Gentle parenting beyong the baby years....

[beckoes]

Im struggling with things at the moment. Gentle parenting a baby i found easier than i am finding gentle parenting my almost three year old. demand feeding, co-sleeping, no cry it out etc etc. Even as a young toddler, allowing her the freedom to explore her world and fulfill her desire to tear the house apart in a quest for discovery. But now she is three...and a confident, self assured, determined three at that(which is great)...but im finding things hard!

She actually has tantrums like a teenager....flies off in a fit of anger, runs to her room yelling, SLAMS THE DOOR, and flops on the floor sobbing ''this is impossible, your not fair'' i have no idea where she has got this from, it certainly isnt behaviour that she has seen here! (doesnt go to day care either).
I want to continue gently guiding her into her childhood.....and teen years....but im not really sure how, or what that even means anymore.

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Gentle parenting doesn't mean no boundaries and no consequences. I am sure you know that already, but it doesn't appear that your daughter does.

I gentle parent my 4.5yo and he thrives on it. If he tantrums I just remind him I can't understand him when he speaks like that. If he's really upset I sympathise, but can't help until he asks so I can understand. I cannot understand impolite sentences, so I do select what I can and cannot understand. Slamming doors would result in having to come back and practice closing doors properly, for example.

I talk to my son as if he were capable of understanding things - and he usually rises to the challenge. We talk about what behaviour we enjoy and what we don't. I make a big fuss of him when he behaves in the mutually agreed way - and sympathise when someone else is "naughty" on his scale of things. I also ask him if his rules are fair: if snatching is fair, is it OK for me to snatch off Liebling? No? OK, snatching isn't fair at all then.

For a pre-school boy, he is amazingly empathic, sensitive, kind and loving. He isn't perfect, but he knows if he's doing wrong and is confident enough to tell me off when I do things wrong.

[beckoes]

thanks. i think i need to get down to her level again and listen more. dd2 is three months now and i feel that things have really gone to the dogs since she arrived....like dd1 and i have drifted apart in realation to what is expect and what is acceptable.