Needing some strategies for DD

[Arimeh]

Well you've just described my DD1 to a tee! LOL

Luckily its just a stage they go through, and it does stop.. eventually. DS got a lot better once he got closer to 3.

With the dinner thing, we're totally over her playing with the food instead of eating it, so she gets 3 warnings, then stands in the corner for the rest of the meal. We have 2 other kids to watch as well, so we can't watch her like a hawk, otherwise we would never eat our own dinner! LOL

She stood in the corner 5 nights in a row, and then for the last couple of nights she will stop playing and start eating - when threatened with the corner. So it does work, even though it may seem a little cruel.. LOL

[Indadhanu]

OMG our girls must be soul sisters.

Just tonight Jazz slapped me FOUR times. Tried to make me change places at the dinner table 5 times until I'd sat everywhere, she still wasn't happy, so I just sat and ate so she SCREAMED - blood curdling screaming - the whole dinner. Throwing herself around the floor. Tried to throw her dinner. Sat on the dog twice. Threw toys at the dog. Dumped her toys in a cyclonic fashion around the whole fricken house. Screamed and hit me when I wasn't sitting and playing tea parties, so I sat with her and she threw a fricken tea tray at me because I didn't sit in the right spot.
And I've only been home since 5.30pm. She just went to bed, after saying NO about a million times when we asked her to come and get her pyjamas on. She didn't end up eating her dinner by the way. Maybe two mouthfuls. Ugh.

But I can be really patient throughout most of this. The things that get me are the complete ignorance. I can say "JASMINE you need to get off the dog, you're going to hurt her and give her an owwie" and she just looks at me and DOES IT AGAIN. ****. Or she'll be emptying her book cupboard, and I'll ask her to stop, and instead of stop she'll just throw a fricken book at me and keep going. ARGH!

I don't have mamny tips, except our Mantra is that she's getting to the age where she realises that she is her own person, she has her own opinion, she has her own actions, and she has options. We might not think so, but she does. She doesn't HAVE to stop when we say stop. She's just testing the waters, she just realising that she is separate from us. And that's whats getting us through until she turns 25.

[kirsty_lee]

And that's whats getting us through until she turns 25.

That and a wholllle lot of alcohol!

[Indadhanu]

LOL non-drinkers here, so a whole lot of chamomile tea!

[kirsty_lee]

hahahahha what else is in that chamomile tea? either that or it's bloody strong chamomile hahahaha with like 7 tea bags

[~Kaz~]

Some great posts here.

Just wanted to say that I went to a toddler tactics class recently and they were saying that when you start making changes, pick a couple of things that bother you the most and work on them until you start to see results and then pick another couple of areas to work on. If you do it all at once it can be too confusing and unsettling and you might make all the acting out worse. Of course you know your DD best though. Consistency, whatever approach you take and whatever you end up doing in response to her behaviours is critical.

The offering of limited choices mentioned earlier was another big issue discussed in the class. Toddlers are learning about having control, making decisions and consequences. Try to have natural consequences reinforced (both negative and positive) and giving her a limited choice in each situation. They also talked about having a rough structure to each day, especially when you're at home. So it might be breakfast, some TV (while you clean up from breakfast and put washing on) some outside play while you're hanging washing out, back inside for morning tea, some craft time inside, lunch, sleep (if she still has one), a walk or more outside play, afternoon tea, inside play while you get dinner organised etc etc. It doesn't really matter what the routine is but having a roughly similar pattern to the day and not letting any one activity go on too long should help. I think from memory they were saying 30-60 mins then change to something different and alternate inside and outside, active and passive activities. If she's not having a sleep, even some quiet rest time with a movie or some stories with you on the lounge in the afternoon might help. Obviously when the weather is bad this type of routine needs to change.

The other thing they said that hit a chord with me (cause I was doing this all the time) is not to provide lots of lengthy explanations or reasons or instructions. Keep it simple. I tend to rave on to DS about what is happening and why I want him to behave a certain way and what might happen if he keeps doing what he's doing. I think a lot of it goes over their head and gets confusing. Especially when they are caught up in whatever it is you want them to change.

[BrightSparkles]

Yep - sounds like my DD too. I'm a fan of techniques supernanny uses