Desperate plea for help with my 4 year old DD

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, your child is perfectly normal.

Your problem is a total lack of parental confidence. And if you are not confident as a parent, your child will sense it and try to exploit it. This is only natural - when you are hesitant your child correctly infers that she can influence your decisions. Your daughter has excellent people skills, as she can adapt and be cooperative when she needs to and uncooprative when she doesn't. You, on the other hand, are a pushover (as a parent).

You are reading too many books, considering too many theories and asking for help a way too often. What you are doing now is asking for more and more theories, and more books, and more experts and more advice. All that just confuses and compounds your problem - you are not sure what to think, which advice to follow, whom to trust. All that is way worse than doing things "wrong".

Confidence is important, but I'm not sure this is fixall advice for OP. I have a 7 year old with anxiety, sensory issues, and ADHD. He acts a good bit like OP's child, even though I'm a seasoned parent, with other children who act "normally." Also, my field is Child Development/Education. Other parents come to me for advise, but my child still has issues! (If you were wondering, yes-- it is sometimes embarassing).

One thing that might help, OP, is trying very hard to stay calm and matter of fact (but loving) around dd. I suspect she's very sensitive to others' moods. My son is, and will ramp up when others around him are angry/nervous/sad. A tense atmosphere tends to lead to behavior spiraling down.

[Anonymous]

OP, how is it going?

Another Dr. Neal Horen fan hear, have seen a lot of progress in DC. If you haven't gotten help you should give him a call and see if it might be a fit.

[Anonymous]

OP -- are you there? Bumping this to try to get an update, as we are dealing with similar issues.