I don’t know the fist thing about parenting, so I was hoping some of you may have some suggestions in disciplinarian measurers for my girlfriend’s ‘wild child’. She’s almost 3 years old. She throws tantrums constantly and kicks, screams, bites, and scratches when she doesn’t get her own way.
I personally like the idea of “time-out”, and let her tire herself by screaming and crying while not receiving any positive or negative attention. And just continue to do that until she learns that misbehaving will resort to a time-out. The problem is, the only way we could think of restraining her was to bring in her child seat from the car… which seems pretty cruel, (no we hadn’t tried that yet, but she’s too young to be sent to her room and too old to be placed in a crib she can’t escape from).
Can anyone help?
What, (other than punishment), can help her behavioral problems? I suggested we go to the park where she can get some exercise, and maybe tire herself out.
Oh, and thanks for the help Dopers! If this is in the wrong forum, I’m sorry… didn’t know if this would be a MPSIMS thread or what.
On that note, neither one of us believe in hitting. And yes I know of the ‘terrible twos’. I just started seeing this girl, and it would be weird for me to act as a disciplinarian to her child I just met. So any advice on the role I should play would be helpful too.
How long have you been in a relationship with this woman? I think that may be an important piece to this OP that you need to provide.
My first instinct is to say to butt out, the child is not yours, even if you are “dating” her mother. I’ve been with my SO for 3 years, and I have JUST began to step in and put my foot down when the kids are acting up on their visits - and they have JUST begun to listen to me. If you don’t live there with them, or aren’t a permanent father fixture in this child’s life, then I would say she (the daughter) is off limits to you. Until you become a stepparent, I really don’t think it’s even your place to interject at this point. And even THEN I think there may be boundaries that a non-bio parent should respect. Where is the girl’s father? Is he involved? If so, then your GF should be turning to him for assistance, IMO.
It’s not easy, and I am sure it sucks to see your GF frustrated, but I don’t really think there is anything you can (or should ) do quite yet. If this is a fairly new relationship, I would say that you may be, very well, S.O.L.
BUT - that’s just my opinion, and I am pretty sure that someone here has a much better idea.
Have you ever watched Supernanny? I don’t know how long it really takes to do this, but she manages to get toddlers (and three and four-year-olds) to stay in a time-out place without any kind of restraint on the child.
Now on TV this happens within the first half hour. I imagine in real life it might take hours. She walks the child to the timeout place. The child gets up. She takes him back. Over and over. Eventually the child gets bored with the back and forth and stays in the timeout place. I suppose the psychology of it is that the kid gets bored. The timeout periods are short – just a couple of minutes, long enough for the kid to calm down. The timeout doesn’t end until the child apologizes (it doesn’t have to be sincere).
Watch a couple episodes – what she does makes sense and it seems to work, but it does take a lot of time and energy, and nothing else gets done while this is going on.
ETA: It goes without saying that you and your girlfriend need to be on the same page here.
My daughter is a tantrumer. She’s much better now then she was about 6 months ago. What worked for us is time outs and ignoring tantrums.
Your gf’s daughter is absolutely old enough to go to her room. The only difference is you take her there. (I’m going to use “you” in this post as the universal you, not in that I think you’ll be doing the lion’s share of discipline.) What we do when Gothlette is misbehaving is the rule of three.
Warning and clearly telling her what we don’t want her to do. (Stop splashing in the cat’s water bowl.) Usually combined with us moving her away from the behavior.
Warning and informing her of consequence. (If you splash one more time you’re going in time out.) Again, moving her away from the behavior.
3 Punishment. (You splashed after I told you not to. It’s time for a time out.)
We then carry her to her room, put her down and close the door behind us. We have to hold the door closed 'cause she’ll just come tug at it. This usually leads to two minutes of wailing on the other side of the door. At the end of time out we open the door and offer her a hug and her sippy. The hug calms her down and the sippy distracts her.
Full on tantrums are a different strategy. We discovered that ANY attention made the tantrum go on longer and more frequently. So when she hit tantrum mode we generally left her where she was (usually on her back, on the floor, screaming) and talked or read like she wasn’t there. She learned pretty darn quickly that tantrums got her nowhere. I honestly don’t remember the last flop-on-the-floor-and-scream tantrum we had. Now she makes an effort to use her words or - if she doesn’t have the words - she’ll pull us to whatever it is she wants. Much calmer house hold this way.
Your gf’s daughter is older then ours is now (and far older then she was when the tantrums started) but the same principle should apply. Kids learn quick what gets them attention and what doesn’t. And yes, yelling and lecturing is attention in their eyes. If the tantrum doesn’t get her what she wants she’ll stop using them and start looking for other ways to get it. That’s when you can start guiding her to use her words.
My son is 2 and knee deep in the tantrum stage. He’s a bit behind verbally, which I’m sure doesn’t help the situation.
We follow the rules of three a previous poster outlined. Then he gets walked to his room. We say “If you’re not going to behave, you can’t spend time with the people who are behaving.” We all have to behave in this house. We put lots of emphasis on that. When he calms down, we give him a hug, and tell him to come out and play.
How is a three year old not old enough to be sent to her room?
Send her. Shut the door so she can’t gain attention with her bad behavior. Inform her that she may come out when she’s done throwing the tantrum and ready to behave. If she comes out of the room, walk her back without saying a word. (Of course, you may have to carry her back.) Keep returning her to her room without reinforcement until the tantrum is over. The Love and Logic book recommends a backward door knob with the lock facing out for especially stubborn kids. You can take or leave that advice.
Quiet time with no reaction from the parent is the only thing I’ve found that truly stops tantrums. It isn’t a quick fix, however, you have to be absolutely consistent. And for the love of all things Holy and the child herself do not try to beg, plead, or reason when she’s in the middle of a fit. Do not try to bribe her out of it or offer the bribe when you see one coming. Avoid bribes for good behavior altogether, actually. When she behaves in a way that makes people not want to be around her remove her from company. That’s it. Give it time to work. I have an especially stubborn son that took three months of going to his room before his tantrums stopped completely. They stopped though.
In my experience taking things away and time-out seem to work infinitely better than say spanking does. But then when you’re out at a restaurant or something you’re a little more limited to what you can do.
When my daughter was 3 she would throw tantrums. The best thing for her was to take her into my bedroom, put her on the bed, and leave her there. She would cry and scream and such for a while. An interesting thing about her (unlike her older sister) was that she couldn’t really stop on her own, so after a while I would go in there and help her calm down by holding her and talking quietly. She seemed to need both the time to freak out and the help in calming down.
One important thing with tantrums is to stay very calm. To a little kid like that, the feelings are overwhelming and out of control, and it’s scary if the adult also gets angry–it feels like the world is out of control too.
If she’s getting violent and such then a naughty bench might be a good solution. But the parent has to be willing to invest several days in being very very consistent–tirelessly so. Otherwise you’re just teaching her to be persistent. If you give in after 30 minutes, then she learns she just has to last for 31 minutes. If you never break, then she learns it’s not worth the effort.
Once that time is invested, life gets a lot easier.
I know quite a lot of people that use that exact technique. My sister even learned it when she got her babysitting certification.
Anyways, if anyone is going to act the same on camera, it will be kids. I often run into kids who do not realize there is a difference in how you can act at home and in public. Figuring out that a camera means you need to act different is even harder.
Yeah, they’ll eventually learn it, but I don’t think a toddler would be that good at it.
This isn’t your child. You have no authority and no right to discipline her. If she kicks or hits you and her mother doesn’t respond, then your recourse is to leave. It’s not your business to do a thing to or with the child, nor to advise what to do with the child, period.
There has been some good advice on how to manage the child in this thread.
The real issue is the role that the OP needs to play in this :-
The mother needs to be managing the child - she is the consistent factor in the childs life, and the one who has to live with the behaviour. Only she can and should do this.
The OP (assuming he really wants to be with the mother and daughter) has the job of backing up and supporting the mother through the process - making sure that her will to help her child does not waver or falter, which it will. It is hard enough to do with two parents, but it is absolutely difficult for a solo parent, and they need all the help they can get. So the OP needs to be there for the tears and the frustration and the hugs and the encouragement, until the process is complete. And if he sticks through that, then maybe he will be in a position to take a deeper, more committed role in the childs life as well, because after coping with that, a couple are capable of handling almost anything else life can throw at them.
On the other side of the coin, focus on the good behaviours too. It’s very easy with a difficult child to just finally be so greatful that they’re finally behaving, that you actually forget to praise them for the good behaviour.
The timeout routine as outlined above seems to work really well for a lot of parents. Don’t use her carseat for this - the idea is that she learns to stay where she is put by herself (with repeated replacement). You don’t want her to start associating the car seat and being strapped in with punishment, as that may cause problems of its own.
