Reply to At wits end with almost 7 year old

Forum Index » Elementary School-Aged Kids

Reply to "At wits end with almost 7 year old "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I hear you. I have a 6-yo DD and often feel this way.

I am reading the Explosive Child and finding it somewhat useful. It's basically about the idea that with rigid kids, the temptation is to either respond with your own rigidity, or to just roll over and let them do what they want. And neither really works because if you are rigid with rigid kids, they have no way of learning flexibility (no one is modeling it for them), but if you just let them do what they want, obviously, chaos. So the book is about the third way, where you work with them to facilitate problem solving. Upside is that I do think this is the way. Downside is that it's exhausting and hard.

I'm also joining a parent support group via a family therapist our pediatrician recommended, because I just need somewhere to talk about this stuff with other people who get it. When I mention these challenges to friends, they often say things like "oh, that hasn't been a problem -- Larlo has always been really good about doing chores" and I just feel worse. So I think talking to other parents going through similar things is key, especially when you are working really hard to find solutions (so it's not like it's a result of just lazy, negligent parenting -- you are working at it!).

I am also trying to adjust my expectations for our family so that we are set up for success more often, at least until we have better solutions to the defiance and other issues. We went on a summer vacation this year that was just an absolute misery because DD was so difficult. There were days where she literally just sat down on the ground and refused to do ANYTHING, just shut down in the middle of public places, yelled at us, probably the worst behavior I've ever seen from her. Obviously the vacation itself was too much change and required too much flexibility from her for where she is at right now. That was eye-opening and after recovering from it, I am now focused on, for the time being, lowering the stakes on our family schedule and plans so we don't wind up in situations where her rigidity or emotional reactivity becomes that hard to deal with.

(By the way, on that vacation I wound up fully subscribing to the "just give her what she wants" school of parenting just to get through it, and it worked -- we just let her play games on the tablet and listen to her headphones almost nonstop for the last three days of the trip and while I felt very guilty about this, it allowed the rest of us to talk to each other and have moments of relaxation, actually sit down for meals, etc. I have zero regrets. It's the only thing that seemed to allow her to endure what was apparently the sheer torture of a beach resort vacation, and it kept me from having a nervous breakdown. Give yourself some grace -- this stuff is hard.)[/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