Problems with my almost 4 year old little girl

miss_pink

Hi just so you's all know, Im not a mother so I know my advice might be rubbish

But please be nice to me :A

Hi, my friends young child is exactly the same. When I take her out she is as good as gold and very polite for a 4 yr old. But she is a monster for her mum, totally out of control, throwing tantrums and being very cheeky to her. When my friend was on holiday a few weeks ago she said her daughter was a delight to be around and thought it was because she was spending more with her than she normally would. I think that when children "play up" and become naughty and cheeky its all for attention as they get praised for doing good things and they get into trouble when they are naughty. Obviously there is a massive difference between the two behaviours but they both get the same reaction - attention from parents. It doesnt matter if its postive or negative, they just see mummy and daddy reacting. If it is bad behaviour then they know that after a parent has shouted or punished them, its not long before they get kisses and cuddles and made to promise to be good :A as most parents are soft touches and cant bare for their children to be sad or upset.


I can remember when I was 4/5/6 (I am 23) and both my mum and dad worked all day, when they came home I was a total horror :eek: But it was all for attention hehehe. I knew if I was naughty id get into bother but 15 mins later my mum or dad would feel guilty for shouting at me and id get the kisses and cuddles and the situation would be turned from me feeling bad for being naughty to my parents feeling bad for reacting. My teachers / grandparents had me from 9-5 so by the time I was back home I was tired and moody. My mum and dad had to feed and bath and put a moody tired 4 yr old to bed (fun ehh !!) Children will associate not-so-fun times with parents as its them who lay down the rules such as bed time ect. And its the grannies and granddads and child minders that are associated with being more "fun"


As for the smacking, my mum smacked me a few times when I was younger but she always said the best punishment was the "time out". I had to sit on the 'naughty stair' for about 5-10 mins so I could think about what I had done. I know it sounds daft, but it works. I can remember feeling really bad and sorry that I was in time out.:A Also when my parents told me to do something and I never they would just ignore me. They would carry in doing what they were doing, taking to each other ect and act like I was invisible as "they couldnt see naughty girls who didnt do as they were told" lol it makes me laugh sooo much to think of the little brat I was.

If she wakes up early just leave her, as long is she is in a safe environment and cant get out of her room she will be fine. When she sees that she isn't getting any attention she will just go back to sleep.

Anyways, I don't have any children yet but I do have experience with child psychology (not that same I admit) But I do hope this helps.:o And im sorry if its all rubbish,

Its just a phase that they go through to get attention and when your on hols and she sees mummy all the time you will notice a big change in the behaviour.

xxxx

whitewing

The other thing I find useful in managing a strong-willed son, is the reminder eg in ten minutes we're going to turn the tv off, don't forget the TV is going off in 5 minutes. Okay, it's time to turn the TV off - could you do it for me, please?

You almost need to do a running commentary at times. Strangely when our little fella was just over a year old, we used to visit my family for the weekend (3 hour drive away). So we'd let him fall asleep on the Sun night, then put him in the car and then in bed and he'd wake up Mon morning in his own bed. We always congratulated ourselves that he'd slept through it. And he was always a total pain for the following week. Too young to talk, we thought he'd missed my family BUT when we started to say before he went to sleep: When you wake up, you will be at home, we're travelling home while you sleep, he was great the following week. Totally amazing to me but true!

adea

Big hugs to you.
This reminds me of my dd who will be 4 in september.
She has always been strong willed but is becoming more defiant,stubborn and a big pain in the rear.
When she strops out I speak to her calmly (at first,then sometimes lose it and shout) and trty to reason with her,not always easy!
One of the consequences of her bad behaviour I give her is that she goes to bed without a story,same for her 5yr old sister.
In my dd's case, they only have sweets 3 times a week so there is also the threat of not getting them on the next day.
I agree with whitewing on the countdown to things and giving them a little more responsibility it really does help and eases the tantrums.
Try to stay calm (not easy I know) and think on it as a stage that will pass.
Try to walk away when she has wound you up so much that you feel the urge to smack her, it only makes you feel worse after (been there myself).
Hope things sort themselves out for you and know that you are not alone in this situation.

Psykicpup

Bettyboop wrote: »

2nd time retyping this!!!!

Hi All,

I have major difficulties with my little girl. I work 6 hours a days and during this time she is iether at preschool or in the care of a childminder. For many, many days now she has been an absolute monster! Most mornings she is mood, cheeky asks for breakfasts and then nearly always wastes it! I think about her everyday when I am at work and as soon as we have got home hell is let loose. She cries, throws tantrums and sometimes hits me for no reason whatsoever! The more days this goes on I can't wait to take her to bath and put her to bed. By that time I am ready to burst into tears. All the good seems to have gone and this otherwise behaviour has set it. It's making me stressed to the point that I will miscarry or even become ill and that's no exaggeration. She takes almost an hour to eat dinner. We eat together and I try to take my time. Tonight for example I went to answer the phone to find when I got back that she had rubbed half the yogurt into the table! She doesn't listen to me. I speak to her nicely and clearly and she is given lots of love and attention. I must say I am finding this very hard when she is being so ugly to me. How on earth can I child of this age drive a mother down so much? The childminder has said that she is always as good as gold in her care yet when I fetch her I greet her warmly and give her a cuddle and then all the crying, tantrums and you know the rest starts. I really do not know what to do. I have a week off to look after her at the end of the month and I'm already wondering what that is going to be like. I won't deny that I have given her smacks on her bum (no mark has ever been left), but I find that when she has worked me up so much, always refuses to do what I ask, doesn't listen the first couple of times what else can I do. I don't know if it would be worth talking to a Child Psychologist? has anyone had experience with one and how much does it cost? I know that the longer this goes on we will just grow further apart.

Thanks and hope you can help

Aww hun you are just tired & as you are expecting a babe & looking after LO its no surprise! Esp as she sounds like she is well & truly ready for school!
Please try not to smack (I know its hard) -Miss Pink explains why it doesnt work so very well!
Can you cut your hours down at all?

nitnurse-not!

Hi there,
I also think this sounds quite normal. With ref to the "naughty stair" the time is supposed to be 1 minute for each year plus 1 extra minute.
You need to explain to your child that this is what is going to happen before a tantrum occurs. They need to understand that they are there to calm down and think about why they have been put there.
This may sound terrible to some parents or those who don't have much experience of a child who is driving you to distraction but it does work- it also removes the child from a frustrated parent who may resort to smacking. I have done both and I now feel I had "lost it" when I smacked.
Good Luck.x

Bettyboop

Psykicpup, Thanks for responding. I doubt I will be able to cut my hours down...there is always so much work. In fact the job really could do with two people. Just to clarify I put her on the naughty step sometimes and pretend she doesn't exsist when she is being a MONSTER!..... I am starting to think that the seperation from her dad has probably affected her. It has been 8 months now. We are getting back together....the baby is his of course and I haven't told her about it yet.....I wonder if she can probably sense it as she has been acting like a baby...wanting to sit in highchairs when we go for lunch or dinner and wanting to be spoon fed?????

JillD_2

Hiya,
I am a parent of another clone of your daughter - my son turned 4 in June and he can be a right so and so as well. Everything you describe sounds perfectly normal to me (sorry) although I know that doesn't help a lot.

He went through a phase of deliberately doing things I had said not to, he was wetting himself, shouting and screaming at me, kicking and hitting me, messing around for a couple of hours at bedtime, getting up in all hours of the night and having kicking tantrums then too. We have gone through not eating, slow eating, storing food in his mouth for hours, not wanting to brush teeth, drawing on walls, etc.

Like you I am pregnant, I also have a 2 year old daughter who is going through terrible two's. I am utterly shattered and find it hard to find the energy not to just shout at them all the time. Until recently I worked 2 1/2 days a week (I am pn mat leave now) and my children had a bizarre combination of preschool, nursery and childminder. I felt so sorry fpr them being dumped all over the place. They finish preschool this week and finished nursery today. So until today their childcare has been complicated.

I thought I was going to round the twist with DS behaviour. None of my previous methods were working. I decided to go back to basics of sticker charts. We have a racetrack with pictures (cut out from spare party invitaions) of Lightning McQueen (from Disney movie Cars) on it. There ais space for about 20 stickers from start to finish. If he gets to the finish line he is allowed 20 minutes of XBox time with Daddy before bed. He gets to the finish line around every 3 days.
We've been doing this for a couple of weeks now and the difference is amazing. Don't get me wrong, he isn't perfect and I still have to cajole and nag hom to do things like put his shoes on etc, and I feel like every second sentence I say is "do you WANT a sticker ??" however most of the worst behaviour has settled down. He gets a sticker for things like : -
- not messing around at bedtime
- not getting up in the night
- doing a wee/poo in the toilet (this is our worst area, he hates the bother of going to the loo)
- eating tea nicely
- putting his own clothes or shoes on
- letting me brush his teeth.
This turnaround in behaiour has hapened while he is still in the chidcare scenario, I didnt have to stop work.

Maybe you could try aiming at the things that annoy you the most first, or the things you think will be easily fixed first, it is importnt for you as well as her to get some positive results fast.

Other people I know have a pot of marbles - one gets put in if child does a good thing, one comes out for bad thing. Of course the risk is you get in the "red" abd stay ther.
Someone else I know has a racetrack that a car moves forward / backwards on for good/bad things accordingly. You could do steps up to a princess castle or clouds or fairies or something for a girl. Or pony jumping over fences ? The key is finding the reward that really works for her - dvds, xbox, pocket money, time cooking with Mummy, swimming at the weekend, trip to the cinema, whatever.

Ince you get the reward scheme working for a few things extend it to other things as well. For example you could get her to stay in her room in the morning until you get her or until the little hand reaches the 8 (or get a bunny clock) and remiond her that this will mean a sticker on her chart (or whatever).

Oh and by the way we make out own sticker charts, we don't buy them. I just use A4 white paper and black marker and give them a list of things to choose from. DD has princesses, princess castles, butterflies or flowers. DS has racetracks, buses, rockets or trains. This way they feel in control as they choose the design, they love the fact they are different every few days/week and we have a tin full of stickers that have come in party bags, presents, freebies with vouchers etc so they choose the sticker design each time as world.

I know this all sounds obvious but a few weeks ago I thought we were well past sticker charts and I've been amazed how well its worked again.

He is also a veeery slow eater. If I notice he is procrastinating over a meal I give him a time limit "when the big hand gets to the 6, dinner goes away".... and then when the big hand gets there (with a few reminders along the way) calmly take her food away, save for later or bin, and ignore the resulting tantrum, and give her her pudding (hopefully healthy). If she hasnt eatne the main course don't give her extra pudding, only give her half or something.

We have done this with my son since he was 2 1/2 and it does work pretty well.

The only other thing I can say is don't beat yourself up over it, you are doing the best you can, its a nightmare being a working mother of little children, you feel like you can do nothing right when you are just trying to do he best by everyone.

Hope some of this helps and you can turn a corner and see some light at the end of that very dark tunnel.

Hugs
Jillxx
ps sorry haven't spellchecked hope this all makes sense!

Katmc2k

Bettyboop wrote: »

she has been acting like a baby...wanting to sit in highchairs when we go for lunch or dinner and wanting to be spoon fed?????

I remember behaviour like this SO clearly from when I was a kid, at about 6 I wanted to sit on my mum's knee and talk in baby talk and I asked her all sorts of stupid questions that I knew the answer to, I just wanted to act more like a baby. My mum said that I knew the answers to these things and looked totally puzzled.

I didn't want to grow up and get older, was the middle of 5 kids with baby brother and sister who needed all my mum's attention and two older brothers who went about and pleased themself. I felt totally unsure of myself and my place in the family, and I think I just equated being a baby/toddler with a lot of attention. Perhaps your daughter is feeling something similar, and can sense there is going to be a change.

Anyway I felt a bit silly about it immediately afterwards and realised from my mum's puzzled and straight-to-the-point answers that I would just have to grow up a bit, whether I liked it or not! Don't remember anything else really but that particular memory is as clear as day. Isn't it weird the things you remember? But that really affected me at the time, I guess to help DD you could encourage her to act her age and at the same time try to make it clear you will love her/give her attention as she gets older, I think that would have helped me at the time. My poor mum probably just thought i'd had a knock to the head :rotfl:

Best of luck with DD and the new one x

traciekan

she sounds like a perfectly normal 4 yr old girl to me who needs some love attention and time from her mum. she knows you re leaving her places and isnt happy about it and wants to punish you. BUT you re the grown up you need to behave like it. shes not naughty shes not bad shes just 4. hitting her will achieve nothing mark or not. my advice? ring your HV and find out about some local parenting classes. you need to learn how to handle a normal child and deal with your own issues.

Dormouse

For goodness sake, there's no need to tell OP she needs parenting classes. :rolleyes: She's a normal mum - not perfect but trying her best, just like the rest of us.

My DS was 4 last week, and I'm heavily pregnant as well. I have noticed he's been moodier than usual recently - I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the impending arrival. Also, you mentioned the separation from your OH - of course that has had an effect on your DD too.

As for behaving for other people and misbehaving at home, I'm sure all kids are like that. By the time they get home after childcare, and you're back from work, you're all tired and hungry and grumpy, so you can't expect perfect behaviour from anyone. I decided a long time ago that evenings are not a good time for trying to install discipline - everyone's too tired and irrational for that.

Good luck OP, I'm sure things will get better. Your little girl is just the same as all the other 4-year-olds out there.