Reply to Is “demanding” a phase or a personality?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. Thanks for sharing your experiences. I do think I was hoping for everyone to say "Oh, that's how all 3 year olds and then it goes away!" but oh well!

I do think my DD has some perfectionist tendencies. She will definitely get very adamant about the order or way something has to happen. But it's not all the time and it's not about everything. I definitely think that hunger and tiredness play a big role and I can often address the behavior with a snack or a rest period.

But my DH really struggles with it (he is also pretty stubborn and can be a perfectionist) so [b]I'm trying to figure out if I'm going to be navigating between the two of them forever.[/b] It hard to encourage DH to be more flexible (he tries, but it's pretty baked in at this point), but I'd love to encourage DD to be a bit more go with the flow, for both her sake and mine! I guess I'll just keep at it and hope for the best![/quote]

From one of the PPs above, the bolded gets really, really old.  One slight side effect of the pandemic is that it's brought this dynamic to a head for us, and I've had some very serious talks with DH about his need to adjust.  It's neither fair to nor healthy for the other parent to serve as go-between, and it's also not fair for a kid to have to dance around a difficult parent.  If your DH is struggling with this issue with a *three* year old, please look into parenting classes or something to help you all out.  Adults shouldn't be digging in with preschoolers, at least, not to the point where the other parent has to mediate all the time.

With my demanding kid, hunger and fatigue are huge, so we really have to stay on top of those.  She's old and insightful enough now to know these things about herself, so that part has gotten better for us.  [/quote]

OP again. Thank you very much for this. I agree, it's a real challenge. I have been the primary parent since DD was born and DH has never spent this much time with her before. I do think partly that some of her stubbornness has just gotten worse this year (maybe a developmental stage, maybe pandemic, maybe both). I have always weathered her challenging phases pretty easily with a little bit of adjusting and some research. But this one is definitely harder. DH struggles more than I do, though -- he just doesn't have the same communication skills or patience.

I agree with you that I should not have to intervene, and I also don't want my DD to feel like she has to accommodate my DH all the time. And I very much don't want to feel like I have to accommodate both of them all the time, just because I have the more patient, flexible personality. It's a tricky dynamic that honestly was much easier to manage when DH was going to an office every day and DD was in part-time daycare and home with me the rest of the time. But we have to find a way to figure it out, because we're all going to be together for at least another 5-6 months, if not longer.[/quote]

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