Reply to Do you have a difficult child and how do you define one? Not special needs. Just difficult.

Forum Index » General Parenting Discussion

Reply to "Do you have a difficult child and how do you define one? Not special needs. Just difficult."

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I may be speaking too soon because my "difficult" child is the youngest of three and only 2 years old. My other 2 kids are pretty well-behaved and listen. At school, she gives the teachers NO problems and will use the potty. It's a different story at home. She has accidents on herself, runs off when we tell her to stop doing something and just seems to enjoy getting us worked up as well as her siblings.

It's extremely frustrating and I try my best to acknowledge that she may be doing it for attention or her behavior may be due to lack of sleep (she doesn't nap at home). It does not help that she was our "oops" baby and even responding to this post alone makes me feel guilty! I often have to take breaks and check myself because I know spanking is not the answer but I haven't figured an effective method out yet. [/quote]

Wow, you sound like my mom.  She's pretty much screwed when she needs help as is my Dad.  They choose my sibling to handle things and she has never handled anything in her life.  I was the unwanted oops kid.  I have zero relationship with any of them.  [/quote]

I'm sorry to hear that. For the record, I should have also added that this is probably normal toddler behavior. I take breaks to calm down so that I do not reach that point where I am completely checked out or resort to hitting.

Lord my venting post is getting completely misinterpreted. I should just delete now :lol: [/quote]

When my daughter (now 9) was that age, she was exactly the same way. She was our first, got plenty of attention, etc., but she was SO difficult at home and SO ANGELIC at school and for babysitters. She's easier all the way around now. Still has explosions, but they are few and far between. If I had to go back in time, I would try to handle more of the defiance with humor. [/quote]

Agree completely. Meeting my difficult child with commands, and then ratcheting up the imperiousness and then anger when he did not comply was just the worst way to deal with him. (His relationships with teachers like this over the years were disastrous.) The best way to deal with him was with a good and humor and play. Don't give an order to pick up his toys, challenge him to see how quickly he can do it. "Can you (insert task here) in 30 seconds? Hurry up, I'm going to time you to see!" can work wonders. For a long time DS1 and I raced every morning to see who could get dressed first.

I also tried to give him face- saving outs and do-overs when things were getting out of hand. One of my best tricks when he was a preschooler (I must have read about this somewhere) was,  when I found myself in some battle of wills with him that was ratcheting up, was to say, "I feel like I'm getting angry and I need to start over" and I would literally twirl around and then face him and say whatever it was I wanted from him in an entirely different, friendly tone, with a smile on my face, like it was the first time I was asking, not the 25th. This was oddly successful and taught me that he often got himself into disagreements that he didn't want to continue but that he couldn't let himself back down from. Once I started doing the "startover," I got him to do it, too. So if he was being rude, instead of getting angry or somehow reactive, I  would say, again in a neutral tone (tone was everything!), "Wow, I'm not sure that came out the way you wanted it to, do you want to start over?" As a preschooler, he would do the twirl around, but this general approach-- giving him a chance to try again without consequence--worked into the teen years.[/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