Gentle guidanceThis board is not a debate board regarding spanking vs. non spanking. While we strongly believe that children need and thrive with guidance, we also believe that hitting is not the answer. If you have come here to discuss spanking and your reasons, please desist.
I’m at my wit’s end. I’m not comfortable opening up but I don’t know what else to do. I feel like such a failure as a mother. Maybe I’m expecting too much from dd, I don’t know. I’ve never been around little kids before so I don’t know what’s “normal”. Dd is 3.5 yo. She is a “spirited” child. She picks things up so quickly and I know she comprehends things. But she doesn’t stay with anything for more than a few minutes at a time. I call her Ricochet Rabbit sometimes because she bounces from activity to activity. That concerns me greatly. I really wanted to homeschool her but I found myself leafing thru the yellow pages this morning for a preschool. I don’t have the patience needed to teach her. She “plays dumb” and that really sets me off. The more frustrated I get the more she laughs. She can do something 100 times and then I’ll ask her to do it and she’ll suddenly have no clue. She’ll ask questions like “Is this the kitchen?”, “are you my mommy?”, “how did you eat that?” and she’ll ask it 20 times until I answer. And then she’ll ask it again and again. Dh tells me to ignore her but I can’t tune her out like he can. Besides, she’s hardly ever more than 3 feet away from me. She’ll do nothing to help herself it seems. At lunchtime I slipped off to make the bed. As soon as I was gone I heard her yelling. “OW, OW, OWWWWW!!! I gotta go potty!!!!!!” Instead of going to the bathroom like she does many times every day, she chooses to scream and hop up and down instead of going to the bathroom. I have to tell her “go to the bathroom”. Then she’ll run to the bathroom and go. I don’t understand why she’ll ask me if she can go sometimes and just scream the rest of the time. She does everything herself: turn on the lights, go potty, clean up, flush, wash hands, dry hands, turn off light. I’m convinced that she would just go in her pants if I didn’t tell her to go to the bathroom. She does not have a UTI or constipation. I don’t know why she does it. Eating is a nightmare every single day. It’s been 1.5 hours since she sat down to lunch. It’ll take her that long some days to eat her lunch. Other days she’ll inhale it in 5 minutes. Today she was yelling at me to load her fork for her. She refuses to do it herself. I’m sure 3.5 yo children can feed themselves, right? But she’ll sit there (a rare occurrence) and yell “I need help!” but she is fully capable of doing it herself. Instead of picking up the fork she’ll tell me she’s ready for another bite. I can’t bear to sit at the dinner table with my family anymore because it is always such a pita. She throws temper tantrums at the drop of a hat. One day I gave her a bowl of sliced apples. I caught her crushing the apples with her foot. I took it away from her and she started screaming like I had pulled her arms out of their sockets. She’ll start crying for no apparent reason and when you ask her what the problem is she’ll say something like “I told you I didn’t want to…” when she hadn’t said anything, or it is something totally off the wall…maybe something that had happened a month or two previously. If she does something bad and I tell her she’s going in timeout she’ll start screaming “I want 5 minutes! 5 minutes” at the top of her lungs. Then she’ll scream herself raw for as long as it takes to wear me down. She understands that she can come out if she is quiet and doesn’t make a fuss, which she will do, but only after the hysterical screaming and my intervention. When I try to speak calmly to her, to explain to her that her behaviour is not acceptable, she just yells in my face. I have no idea what to do anymore. Nothing seems to work. Sorry this is so long but this is what I currently deal with on a day to day basis and I can’t do it anymore. I’m so depressed lately and dh is no help. He tells me to put her in her room all day if that’s what it takes. We go to the gym sometimes but she gets put into timeout there as well and I’ll get called off the floor to come deal with her. I never get a break. At night she insists on me being in bed with her or reading to her…she started whining last night on the way to bed and dh started yelling at her, which in turn made her cry and come running for me, which in turn pissed him off because I tried to calm her down. I am stressed out to the max. Why does it have to be this hard? Sorry mamas, I just had to get this out.
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Susan
Don't judge me
You could be me in another life
In another set of circumstances
Don't judge me
One more night
I'll just have to take my chances
I know it's just not in my plan
For someone to care who I am
Originally posted by welshrabbit Instead of going to the bathroom like she does many times every day, she chooses to scream and hop up and down instead of going to the bathroom. I have to tell her “go to the bathroom”. Then she’ll run to the bathroom and go. I don’t understand why she’ll ask me if she can go sometimes and just scream the rest of the time.
IME, this part is normal. Many kids this age will even wake up a parent to tell them "I have to go potty" even when they can do it themselves. The parent says "then go" and the child does. I don't know why, lol! but I do believe it's normal. My almost 2 yo will come up to me and say "pay?" meaning he wants to go play w/his siblings in their room. WHY he asks me I have no clue, b/c the door is open etc., I just say "okay, go play" and he trots off.
The rest of what you wrote sounds positively exhausting, just reading it. You are well within your rights to be worn out. I'm sure you will get some good suggestions here.
I wish i could help you but DS is 3 and teh same way. His latest thing is "what?" and look at me like he has no idea what I am talking about. Drives me up the wall!! We aren't potty trained yet but I am sure that will be another issue! Hugs Mama! I understand totally! Kate
The bathroom & eating thing especially. DH doesn't handle it well. He just starts yelling.
I just feel like I'm gonna lose my mind some days because of her behavior. Maybe it's the age?? I don't know.... That's what I keep blaming it on.
You know what else Sophie does that drives me batty....
She's always saying names - stupid little names like "Pickle Head" or "Stinky Butt". Or we'll be singing a song and she'll throw in something.... "Mary had a little poopy" or "Jesus loves the little chickens".
ARGH! It drives me crazy.
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~ Cassie ~
mom to Marnie (10), Sophie (8), Olivia (6),and Ava (4)
Poor mama {{{Hugs}}} You sound like you need a break. I can tell you that the bathroom thng is toatlly normal. My oldest two are 5 and 7 and I swear there are days that they come and tell me EVERY TIME that they have to go to the bathroom. I have no idea why they just feel the need to. I just say "so go". But that must be a normal thing. With all the other things i have no advise but I'm giving you a major hug. Take care.
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Melissa
Mommy to 5 great kids!!
L~8/26/95
K~8/28/97
A~4/10/00
K~4/15/01
and
J~3/25/03
Hugs for you! She sounds to me like a normal spirited child. My dd is 3 and we have days like that. I admit it sounds like you definately have your hands full, but she sounds within normal for a kid to me.
Sorry I don't have much advice! Just want to let you know to hang in there. It is most likely a phase that will end soon. And try not to give up on homeschooling. Think of what a hard time she would have not having you there to take care of her all day. I know it must be really hard but you sound like you are a great mother and doing a great job coping. Things come and go with kids, and I bet she will be in a more cooperative phase soon.
Wow! My oldest was a spirited/high needs kid, but yours sounds even more full on!
If my dd had done all that, my response would have been like your dh: she goes into the room, and gets completely ignored until she pulls it together. When people would go in and tell her to be quiet, cause she was being a pain, she discovered that if she screams loud enough, she will bug people, and get the attention she wants, and then she will shut up. So I never let anyone near her, and never let her out until she could show me that she was over her trip, and eventually it stopped, cause it was no fun. I have been known to put her in the closet with all the muffling clothes, though, if it was REALLY irritating people. That was even less fun for her.
Now, I don't know your dd personally, so my perspective isn't guaranteed to work for you, but if my dd ever pulled any of that on me, she would be immediately in time out, or, for things like where she decided to hit herself in the head (that'll show mom!) if she didn't like how things are going, being completely ignored. Fairly quickly (not overnite, but within a few times), she would get the message that that is not going to get attention, and would quit it. She still does stuff, but on the whole, she has got to the point where it's pointless, cause nobody is going to care.
A lot of that stuff to me sounds like manipulation, and attention getting, and and if she isn't getting the response she wants, she most likely will stop. Personally, if my dd was taking 1 1/2 hours to eat lunch, I would have taken it away, and let her starve til the next meal. I am not her servant, and it is not my responsibility to make her eat. It is my responsibility to provide good nutritious foods, and make them available to her on a regular basis. It is up to her to make use of them. If she doesn't, well, she will get another chance at the next meal!
Location: perpetually attached at the boob to my sweet nursling
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Does she get a lot of interaction with other children?? She does sound normal for a child her age. My dd is about the same age, she'll be 4 at the end of August. And she sounds similar to my dd before she started going to school. She's very intellectual, she started talking very early. And she is able to understand abstract things that just shocks me sometimes.
Starting at around 18 months, I started taking her out for activities. We went to gymnastics, we went to Kindermusik, but she was so shy she hid behind me for most of the classes, so she didn't really get to play with the kids.
By the time she was 2 1/2, she was bored at home with me and would do some of those things, like crushing food on the floor, etc. I had thought I wanted to homeschool, but I felt she needed the socialization without me there with children to play with and we just don't have any kids in our neighborhood that are even close to her age. So I went searching for a preschool and found a wonderful montessori school just 2 minutes from home. And it has made a world of difference.
Now I will tell you, for the first 2 months of preschool, I was embarassed to be her mother sometimes. She would get in a lot of trouble, sent to office frequently, I started to doubt whether she was old enough to be in school. She even called her teacher and a classmate a few not so nice names. But she had never been away from me, she had never really played with other children, so she was learning how to interact in that setting.
But by the middle of October, everything changed, she became a different child, she became one of the best behaved in her class, she always wanted to be a helper to her teacher by passing things out and getting things from the office, she was always the first to go ask another child to play if they looked sad or lonely. By the end of the school year, her teacher told me she would be one of the ones she missed the most.
And it had made a difference at home. She no longer crushes her food on the floor and screams, etc. And she loves for me to teach her things now. We no longer have the battles for her to do the simplest things. And it's nice to have a break for 3 hours, twice a week, I got a lot of stuff done then, lol.
Not to be rude but I am laughing my head off right now because I swear I must have written this myself! LOL
I too have a 3½ yr old and she does the exact same things. Maybe to a lesser degree because there are siblings but still the same dang things!
Takes forever and a day to eat, cries and throws tantrums at the drop of a hat (even if you touch her the "wrong" way" it "waaahhhh; you hurt me!") and the potty thing, UGH! She potty trained faster than my 4 yr old and still they both ask to go potty at times WTH is up with that!? I don't know either. They can go potty all by themselves for half the day and then all of a sudden they too are holding their crotch screaming "I gotta go potty!" like they need me to tell them it's okay to potty! It is insane! AND frustrating!
Racehl my 3½yr old is the slowest to eat as well. Sariah the 4½yr old will be on her second helping and Rachel will have just barely touched her food. i try not to force only because children are more intune with their bodies and food needs than adult so i "TRY" to refain from telling them to finish everything YK?! I just warn them that this is "meal time" and they aren't going to be eating again until such and such time, so when and if they ask for a snack later i will remind them that they didn't finish their "meal" and that it isn't time to snack. I hoep to convey the importance of eating until full so they aren't snacking on junk food all day long, YK?! Still it seems it never works.
I have learned to tune them out more than my DH. These two will fight over some of the stupidest things and unless I am really bothered by the screaming and crying I try not to do anythig about it and let them figure it out or wait until they ask me to intervene.
I also don't get the playing dumb thing. It is the biggest PITA in the world! I will ask them to retreive something in plain sight, and it is an object they I know they know what it is and yet all of a sudden it becomes something so foreign that I might as well be asking them to reteive a new planet out of their butt, YK?!
SO I am right there with you. I too was doing the same thing with going back and forth between HS and PS. I am still not sure as I have a 17mo old and a new baby coming. I feel overwhelmed thinking how in the hell could I possibly handle these two on an educational level.
SO while I am laughing right along "with" you I am sympathizing up the wahzoo with you as well! BTDT and I still have no real advice.
It's totally normal! I have a 3.5 yr girl too, and she is exhausting at times! Every night no matter what's for dinner.. it's "Ewwwwwwwwww" kicking and screaming at the table. We just ignore it, she either eats or she doesn't. No hand feeding. She often asks "dumb" questions that she very well knows that answer to, I truly think children this age need alot of one on one attention and affirmation and from my past experience, it's a stage that passes (thank goodness!) Hugs!
Hmmm James does the fork thing too.. especially when he's getting frustrated or eating peas. He is 3.5 btw. He also does the silly question thing... not all that often.. but he gets in his silly silly moods and starts acting all weird.. I just chalk it up to being 3.5! *lol*
{{hugs}} Mama.. hope things get better soon!
~C
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SAHMama to 4 beautiful little munchkins and one angel 6/26/05
first 3.5's will want you to do things for themthat they can do themselves and/or ask you for everything. they are phyically able but emotioally not ready to have to be independent all the time.
second i don't think timeouts work-usually the tantrum is related to soem stress they have experiences AT ANYTIME in their life and this is just when they are falling apart. they don't need isolation, they need attention. but not to try and make them stop crying, but to let them have a good long cry. they just need to release all the tension. i have a 3.5 who will scream and lose his mind at what appears to be nothing. so i say to him "wow, you must be very frustrated". i pick him up and tell him, "do you need to have a good cry?". he will 99.9% of the time scream, "YESSSSSSS!!", break into a cry for maybe 5-20 minutes (wiht me holding him and telling him its okay to be frustrated). and them when he calms down a little i tell him a story about when i was a girl and wanted to cry. usually he will end up with another good cry after he says, "that's how i feel!!!". but after that there is always a good nap and a peaceful child for several days/weeks.
i think it is important to teach our children HOW to deal with frustration. and even though we don't want them to cry their whole lives when they are frustrated, it is appropriate for a 3.5 yo. what else do they have?
now i just want to add that i beleived in timeouts (they needed to understand that their behavior wasn't socially acceptable blabla) until a friend pointed me to this book" Tears and Tantrums by ? Solter.
hope you find some items that help you here. i know it can be hard when you just want to scream "shut the F*** up!!!" being a mommy is a difficult job!
Luna
mom to 3 boys-doing all the good crunchie stuff!!
I call her Ricochet Rabbit sometimes because she bounces from activity to activity. >>>>
I think sometimes these kinds of things you just have to ignore.
I have a very hyper acting son(8YO) who literally will walk circles around the other kids while they are watching a TV show, sitting on the floor.
I have apparently learned to tune it out( so have the other kids LOL) because I dont even notice it much until someone else points it out to me.
She’ll ask questions like “Is this the kitchen?”, “are you my mommy?”, “how did you eat that?” >>>>>>
You might want to consider if she is above average? gifted? I know you think she is asking "dumb" questions... but one of my other sons STILL does this and he is 13 now. LOL
I figured out a long time ago that he is looking for MORE then the average answer.
He is very analytical and wants to know "more"
He has bugged the heck out of me forever with his "dumb" questions. LOL
He words it in a way that makes him sound like a dodohead, but I know he is seeking more knowledge then he has and wants my input on it.
" Why do we wear clothes?" might mean he would like a conversation about other cultures and their clothing habits, how clothes have developed over history etc etc... he doesnt want to hear " to keep our bodies warm... and so we are not naked in public" LOL
I don’t understand why she’ll ask me if she can go sometimes and just scream the rest of the time.>>>>>>
Hmm... there are 2 different ideas I have in my head about his... one being, she is just a little girl.. maybe sometimes she needs the assurance of her mommy "taking care of her".
The other being... I have 5 kids, and dont have time to deal with each child in ways your daughter is wanting, so my kids dont ask. LOL
Maybe try a little tough love and just dont do the things she asks?
Dont load the fork... tell her "if your hungry enough, you'll eat" and ignore her.
If she proceeds to scream excuse her to her room and tell her she can come out when she wants to load her own fork.
That puts the ball in her court.
When she hops around having to go to the bathroom tell her she doesnt need your permission or help to go to the bathroom.
if she does happen to stand there and wet her pants, tell her she better go change them.
I wouldnt punish her, but just let her take care of it herself, she will see that yor not going to come and rescue her.
When I try to speak calmly to her, to explain to her that her behaviour is not acceptable, she just yells in my face.>>>>>>>>
I would do the same as I said before, either tell her, or pick her up and sit her on her bed and say" you can come out when your done yelling " Id do it at the very first second of her yelling at you.
It puts the ball right in her court... She gets to decide when she can control herself.
When she comes out ask her if she wants to talk about how he behavior could be more acceptable.
Originally posted by welshrabbit But she doesn’t stay with anything for more than a few minutes at a time.
She’ll ask questions like “Is this the kitchen?”, “are you my mommy?”, “how did you eat that?” and she’ll ask it 20 times until I answer. And then she’ll ask it again and again.
These are things Annabelle does. We'll be reading one book and get half way though it and she'll want to read another one. I'm really firm with the "not until we finish this one first" thing.
As for all the questions, I get that too. My answer can be "Well, what do you think it is?" or "You show me how you eat it!". It's like she wants to show off her new skill. Part of it can be fantasy play, too. Sometimes it's not a kitchen, sometimes it's a playground or a cave or what have you. Maybe it's Little Bear's kitchen and I'm Mama Bear making some muffins rather than the beans I have in the crock pot.
If you haven't read them I'd suggest reading "Your Three Year Old", the spirited child books and "How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and How To Listen So Kids Will Talk". I have a friend with three spirited three and half year olds and she swears by that last book.
Your husband sounds like a totally separate issue. My DH was a lot like that too. I started handing him books, articles and sending him URLs. He's very scientifically minded so studies and PHDs made all the difference. He's eventually come around to understanding child development and that just about everything is just a stage.
I have read that for lots of people that three year olds are *worse* to deal with than two year olds. That scares me a bit.
I put myself in time outs when I am getting too upset. Annabelle is pretty good about staying away until I calm down.
I don't know if I can take it anymore....
You are well within your rights to be worn out. I'm sure you will get some good suggestions here.
LOL
He is 3.5 btw. He also does the silly question thing... not all that often.. but he gets in his silly silly moods and starts acting all weird.. I just chalk it up to being 3.5! *lol*
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