Toddler Personal Space question...

Evans

DD has recently gotten very big into telling DH and I "Don't touch me." Mostly, this is when we tell her it is time for a diaper change, dinner, clothes change or bath and she doesn't want to do what we are asking.

She is also saying "Mommy pushed me" or "Mommy hit me" when I do touch her after she tells me not to (and for clarification, I am just picking her up, I do neither). ?What do you do here? ?Clearly, she wants her personal space respected and is upset when I choose to get her anyway. ?But at the same time, I can't let her sit in the corner saying "Don't touch me" all night so she can only play and not do any of the things we need to do that she doesn't want to do.

It is one of our biggest power struggles right now. ?I am also worried it is not normal for her to be so offended by us wanting to pick her up to do these things that she tells fibs (though she is too young to understand that she is fibbing) and sees it as an attack.

mrsmikey

I have no advice on how to handle the situation, as Eli is not old enough to verbalize these things.  But I do think it's perfectly normal for her to not want to be touched like that.  Eli is the same way.  Sometimes he is very cuddly, other times he doesn't want to be touched at all, especially by other kids.  He needs alot of personal space sometimes.  I'm sure in a few months we'll be fighting the same battle, so I'm interested to see if anyone else has any suggestions.

lalabee0425

Ugh. I'm sorry you are going through that. Chloe went through this at 2 and early 3. DH was trying to hold her hand while walking from the car one day and she screamed "Daddy quit breaking my arm off" at the top of her lungs. I was sure Social Services was going to show up... Lovely isn't it.We quickly said "no, Chloe we are holding your hand to keep you safe. It does not hurt".

We would sit her down when we had a calm moment and explain to her that we do not talk or say things like that, and that sometimes we had to do things because we were parents. It really helped giving her a verbal warning before doing things, like "Chloe, in 5 minutes we are going to change your diaper and put on clothes". We did this for baths, eating meals, you name it. And we would even ask her if we could have a hug, etc. She always did love hugs and snuggle time so that part wasn't so bad, but everything else was a huge deal for her.  Good luck!

marryingacoach

We are going through a similar stage right now. As a matter of fact, gbear told me the other night not to shove him. I was not pushing or shoving him I was directing him inside. And man does he not want to get his diaper changed. Ughh! He has started telling us "No, its not wet!" when in fact it is wet and does need to be changed.
It is a power struggle and some days I'm better at realizing this and be level headed and remembering sometimes you just can't reason with a 2 year old. With the diaper change "I'll say to him, when you pp in the potty we will not have to change your diaper anymore." When he is telling me not to "shove him" I tell him I was not and inform him of what I was trying to do.  We make hand holding a fun game so that has not been a problem. The game is who's hand is he going to hold first mommies or daddies. He knows he has to hold a hand. We are very consistent with this as I'm scared to death of something happening even if he wants to throw a tantrum. 
Not much help huh? Just keep being consistent that is all you can do!

MrsJones2005

I was talking to Ms. Sally about a similar type issue a few weeks ago.  (Ms. Sally is the lady that comes to our house through the parents as teachers program)  Her suggestion was to give as many choices as possible through out the day, and even in that type of situation try to give her a choice...for instance if you need to change her diaper tell her "Mommy needs to change your diaper, would you like me to change it in the living room or in your bedroom?"  Maybe just taking the focus off of what she DOESN'T want to happen by allowing her the indepence to make a small choice will help her go along with it.  She said when it came down to something that there really wasn't a choice on (holding hands in the parking lot) to just try and tell her "Ok Mommy gave you a lot of choices all day long, now its Mommy's turn to make a choice and I choose for you to hold my hand so that you stay safe while in the parking lot."  I'm not sure if K would understand or not, but its worth a try.  The other day I actually went a step further and explained to Kathryn WHY she had to hold my hand...telling her that she was so short that someone driving a car might not see her and she would get hurt and mommy would be sad.  But that since Mommy was taller if she was holding my hand then the driver would see Mommy and we would be safe.  She seemed to understand that and not fight me anymore.  I think kids understand more then we give them credit sometimes, so just try to explain it.  When the girls used to fight a diaper change we would simply say "if you sit in that dirty diaper then you will get a sore bottom"...that usually helped them give in and let us change it without a fight.

I hope that helps in some way.  Good luck!  It only gets worse as they get older...just a warning!