3 1/2 can't stand not getting her way

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Forum -> Parenting our children -> Our Challenging Children (gifted, ADHD, sensitive, defiant)

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amother

Pearl

Mon, May 30 2016, 11:20 pm

Yes, she's strong-willed. But it's also an emotional thing. She seems to really not be able to cope with not getting what she wants. It's beyond fighting and tantrums - even when the fight is over, she just cries and cries in devastation. It's hard but possible to distract her - but then she'll go right back to the crying a minute later. This happened over at least 3 things today. Nitpicky little things.

It's really interfering with life. Getting anywhere or getting things done depends on keeping her happy. Then there's her sister closest in age, she can never get her way because this DD makes it so impossible. I stick up for her as much as possible but it never really works because the older one is very quick to give in since she knows what a nightmare the 3yo is when she doesn't get her way. She doesn't want to get her own way if that means having to listen to 3yo throw a fit for the next half hour.

I took her to be evaluated for ASD (another of my kids has it, though with a very different personality, so I know a lot about it and thought that could explain the rigidity as well as the way she can play quietly for much longer than expected) but the doctor said it's just her personality, not a disorder. Which is nice to hear but I can't believe this is normal and I don't know what to do about it. I have these nightmares of her growing up with some kind of personality disorder with no emotional coping skills and everything needing to be her way. Say I'm unreasonably projecting if you want to but then come over here for a day and see what goes on.

At wit's end. What do you do? Is this called a strong-willed child or is it something beyond that? I think I'm firm enough to handle strong-willed. It's the emotional breakdown that is stumping me. I do a lot of validation and empathy and all that. Tried teaching her to self-calm. She doesn't hear any of it. Distraction sometimes works - but you need about 3-4 successful tries. Meaning you successfully distract her and then she goes back to crying, but after the 3-4th round of that maybe she won't go back to crying. Which all takes minimum 10-15 minutes of intense screaming and then I'm not even sure if we've helped the problem at all or just pushed it off again.

the world's best mom

Tue, May 31 2016, 12:09 am

Sounds pretty normal to me. I find cuddling to be the biggest comfort for ds when he cries like that. I will not give in to him once I say no about something, but I see no harm in hugs and cuddles.

Also, kids tend to cry more when they are tired. Could it be that she needs more sleep?

amother

Pearl

Tue, May 31 2016, 12:18 am

Tired would work if this happened sometimes. It is EVERY SINGLE TIME. Didn't notice it so much before because all toddlers tantrum, right? But now that she's almost 4 I'm suddenly realizing I'm not sure if this is in the toddler tantrum category anyway.

She doesn't want hugs and cuddles. When she accepts them, they don't help. But most of the time it just gets her more upset. It's like she's beyond being comforted. Over her favorite shoes being wet so she needs to wear something else. Over not being able to find a specific book, that she hasn't looked at in weeks but now wants, and nothing else will do. Over not getting a second helping of fruit until after supper, which is in middle of being served as we speak and is something she likes a lot so no danger of starvation there. Over her sister standing in the spot she wanted at the sink while brushing teeth. And on and on and on. All this can happen in the same day, full breakdown each time.

I'm firm so I don't think the problem is spoiling. Her sister always gives in because frankly she's a huge headache. But she cries just as much with me even when she knows perfectly well she isn't going to get what she wanted. Just out of disappointment, keeps crying. Pretty much the way you wouldn't be able to stop crying if someone close to you recently died, except over watermelon and similar issues 5 times a day - not all days this bad but happens a lot. Days less bad is usually because things happen to be going her way. Which they do a lot, because she's a nice kid whose way usually dovetails nicely with what was going to happen anyway. But as soon as it doesn't - BOOM.

Queen6

Tue, May 31 2016, 12:27 am

Sari Yaraslowitz method. You can buy the book or CD or speak to her personally. She is the best.
Look her up online.
She's titled Are Your Hands Full?

amother

Pearl

Tue, May 31 2016, 12:35 am

What is her approach like?

FranticFrummie

Tue, May 31 2016, 4:24 am

Oh my gosh, that sounds SO hard! You must be an amazingly strong mama. Hug

Have you tried to address her once, and then ignore the tantrum and tears after that? Maybe if you don't feed into her energy, she'll figure out that she's not going to get any more attention with the non stop crying, and she'll eventually find a way to self soothe. It will be a long process, but it's worth a try.

PM Chani8. She fosters children with issues, and has amazing insight into how to help them.

chani8

Tue, May 31 2016, 5:04 am

I dont think this sounds like normal personality-type behavior. Complete melt downs four or five times a day. That is a bit much for a healthy child in a normal healthy home.

So, is this a new thing? Is there any possibility of trauma? Not to scare you. Keep in mind my frame of reference. It just sounds like she goes into a trauma reaction as soon as she feels the slightest bit of frustration. I think it's reasonable to investigate the possibility of abuse. It's not something you want to miss, if it's there, chas v'shalom.

My other thought is, since you are likely an expert in ASD because of your other child, perhaps you're familiar with the problem of looping, whereby a child gets stuck in a loop of thoughts (and behaviors) and cant move on. This may be what's happening. She's getting stuck.

Since you are spending 10-15 minutes distracting, perhaps you would try this technique which I find useful. When she is in a full blown meltdown and you've decided to use distraction, take a toy or other interesting thing into your hand, and get her to look at it, and while she looks at it, move it side to side methodically, for as long as you can get her to look at it. This is a form of EMDR, eye movements, which can create calm quickly and help the child move forward out of their loop.

chani8

Tue, May 31 2016, 5:08 am

I've thought of another thing, expressive language. Is she on target with language development? Because I do have one child who is both emotional and has speech language issues, and whenever she tries to express herself, she gets very emotional. Because, emotions and speech are interconnected. Someone very emotional may not be able to get her words out, causing frustration, which increases an emotional response, and leads quickly to a melt down.

amother

Slateblue

Tue, May 31 2016, 7:12 am

Read the explosive child.

amother

Pearl

Tue, May 31 2016, 10:21 am

Thanks for the ideas.

Maybe I should do more ignoring but it goes against my grain, I'm usually more of an empathizer. Also, ignoring will only (maybe) work on the devastation part but if I ignore the trying to get her way, then all that will happen is she gets her way and is happy but spoiled. Ignoring is a good way to sift between the real thing and the attempts to get what she wants, but when it's the real thing nothing seems to help.

It is not a new thing but when she was younger it wasn't an obvious issue because she got her way more often, and it was easier to write it off as being a baby. We also didn't really catch on and just tended to spoil her because it was the path of least resistance. I don't give in to tantrums but I am not above pre-arranging things to not tick off a strong-willed child in the first place. It's either as she grew up or as we got fed up that I realized just how strong this is. I mean, if she asks nicely for a pink bowl why should I think to say no? Easy enough. Things like that.

Seems more like the getting stuck thing to me.

I don't literally spend 10-15 minutes distracting (that would be an insane amount of attention, and if I'm going to give it attention at all it will be with calming attempts more than distractions), but between one thing and another she can get distracted a few times within that time.

EMDR idea is interesting. I will have to try that. Not sure how to get her to look at anything when she's hysterical but I am going to keep the trick in mind. It's just interesting enough to work.

She has great language when it comes to talking about what she saw or did but she doesn't talk about feelings. Not sure what's expected at that age. I do a ton of modeling and putting words to her feelings and talking about feelings in books and things like that.

When she starts whining for something I stop her and she turns right around and asks nicely. But if she doesn't get it - all heck breaks loose. Not every single thing but anything she decides to care about. Which is a lot of random-seeming things. I get the feeling that if she doesn't make a fuss then it wasn't something she cared about in the first place.

I don't know if it's related but same kid more recently has made a serious sport of picking on her older sister. The same one who usually gives into her. Pretty sure it's an attention thing but it's awful - combine regular annoying sibling behavior with an extreme stubborn streak, imagine... I feel bad for the sister. Of course I try my best to defend her and to keep 3yo off her but it is so hard I don't always succeed. She is physically very strong too!

Maybe she's just extremely spoiled, she knows she is the baby of the family and definitely likes that. But one way or another I feel like I'm losing it sometimes.

amother

Pearl

Tue, May 31 2016, 10:32 am

She didn't qualify for ASD diagnosis because her social skills and play in general are really great and there were no symptoms in the teacher's reports. But this extreme rigidity... the doctor said sometimes siblings can have some traits without having the whole thing. He said it's not OCD either - just a really strong-willed kid who has some growing up to do (and he didn't say it but possibly made worse by some spoiling when she was younger. She happens to be incredibly cute and knows it.)

I need to clarify that most of these fits are not simply when she doesn't get something she asked for (though it's often that) but more when she thought something would go a certain way and it doesn't follow the plan. Like when the shoes she wears to school every day got wet (in the smelly sense) and she had to wear something else. That was a disaster.

chani8

Tue, May 31 2016, 12:04 pm

Have you tried not intervening at all in her melt downs? The whole family has to agree to be on the same page with that, though, because if anyone engages her, it wont work. If her screaming hurts everyone's nerves, then take the child into a room and stay with her, but dont engage. It's similar to CIO, and the first time with a child this age in a melt down, can take quite some time. I do hope the EMDR works though, instead of CIO, because it's a quick and easy solution. CIO is painful for the family. If two times of successful eye movements dont result in your goal, forget it, it's not the solution.

For example with CIO and the wet shoes situation, you'd let her fall apart and not try to fix it, even if that meant she goes late or even misses school. She has to learn to self-calm, that's the goal. If anyone attempts to do it for her, she wont learn how to do it.

gp2.0

Tue, May 31 2016, 12:33 pm

What I'm seeing here is that she's not good at handling things that deviate from how they usually are, or how she pictured they would be. You need to teach her to be flexible. Some kids are better at it than others.

She also needs more warning time about transitions or deviations, like "sweetie I need your help, the shoes you want to wear are wet. What should we do?" And then offer some suggestions like "should we cry? Will that make the shoes dry? Should I tickle your feet? Will that make the shoes dry? Should we try another pair instead? What do you think?"

Kids like this tend to need a lot of control over their environments, so giving them more power over decision making keeps them from blowing up. Also if they know in advance that something different is going to happen, they have more time to adjust their expectations.

Praise her the few times when she is flexible. "I know you love the pink bowl but I only have the blue bowl today. Can you be flexible and eat from the blue bowl? You can? Yay! You're so flexible! I'm so proud of you!"

And of course the basics, make sure she's getting enough sleep and snacks, since lack of those aggravate any kid's issues.

gp2.0

Tue, May 31 2016, 12:38 pm

amother wrote:

I get the feeling that if she doesn't make a fuss then it wasn't something she cared about in the first place.
.

Or maybe those are the rare times when she's actually trying to get a handle on her emotions and showing you that she can be flexible, you need to praise her effusively when this happens.

amother

Slateblue

Tue, May 31 2016, 12:38 pm

Also try reading Parenting with Love and Logic. That may help her navigate through choices and changes.

mha3484

Tue, May 31 2016, 12:42 pm

I second the explosive child. I use the techniques on my 5 year who has many similarities to your child and I see it makes a big difference.

amother

Pearl

Tue, May 31 2016, 9:59 pm

Thanks for the ideas.

The problem with CIO is that she gets physically aggressive and I hate having to physically hold her down. Which doesn't even always work because she is strong!

That's a good idea to involve her more in the changes. Things like "will ____ make the shoes dry" seems to just make her more upset, but I'm not sure if I've tried "I need your help...what should we do?"

I definitely do praise her to the sky when she is "flexible!" But you can tell when she doesn't care (I compliment her anyway but I can still tell) - she doesn't think about it or show any sign of internal struggle. It's just "OK!" or no way.

I've read Love and Logic and between what I did before and what I picked up from it, it pretty much describes most of my parenting style.

Never read explosive child. Will have to look it up. I never thought of my kids as explosive...

mha3484

Tue, May 31 2016, 11:32 pm

I did not consider mine explosive but I hear the author speak at an event and it really resonated with me.

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