20070820

What can I do?

I feel panicky today.

I have Care-Bear today, and all week. She spent ninety percent of yesterday crying and fussing uncontrollably to her Dad. So how did she start today? The same way.

Rhayn has a costume from when she was four (lovely picture of her wearing it for Halloween.) It is a leopard. It is in her costume bin. Care-Bear has "claimed" it for her own. She says it is her "tiger" costume, and she wants to wear it all the time. Her Dad told her she could wear it yesterday AFTER breakfast. She screams and cries- he caves. He tells her she has to take it off to eat breakfast, she screams and yells and says "I don't want to eat." He takes the costume off of her, and takes her in his room to calm down before they come down to eat. I take the opportunity to hide said costume. We had talked about this and I have had to hide various other things because she screams and cries and gets mad so I chose the easier route- hiding from view the point of contention.

I felt like I had made a good decision. I stand by my choice to remove the costume yesterday. Dad thinks I should have left it out, so she could have it all day yesterday, and then put it away last night, so I would be left dealing with the screamin' demon. Maybe he didn't think of it that way, but he wanted her to have it all day yesterday, so it would be easier to deal with her. I just didn't want to hear about it. I also am a little irked because as she is screaming "MY TIGER COSTUME!!!!" He never corrects her- I would say "Really it is Rhayn's costume." He lets her get away with anything and everything. He caves to her every whim, and she walks all over him.

This morning she awoke at 5:30 am, and according to her Dad, started in on crying about the costume. I might have let her play with it a little today, because she USUALLY does not fight me as much when I tell her no. I could hear her yelling, and screaming at her dad. He brought her downstairs and she screamed for about thirty minutes, after her dad left. She lay on the bottom stair and cried. I thought she might even fall asleep when she was doing that. I finally got her to calm down by giving her breakfast, which she barely touched.

We went to drop Rhayn off, all is fine, we went to the grocery store, all is fine. We come in and she plays nicely for about fifteen minutes. Then she starts telling Gwen mean things. I intervene. I try to tell her to talk nicely. She says "I am going home to my mom's house." and "I am mean to you!" I talk to her, but let it all go.
Then she throws something.
I tell her "come here."
"NO!"
"Care-Bear, come here."
"NO!"
I go and take her hand, putting her in the corner. More of her yelling not very nice things at me.
"Care-Bear, in time-out we have to be quiet."
"NO!"
"If you aren't quiet you are going to bed"
"NO!"
She has already told me she does not want lunch unless if it Teddy Grahams that I bought as a TREAT at the grocery store.
"NO! YOU BE QUIET!" she screams this at me.
I grab her arm, and pull her up, holding her screaming, tantrum-throwing, three year old(but size of a healthy five year old!) body by the waist as I take her upstairs. I put her in bed. She screams at me "I am mad at you!"
I turn on the baby monitor and walk away.

I can only see today getting worse. She yelled for about twenty minutes and finally fell asleep. I was going to let her up when she calmed down, to eat lunch. Since she is asleep, and I can relax a bit maybe I can come up with some ideas of what to do with her, or how to talk to her Dad about this.

I am so glad I start my yoga class tonight, I really need that centering!

3 comments:

Briep said...

I am sorry that you have to deal with this. In Nersury we have a 3 year old that is just like that. She is the oldest and it is horrible. Two sundays ago everyone had put the toys away and were at the table waiting for snack and she was playing with a toy and running around. I took the toy out of her hand because she refused to put it away. She then tells me that her mommy will not like this and that her mommy is going to kill me.

I wanted to scream......

anyways I am glad you get a chance to leave the house tonight!

Unknown said...

sadly it makes me feel a little better to read that someone else has a demon child at home. sorry it sucks so much.

Amie said...

I'm sure you'll get lots of advice on this, but my two cents: you're doing right! I think it's better to nip situations like this in the bud. No is no is no. Don't cave. And a little screaming in time-out or bed or the corner never hurt any kid. Sooner or later (hopefully sooner for your sanity) she'll lean that Miss Leaner does not give in. She may be able to walk all over Daddy, but it's not gonna happen with you.

I've forgotten--do they live with you? If not, and it was me (I do home daycare) I would give this situation about two weeks and if things weren't better, I'd have to let them go. It's not worth it for you! Good luck, let me know if I can help at all. Stick to your guns.

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