Contrary child driving me nuts

strawberrypud

Does anyone know how to handle a contrary 3 year old? She'll argue that black is white. For example if I say "It's a lovely sunny morning" She'll say "No, it's raining!", that sort of thing. It feels like 90% of our communication is this argumentative challenging behaviour and it puts me off saying anything to her knowing I'll just get an annoying response.

She thinks it is funny and I try to just ignore it and distract her to something else.

What can I do?

ema_o

Sounds like she knows it winds you up! Have you tried just laughing at her, or saying something like "oh no, I thought it was sunny but if you think its raining we can't go to the park"

puddy

i dont know but i have a partner like this, and its dreadful

thorsoak

Instead of making statements to her - ask her questions instead! If she says - on a sunny day - that its raining then say something like - oh right - we'd better get our wellies on to go to the park - and don't forget your umbrella! My daughter was like this - so I'd go along with her statements, making more and more silly suggestions as to what we should do in the circumstances that she saw until she'd dissolve into giggles - at which point we'd do what I wanted to!

go_cat

Agree with other replies she is getting a reaction from you every time ..... if you start to ignore that behaviour and like others have said ask her questions instead of statements the roles of power begin to reverse

Remember with a child to chose your battles its not worth spending all day at loggerheads

heretolearn_2

I think it's a common stage, just treat it as the joke it is. Little kids don't have terrific senses of humour, it's not deliberate defiance, they are just messing about. One of my son's favourite games for years was the 'yes/no' game we'd play, just us sitting saying yes, no, yes, no, yes, no to each other for ages until one of us would suddenly switch and the other one would be tripped up by still replying the same. Used to have him in stitches. It's not that annoying really, you know they are just playing daft.

The REALLY annoying one is when they go on that 'why' routine, saying 'why' to everything in a whiny voice over and over. Another little game most kids seem to develop. I stopped that one by doing it to him one day for so long he literally started crying and begging me to stop. After that he gave it up.

rozmister

heretolearn wrote: »

The REALLY annoying one is when they go on that 'why' routine, saying 'why' to everything in a whiny voice over and over. Another little game most kids seem to develop. I stopped that one by doing it to him one day for so long he literally started crying and begging me to stop. After that he gave it up.

This is my 22 year old boyfriends personal favourite. I'll try your advice!

GlasweJen

My niece does the "why" thing so I bought her an encyclopaedia for kids and now I refer her to that, example:

Niece: what are we doing today?
Me: going swimming.
N: why?
M: because it's good exercise
N: why?
M: because it works all your muscles
N: why?
M: I'm sure there's a page in your book about muscles, why don't you look there?

She's slowly but surely coming out of it.

sassyblue

my little one was like this, l do what others suggest, turn it around and ask him the questions, l also used to make it humourous...'oh it's raining is it? shame we can't go to the park and have an ice cream then', which helped.

It is tiring when they're like this but she will come out of it, my little boy is a treasure now but he was a whingey little soul for the first 3+ years :eek:

FunnySaving

Why let yourself get annoyed by her responses? She's only a child and is learning about the use of language and how to manage interactions with other people, so letting yourself be annoyed about it as you would if an adult was being deliberately argumentative is counter productive for both of you.

sassyblue

FunnySaving wrote: »

Why let yourself get annoyed by her responses? She's only a child and is learning about the use of language and how to manage interactions with other people, so letting yourself be annoyed about it as you would if an adult was being deliberately argumentative is counter productive for both of you.

Easy to say when you probably don't experience this day in, day out. Show me a mother who's never got fed up with her child(ren) at some point and l'll show you a liar.

Nobody is a saint!