Reply to Disciplining the undisciplinable

Forum Index » Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers

Reply to "Disciplining the undisciplinable - HELP me with my 4yo DD"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My DH and I are at the absolute end of our rope with our 4 yo DD. For background, she has always had a temper. When pushed or cornered into something that isn't going her way (e.g. served a food she doesn't want to eat, given a task she reeealy doesn't want to complete) she goes level 10 nuclear meltdown: screaming, hitting, mean words, throwing things, slamming doors, sprinting outside with no shoes on, the works. This has happened a few times in school, but at home it has now escalated to the point that anything not going her way elicits these responses. She is also LOUD LOUD LOUD from the moment she gets up in the morning, super heavy feet, interrupts constantly, attempts to defer her with "I would love to talk to you when I am finished talking to your brother" etc. are met with the acting out behavior. We typically remove her from the situation immediately - if playing outside, we go in. If watching a movie, she goes upstairs to bed. She has an 8 yo brother who is similarly sensitive and reactive, and from the beginning we handled it all Janet Lansbury style, acknowledging feelings, staying calm, "I can't let you xyz", "I will keep you safe" and I smugly was like wow, look how well this works. We do the same thing with DD and it sometimes manages the situation, but her reactions to things are so disproportionate I admit that DH and I have a hard time tempering our reactions, too. Yesterday she did not want to get her shoes on for school, was running around the house, picked up a chair and threw it into DH's guitars and he lost it. Our family walks on eggshells. If we put her in her room for timeout - we have to literally lock her in there to keep her there and just wait for her to completely destroy the room. We feel like shitty parents, are constantly going back over our choices to try to determine what we should have done differently with this child. [b]We have done the sticker charts, rewards, etc. and while there is temporary incentive, it doesn't really change anything[/b]. We talk about riding the wave of her big feelings and she does talk about not feeling in control of her body. I am starting to read Explosive Child and that has some good perspective but not sure if it's tailored for kids this young. In between outbursts she is extremely creative and precocious, energetic, funny, has lots of friends and seems to do fine socially, has a good, easy bedtime routine and sleeps well. She shows remorse after outbursts and says things like "everyone hates me", "I'm the worst girl in the world". I'm really at a loss and can't believe I'm sending this child to kindergarten. Looking for sympathy and advice (but not afraid of tough love here, either).[/quote]
Difficult need extremely consistent discipline. Pick one (time-outs are the best, I think) and do it over, and over, and over, and over again. If she destroys the room, oh well, she has to pick it up again. And again. And again. Most “difficult” kids need a wall of a parent, you don’t budge or flinch from established (fair and understood) rules. You should have very few rules for your kids, but iron-clad.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics