My niece...

fivefeetsmall · February 2013

I've never been on this board before, but am hoping you all might be able to help. My niece will be 3 in April, though she is a little behind in social/communication development (Dr. says because she was preemie). She can be the absolute sweetest little girl and then just turn on a dime. Then it's screaming, crying, telling us "no" to everything (eating, sleeping, sitting, putting coat on, putting shoes on..you name it). My Mom and I both watch her quite a bit so this is getting quite difficult. Though we have the authority to spank her, I really hate doing that and feel uncomfortable doing it. Most of the time I can give her options and we can get this tantrum under control (for example: She wanted to watch Dora on the ipad while shopping at Wal-Mart, but did not want it in the protective case. I gave her the option of keeping it in the case and watching Dora or putting it away. She calmed down and settled on watching it in the case). With this said, she has had some changes in her life recently: her Mom moving in with the SO, the SO has been around for 6 months, and her Mom is recently pregnant.

So my questions are:

1.) Is this just her age or do you all think there is more going on?

2.) Do you think I'm handling her right or do you have advice on another way I could handle it? I try very hard to not let emotion control how I react with her and want to find a way to connect if she feels things are unstable in her environment.

Thanks for any help!

TMDMJAOCT07 · February 2013

Sounds a lot like its an age thing. 3 is tough, they want to be independent, want to do things their way and to have control of the situations. So, turning almost 3 on top of all the other changes going on in her world very well could be a stressful, challenging situation for her.

Good Luck.

rjeller32 · February 2013

Same as PP said, it's really an age thing. My LO is 2 1/2, and she acts the same way. I think there is a stage where they will test people to see what they can get away with around certain people, and they have this new found yearning to be independent. That said all the changes probably don't help it that much.