Parenting a 4 year old - halp

ASmallWonder

I may DD this later, fair warning.

I feel like I've lost sight of how to parent my son effectively.  I know what he does is developmentally normal but I get so frustrated and angry when he: gets out of bed multiple times a night for made up reasons, doesn't listen (like - we have to go, come on - he pokes or runs back to the playground, etc.).  He steals food lately that he's been told he can't have.  We have a major meal eating battle that I try not to make into one.  If you don't want to eat, fine, but nothing else.  I'll go to the bathroom or go to change the baby's diaper and find that he's taken something from the fridge or cabinet.  Then he lies about it.   The lying is a new gift we're dealing with.  We are in a constant battle of wills with him.

It doesn't even need to be said that he's my world but I have to say it because I feel like we're butting heads so often lately that I worry he doesn't always realize it and it makes me feel like shit.

angelashly

I'm stalking this as I'm dealing with all of this too. We can drink lots together because I'm pretty sure that's the only way I'll make it through

angelashly

I will say that giving choices has been helping lately. A little

ASmallWonder

@threelittlewheels we don't even DO food between meals anymore because he seems able to live on air.  We finally realized that his best meal is breakfast so we insist on that being good and filling. The rest of the day is just "not hungry" and then "can I have a snack?"

ASmallWonder

angelashly said:

I will say that giving choices has been helping lately. A little

Choices in what?  What choices?  Tell me all the things.  I'll try it all.

My inability to "manage" any part of him lately is what makes me angry.  I know that.  My anger comes from my OWN frustration at not knowing how to change what's going on.  But that means I A) have to find better/new ways to parent the situations and mentally slap myself when I fail and not bring anger into the situation at him because of my own short comings.

My mother was an angry parent.  I don't want to be her with everything I am.  I'm having a shitty day over it

angelashly

I'll give you my bath example.
I tell her she can get in the bathtub nicely and take a bath and then get to play a game or I can get her in the bathtub and then she goes right to bed.

I usually give her 2 choices for dinner so she can pick.

Basically I bribe

ASmallWonder

@fredalina Thank you - I like the "I see" tactic.  The food is not that he doesn't like it.  It's a total power struggle because it's virtually everything I cook (and it IS edible lol).  Meat, chicken, fish (that one he usually eats), veggies - raw/steamed/roasted.

If you tried to figure out what he likes and ruled out totally crappy things, the list is PBJ, cottage cheese with the fruit mix in, pasta with butter and cheese, baby carrots (sometimes), cheese quesadillas, scrambled eggs.  I can't accommodate that on a nightly basis with two kids and getting home late  Which is part of the issue.  I have limited time and am home alone so I just throw my hands in the air.

ASmallWonder

@fredalina Wise words.  I need to do some thinking.   But here's an example from last night.  I told him we were going to make dinner together - english muffin pizzas.  He got to make them start to finish and I kept talking about how fun it was going to be to eat what he made.  When they were done?  He refused because they weren't "triangle" pizzas.  WTF kid!

suziqnc

Just wanted to let you know that you are not alone.  What you described sounds just like my house!  Meal refusal, getting up multiple times a night, just power struggle in general. 

seahorse102410

fredalina said:

You've probably tried these, but in case you haven't: "First...then..." is a big help for my kiddo. First we eat, then we can watch tv if we have time. First you read to me, then I read to you. Stating "I see..." is also helpful. "I see milk on the table spreading to the edges. It needs a towel fast fast fast before it gets on the floor." Or "I see a room with toys on the floor that need to be cleaned up." It's less judgmental, just stating facts, and not confrontational like "Why did you make a huge mess?" or "Ugh! I told you not to put the milk so close to the edge of the table!" which is my natural default because I'm a perfectionist and sometimes I need to remind myself she's just a little kid. Still do natural consequences, as in, we won't have time for me to read to her or to play with the dog or whatever if she stalls leaving the park. Still helps to USUALLY prevent a fight. For the food thing, it sounds like it isn't working and you need a new strategy. I don't know what might work for you but get him involved to solve the problem. Clearly he doesn't want to eat what you cook and will solve his hunger problem in a "creative" way by sneaking and lying. Cut that off by solving the overall problem together creatively. You want him to eat a healthy dinner, he doesn't want _____, how can you compromise or whatever to make you both satisfied. There's a really good chapter in NurtureShock on why kids lie. Most of it is online.

This is good.  It's in almost all of the parenting books I have.  It's just so hard.  I am so tired and frustrated at the end of the day!

ASmallWonder

Oh he's a riooottt lol  No really, he's a smart, witty, funny little kid and he's very charming  For getting him to leave places, we usually use, in his words "I'm gonna be the fast poke!"  One time we called him a slow poke so now he thinks the opposite is a fast poke lol  So we race to the door or the gate or whatever.  He's competitive.  Maybe I need to turn everything into a race or a competition lol

RondackHiker

This thread is great. DS has been so challenging and frustrating lately and all the tools that worked a few weeks ago do NOTHING right now.

bearfootz

CTGirl30 said:

I'm putting the "I see" technique into my arsenal....

@ASmallWonder, how about a fridge lock to keep him out without him asking permission first?

I seriously had one of these.  Moreso to keep them from dumping out ALL of the milk and juice containers when they were younger.

@asmallwonder Your kid sounds normal, and you sound like a normal mom trying to deal with it and you've gotten some good advice. Hang in there. I noticed that DS took different approaches to getting attention at that age too, and sometimes went with the "negative attention is attention too" route - whereas DD would just come over and tell me she needed a hug or whatever.  As far as getting ready we try to make it a game or offer a reward. (if you get your shoes and coat on you can play with the kindle) As for dinner if I'm making something that I'm not sure the kids will like I try to have them help with dinner - if they can't help with the prep then I have them set the table.  It seems like if they help then they're more excited for the meal and more likely to at least try it.

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Libby1978

First, we are totally in the same boat.  It's the age.  They are testing boundaries like nobody's business right now.  And the lying!!  OMG!!  Ollie totally makes shit up every day.  And I totally call him out on it.  I guess the main thing is to be consistent, which is easier said than done sometimes.  Say what you mean and mean what you say.  Example, the other night I took Ollie to his brother's football game.  Last week at his brother's football game he acted horrible, so on the way to the game this week I told him if he acted up again we would leave.  Well, we made it through the first half, but in the 3rd quarter he started acting up, so we left.  He walked behind me crying and pleading to stay the whole way to the car, but hopefully at the next game he will heed my warning.

RayRay007

angelashly said:

I'll give you my bath example. I tell her she can get in the bathtub nicely and take a bath and then get to play a game or I can get her in the bathtub and then she goes right to bed. I usually give her 2 choices for dinner so she can pick. Basically I bribe

Lots of good ideas in this thread. As far as giving choices, I'm usually like "do you want to get in the tub yourself or do you want me to put you in the tub," because she knows I'll do it. I guess that might be bordering on a threat more than an option lol. But honestly, if I know there are three acceptable options, I'll give her two and she sometimes suggests the third one on her own and I tell her that's a good idea/ acceptable option and she's willing to do it because it was her own idea and she had some role in the coming up of options and decision making. Sometimes the idea has to be planted ahead of time or they might not think of it. like rinsing hair in the tub- that's always a production. I told her once three options- she could lay down, I could use a bucket or she could put her head under running water. That time she still didn't want to do any of those things. The next time she refused I only gave her the first two options so then she said excitedly "I know, I can put my head under there," and I said yes and she willingly did it.

aglenn

Everybody has given great advice, and I will just add that when I catch myself repeating myself over and over again and getting super irritated sometimes what helps the most is for me to disengage and walk away for a few minutes.  At that point it's clear that repeating the same thing louder and louder is going to do nothing but get me more upset, and 9 times out of 10 the issue at hand is so minor anyway that it's not worth a power struggle.  It's easy for me to get caught up in it, especially at the end of the day when I'm just feeling DONE, but to the extent that I can recognize that it's often less the actual behavior and more whatever feelings it's raising in me that are the issue, the better things go.

On the food thing, my kids do the same thing and I have given up on the idea of dinner having to be a big meal.  They eat well in the morning, lunch is typically pretty good, and after that it is more like snacking.  I'm OK with that as long as their snacks are fairly healthy; they are far from starving and will eat when they are hungry.  I read an article somewhere that said that kids' appetites are often low in the evening and the big evening meal is not really driven by biology but more by custom.

ASmallWonder

@Irachelle80 oh he would eat himself SILLY lol  There would be zero hope of actual meal consumption

Tonight I tried some choices.  He asked what was for dinner.  I told him ribs and beans and made a big deal over the fact that he could "YAAY!  Choose which veggie you want!"  He said neither.  I told him he could pick one or I would pick it.  He picked it and he ate it!

carrotcake06

I'll commiserate w you also. My big one is just about 4.5 and he's a challenge in every sense of the word. He intentionally escalates just to push boundaries. I've said this to MH and he agrees, but I'm so tired of "following through" w a punishment. I want him to want to make good choices.

Thanks for all the good ideas in this thread. I'll def be using them.

And @ASmallWonder‌ WTG on the veggie victory!

MissyC979

We are right there with you--right down to the slow poke and fast poke. We actually do a lot of things as a competition--we have to get in the car for school or neighbor is going to beat us. Or I'm going to beat you to your room. Those things usually work for DS1.

We're dealing with the bedtime and food issues too--and even the sneaking. Honestly, we resort to bribery a lot a la "if you don't stay in bed, you can't watch a show in the morning" or "if I have to come back up here, I'm going to have to take one of your stuffed animals away for the night." Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I also see from your siggie that you have a younger child, which for us makes bedtime more stressful. Some things that I would likely ignore at bedtime become a bigger deal because of the fear that DS1 will wake up LO. Not sure whether that's happening with you too?

We have had good luck in the past with a star chart. That helped a lot for bedtime, eating, and getting ready for school. It lasted a couple months for us and really got us through a rough time. I've been thinking about trying it again soon, especially for bedtime.

acesup

BeaF12 said:

I give my 4 yr old 2 acceptable choices, especially when he's being stubborn. Don't want to get in the car? I stopped saying its time to go and now I say, "do you want your race car shoes or orange shoes?" "Do you want to walk or do you want me to carry you?" I like when he refuses to come inside and I ask, "do you want to go to your room or do you want to come inside?" He happily chose his room. Sometimes I repeat myself 20x, same 2 choices until he picks one. Doesn't want to leave mcdonalds, "do you want to carry Woody to the car or should I carry Woody?" He chose to carry Woody and off he went. DS1 is developmentally delayed and very stubborn, but it works. I have given timeout as one of his choices.

This is good advice. I'm in the same boat as you all with DD. She likes making decisions.

I gave timeout as a choice once and she chose it! Haha