the end of the spring term - so a long time ahead. He was clearly getting to the stage where he could have a longer-term target as a treat - and we would follow-through and he knew it - eg being able to have an icecream at the weekend as a treat for having done well at school all week (within reason!) etc.

OK - so not every day was/is wonderful - but the change was amazing - and he's kept it up and I've got my lovely, charming, wonderful, chatty son back again - after having a little monster for 6 months or so.

We rarely got tantrums - I think mainly because we walked away (as long as he was safe) and went back when he'd calmed down enough to be coherant again - not much point in having a tantrum if you don't have an audience!

Don't know if its helped - but, from my perspective, we had similar - and it was horrid for a while - but we're now through it for the moment!

Take her to party - last chance saloon though - if behaviour is poor again then take away toys/cancel activity for the weekend?

Having similar thing with ds (3.2), although more in that he has bitten 2 kids at nursery this week

Party in 40 mins - I'd say to her that you will take her home if you see/hear any of the negative behaviour when she's there...

Make sure you give her 5mins warning before you're leaving - and if she makes a fuss, go straight away - preferably with no party bag!

i dream of this day... trouble is with the tantrums it's hard to walk away because we live in a flat and the neeeeiiigghbours must be going bananas. she can keep it up for a long while.

maybe a party is the thing? her b'day is such a long way away though, but we could try for one for something else.

I'm a big believer in 'How to Talk (SKWLALSKWT)', personally, although I know it's not for everyone. DD is only 2.5, but we're already finding the techniques they suggest really useful, particularly around managing negative emotions and nipping tantrums in the bud.

cheers re party, thats what i'll do. shes fine about leaving things though, that's not the problem. but i'll warn her about cheek (althogh she's really good when out, it's just in th00e house)/

i have that book, did think i was employing the techniques more or less, but will dig book out again to check. thanks.

Aitch - try a week to start with. Make it something that's not TOO special that you might quite often do at the weekend anyway...

We will go to the park to the playground on Saturday if we don't have any silly behaviour

You can have an icecream at the park if...

You can choose what to have for supper on Friday if

You can help me to bake a cake on Saturday if...

Things that she likes doing - not really big deals though... And make sure that you follow through to!

toy story 3!

thanks mistletoe!

God, age 4-5 is vile. Ride the storm, but don't be on her back all the time. At the same time, don't be too serious about good behaviour; try and have time once/week where you have a laugh doing something that she really enjoys i.e. indulge her a bit

Nothing useful to add but just wanted to share your pain re the tantrumming-in-flat scenario

I find myself routinely apologising to my neighbours whilst pegging out the washing

The other day my neighbour who lives 4 doors up from me asked if DD2 was ok and did she settle down in the end...

I personally wouldn't withdraw a treat, or threaten to withdraw it, if there is bad behaviour.

For a 4 year old a week is way, way too long a timespan for her to remember to be 'good'.

Regardless of how much a monster she is, you need the time together where you actively forget focusing on behaviour, and just 'be' together. At the risk of sounding too American, you need the bonding time - but promise you won't ruin it by droning on about being good!

well that is the tricky thing with treat withdrawal, highlander, I LIKE hanging out with her doing fun stuff, it's just, you know, before and afterwards that she's a pita.

and oh god notnowbernard, four doors away...

better afternoon today, she was a bit sainted with another girl who pinched her rather nastily on the neck. other girl has anger ishoos a mile wide and dd said that she figured she just had 'a really noisy head' like dd1 gets sometimes.

This happened to my dd 4.8. Recently she went from spirited sometimes nightmare child to total full on nightmare child overnight. We had answering back, spitting, raspberry blowing, hitting.....and the list goes on. I have bought her a new Barbie (her icon ) and have told her she can't have her until she's filled up 'the marble jar'. Have got a huge jar (it's actually a German stein!) and everytime she's good she puts a marble in the jar, when she's naugty we take one out. When the jar is full, Barbie is hers! It's been working a treat since I introduced it- her behaviour has dramatically improved after 2 weeks of hell!

good to hear, it's amazing how they can turn, isn't it? and oh my god what will happen when they're teenagers? toy story continues to work its magic and we had a lovely day today.