A little back story, my 4 year old daughter "E" is a super bright and intuitive kid. She has an older brother (7) and she's really sociable and kind. We have a great family dynamic. But I've noticed lately that when I try to reprimand her, she acts out in ways I wouldn't really expect from a child so young.For example, I work at a doctor's office and she was sick one day so I had to bring her in with me to be seen. She was doing great and drew the sweetest picture of our family all holding hands and little hearts around us all. I even thought, "how sweet is this!! We must be doing something right if this is how she sees our family" fast forward 20 or so minutes and she's getting impatient with sitting around and she starts trying to prowl the clinic which is super packed with patients. I go get her from her sneaking off and tell her it's really important that she stays where my office is and acts right, we will be leaving soon and she can go relax at home. I wasn't publically scolding, I wasn't even being as stern as I would have liked to be. I thought everything was fine until she goes back to my desk and violently scribbles me out of the family drawing she made.Another instance, at home; we have two cats that she is very crazy about. She wouldn't stop trying to trap them under a laundry basket, after multiple times of asking her to be nice to the cats and explaining that if the cat is meowing loudly, she's complaining because she doesn't like playing like that and that E needs stop torturing her. I finally semi-snap and tell her to leave the cat alone or we were going to give them to a family who will be nice to them. She goes into her bedroom and draws a picture on the wall with a permanent marker of me being mad at her.Recently, during the first days of school i had to leave before they got up and got ready for school. So I wrote them a message on the bathroom mirror with a dry erase marker about how I loved them and was proud of them and I hope they have a great day. I called her down that evening for kicking her brother in the back and she runs to the bathroom, stands on the counter and smears the message I wrote on the mirror. When I asked her why in the world she would do something like that she said, "because you were mad at me."She pops off with things like, "you just hate me!" "You love (big brother) more than me!" Over the most minor call downs possible. In reality, big brother gets in trouble much more than she does. She's a better behaved child overall, due to autism related issues with big brother.I grew up in a family where I got my ass beat for breathing in a way that didn't suit my parents. I was screamed at and guilted for existing and being an inconvienece. I have made it my life mission to parent my children in a way that promotes them growing into adults that feel capable, loved, independent.... I feel like I am failing at all of that. I'm not sure if this is typical behavior for a four year old little girl...if I should be concerned, if I'm doing something wrong. I don't even know who I would go to to talk about behavior like this if it's not typical. Any help would be so greatly appreciated. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2P6Oxwn
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