I'm a 23 yr old single mother and tonight I have come to the realization the my soon to be four yr old daughters behavior has reached an all time high. My mother, daughter and I went out to eat. From the time we ordered my daughter alreadly started arguing that I didn't know what she wanted to order, when we got the food I have to tell her several times to sit up and eat after standing up on the chair twice and reaching across the booth. I tried saying we wouldn't go the store if she didn't finish-that didn't work. I told her if she didn't eat she would have to come sit by me so I could feed her. That's not what she wanted but decided to move anyway to my side of the table, but then wouldn't let me feed her. Then she decided to crawl back under the table for the third time mind you. I told her to deicde where she wanted to eat and eat or we would go home. Needless to say I told her we were going home picked her up screaming I mean screaming that she wanted to eat all the way out of the resturant. I sat her on the bench outside she said she was tooo cold and in the struggle I left her coat inside so I walked her out to the car and bucked her in waiting for my mom. All this time she is still crying. She cryed about her coat untill my mom came and cries someone help me, someone help me. This story is pretty typical of my life. She pushes my buttons untill I blow or she does-whatevers first. I do not know how to punish her for this-I only took away TV for now.
She just constanly argues and yells at people-especially me.
Single mother in PA
Your daughter is looking for (and getting) your attention, all children crave this attention whether it is positive or negative. I would suggest you make sure you have some time to yourself (me time) and then when you are with your daughter give her all the attention you can, however MAKE IT POSITIVE. For example: take her to the park to play, play games or sit and colour in with her etc. If she misbehaves then I would warn her once, then if it is repeated take her away from the situation. I can only stress that you MUST STAY CALM AND IN CONTROL AT ALL TIMES, if you lose it with her then she will scream back at you, get down to her level and look her in the eyes tell her gently that you do not like her behaviour and put her in time out (4 mins) then return and ask her if she understands why she was in time out, and ask for an apology, give her a big hug and let her go and play again. I hope this helps you, let me know how you get on.
