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4 Year Old Behavior Unruly
I want to include all of the information I can in this, so I apologize in advance if it's a bit long winded. My daughter is four and a half and she's usually the sweetest little girl, but when she gets mad, watch out!! Generally her outburts start either at night while trying to get her settled in for bed (she sleeps with me) or in the morning when trying to get her up. What usually starts it is while laying in bed she'll put her legs and feet over on my side and start kicking me saying "my feet were there" and expecting me to move. From there it escalates, if I don't move or do something to accommodate her, she will go into a brutal outrage and start kicking and hitting and punching or doing what ever she can to try and get me to move or get me out of bed. When I try and talk to her, she won't talk and just makes the mmm..or ughhh... noises instead of talking to me. Sometimes she will point as if to say leave. I try and encourage her to use her words, versuses hitting, kicking, or pushing, or making the sounds with her mouth, but that seems to make her more angry. I will continue to try and get her settled in or moved on to her side and she continues with this behavior, which also includes screaming " I don't like you", "you're not my friend", and "I don't love you" , or just general screaming at the top of her lungs trying to drown out my talking by screaming. This will continue for a good 1/2 an hour or longer sometimes. It's very disturbing, and though it mostly happens at night, it happens sometimes for no reason, sometimes she'll just happen to get into one of these moods where things aren't going right for her and all of a sudden she lashes out at me for it and uses this hitting, kicking, pushing, etc. behavior. Sometimes for no reason out of the blue she'll blurt out "you're not my friend" and I'll ask her why she said that or what made her feel like that and she doesn't have an answer.
Somethings to add, which I don't know whether they're relevant to any sort of diagnosis or hypothesis, she doesn't like change, she is very intune to repitition, for example, she wants everything done a certain way, or done the way she's always known it to be done. For example, sometimes when we walk to the mail box to get the mail, she'll say no walk this way, the way she's going and if I walk a different way she gets very upset. If we're leaving a store and there's a set of double doors, she'll say "no come out this door" and if I go out the door next to it, she gets very upset and irritated. When she asks me to get something for her, and someone else gets it for her instead, she gets upset and will say something like "no I wanted my mom to get it for me". She doesn't respond well to time outs, if I try counting to 3 or something like that, she gets sassy and will say "1, 2, 3 you're in time out". I've explained to her that I'm the mom, I make the rules and that she needs to follow the rules. Often times I have to tell her do things many times before she cooperates or listens to me. With bed time and getting her to brush her teeth and go to the bathroom before bed can be a 1/2 an hour process. Instead of just doing it, she dilly dallies around and makes me tell her it's time to get your teeth brushed and go to the bathroom 10 times or more it seems. Sometimes it's clear she's just not paying attention. Although, on the flip side I believe she's very inept to her behavior as well, as a lot of times she will say to me "mom I'm going to listen to your words today", so it's almost like she's very aware of her behavior too.
The funny about this whole thing is, it seems this is just with me she is like this. At school she has no behavior problems what so ever, her teachers say she's an angel, does what ever she's told with out any problems, listens very well and is very well behaved. However, her anger at such a young age really worries me. I don't spank her, as I don't believe in spanking and don't think that's the answer to any of this. When she's with her dad he doesn't seem to have any behavior problems with her that he makes me aware of. I don't know whether she's convinced I'm a push over, if she thinks she can get away with things with me, or what the problem is. I'm at a lost for discipline it seems like, because nothing seems to work.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and offer any insight, I appreciate it!!
Somethings to add, which I don't know whether they're relevant to any sort of diagnosis or hypothesis, she doesn't like change, she is very intune to repitition, for example, she wants everything done a certain way, or done the way she's always known it to be done. For example, sometimes when we walk to the mail box to get the mail, she'll say no walk this way, the way she's going and if I walk a different way she gets very upset. If we're leaving a store and there's a set of double doors, she'll say "no come out this door" and if I go out the door next to it, she gets very upset and irritated. When she asks me to get something for her, and someone else gets it for her instead, she gets upset and will say something like "no I wanted my mom to get it for me". She doesn't respond well to time outs, if I try counting to 3 or something like that, she gets sassy and will say "1, 2, 3 you're in time out". I've explained to her that I'm the mom, I make the rules and that she needs to follow the rules. Often times I have to tell her do things many times before she cooperates or listens to me. With bed time and getting her to brush her teeth and go to the bathroom before bed can be a 1/2 an hour process. Instead of just doing it, she dilly dallies around and makes me tell her it's time to get your teeth brushed and go to the bathroom 10 times or more it seems. Sometimes it's clear she's just not paying attention. Although, on the flip side I believe she's very inept to her behavior as well, as a lot of times she will say to me "mom I'm going to listen to your words today", so it's almost like she's very aware of her behavior too.
The funny about this whole thing is, it seems this is just with me she is like this. At school she has no behavior problems what so ever, her teachers say she's an angel, does what ever she's told with out any problems, listens very well and is very well behaved. However, her anger at such a young age really worries me. I don't spank her, as I don't believe in spanking and don't think that's the answer to any of this. When she's with her dad he doesn't seem to have any behavior problems with her that he makes me aware of. I don't know whether she's convinced I'm a push over, if she thinks she can get away with things with me, or what the problem is. I'm at a lost for discipline it seems like, because nothing seems to work.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and offer any insight, I appreciate it!!
It sounds to me like she wants to be the one in control at your house, in your bed and of you in general. She needs to know who the parent is in your relationship. There is no reason why you should have to move over, get out or be told where you can sleep in your own bed. Is there a reason why she is still in your bed?
If she is being asked to do something, she should only have to be asked once. You should never have to get up to 10 times asking her to do something. She should be asked once and after that there should be some kind of punishment. One thing that my friend has done with her daughter was to introduce consequences. They sat down one day and Allora was allowed to choose what her consequences would be, examples, no TV for a day, no TV for a week, no sleepovers, no friends over, losing a favorite toy for a week etc. Allow your daughter to pick out her own punishments, when she misbehaves she has to choose which consequence she wants if she does something really bad than her mom or dad chooses. This really seems to work for them and it also gives her the feeling of being in some sort of control of the situation.
Do you have a good relationship with her father as far as being able to discuss this with him to see what works when she is at his house. Maybe she has more respect for her father and will listen to him because she knows that she has to and that he will punish her if she doesn't do as she's told. I know this is the situation with my niece and her father and my sister. My sister has screaming matches with my niece and cannot get her to do anything she's asked to, whereas with he dad he tells her once and she does it because she knows that she will get into trouble if she doesn't listen.
As far as being at school or listening to everyone but you, that is very typical for children, because they know that they can get away with it with you and that no matter what, you'll always love them.
Sorry for the long winded response, I hope some of this helps you. Good luck.
If she is being asked to do something, she should only have to be asked once. You should never have to get up to 10 times asking her to do something. She should be asked once and after that there should be some kind of punishment. One thing that my friend has done with her daughter was to introduce consequences. They sat down one day and Allora was allowed to choose what her consequences would be, examples, no TV for a day, no TV for a week, no sleepovers, no friends over, losing a favorite toy for a week etc. Allow your daughter to pick out her own punishments, when she misbehaves she has to choose which consequence she wants if she does something really bad than her mom or dad chooses. This really seems to work for them and it also gives her the feeling of being in some sort of control of the situation.
Do you have a good relationship with her father as far as being able to discuss this with him to see what works when she is at his house. Maybe she has more respect for her father and will listen to him because she knows that she has to and that he will punish her if she doesn't do as she's told. I know this is the situation with my niece and her father and my sister. My sister has screaming matches with my niece and cannot get her to do anything she's asked to, whereas with he dad he tells her once and she does it because she knows that she will get into trouble if she doesn't listen.
As far as being at school or listening to everyone but you, that is very typical for children, because they know that they can get away with it with you and that no matter what, you'll always love them.
Sorry for the long winded response, I hope some of this helps you. Good luck.
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