Edited 17/02/2021
My 3 Yearold !!
want_to_adopt
September 11, 2013 17:43
Help! I have a 3 year old going through the terrible two's and three's put together. She is at the stage where she literelly will NOT listen to anything that you ask/tell her to do. 7If she is misbehaving and I ask her politely not to do it, she tells me NO, if I be stern and raise my voice, she still tells me NO. She doesn't seem to understand what I am saying to her. If for instance, I ask her not to 'bite her nails' (she has a terrible habbit of this) she stops, and within the next 3 seconds, her hand is back to her mouth and biting her nails. I ask her again, and she looks at me and sighs, then stops biting, for another 3 seconds and her hand is back there biting. When I then remove her hand and say 'please pet don't bite you nails' she screams at me ... and then says (wait for it) 'WHY ARE YOU SHOUTING AT ME!' When I explin to her that im not shouting, that im asking her not to bite her nails be cause its not nice and that her nails wont grow properly etc, she says ... 'OH, OK' but then 3 seconds later, she is biting her nails! This doesn't only happen with biting her nails, this is EVERYTHING! Every single thing .... the only thing she seems to have mastered, is going to bed and staying there (and for this I am truly grateful lol) Is this just a 3 year old thing or am I doing something wrong. She mirrors everything I do or say and takes everything in around her. The other day I was cross with our dog as she had pulled our washing from the line, so half hour later my lo's doll was sitting in 'the corner on the naughty step' when I asked why she was there, she simply said ... Because I caught her taking your clothes off the line!!! There are some ways I can get her do something, by telling her what is happening after she does it (ie, we will go shopping if you put your shoes on) but when I catch her doing what she shouldn't be doing, and tell her its 'not nice' (we don't say naughty as she started repeating this to her dolls too) and then give her 3 minutes time out in her bedroom, she will scream up there till we fetch her, then repeat the same thing she went up there for in the beginning. This can go on for days and days (and still is) the ONLY thing that works with her is the counting ... 1 ... 2 ...3 etc!!! Oh and the last few days, we have a new 'saying' .... when I catch her doing something she shouldn't be ... she simply says ... but I love ya mummy!!!! Ha Ha .... she is a wee wicked minx ... but so cute with it that sometimes i have to turn away from her to grin :d
Monkey Magic
September 11, 2013 20:12
Hi want to adopt Have you tried giving positive commands? So, rather than starting with "don't" which I'm sure lots of adopted children don't hear, start with what you do want her to do and perhaps make it into a game or more playful. "Show me your happy hands", "put your hands on your knees", "let's play head, shoulders, knees and toes", "come and stand by me" etc. I tend to get a more positive reaction like this - but not always. Best of luck MMx
Edited 17/02/2021
kstar
September 11, 2013 21:00
Positive phrasing is a tried and tested behavior method in schools too, it's a great suggestion. Apparently children who struggle to behave don't know what to do with commands like "don't shout" because they don't understand what you want from them. I also found with my AD (6) that I was trying its change too many things at once and it was too much. We picked off one thing at a time (we started with sorting bedtime because it was stressing me out, then mornings because we were constantly late for school, and we are currently tackling table manners).
Edited 17/02/2021
Ceci
September 12, 2013 09:51
Hi there. It's lovely to hear from you. I suppose the biggest chunk of learning I had to do as an adoptive mum came a bit late. Your little one is 3, but possibly with a younger emotional age. However 3 is a tricky age in itself. I had to learn to lower my expectations hugely of my lo, and I'm still learning it!!! She is now 8 and a half and very defiant. She generally will ignore any request or refuse to do it. So I have had to decide what is really important at this stage in her life, and what I can live with, because we have had many battles in our house where I wanted her to do what I said (because I'm her mum and she should!), but actually most of that was about my desire to control and get it all right and have a well behaved daughter who fitted in with her peers who weren't adopted!!! Also, the naughty step and going to the bedroom doesn't really work at the age of your little one. Keep her close and let her learn from you. She will benefit much more from that than being put into her bedroom and screaming (as you've found out because she does the same thing again - that's happened so many times in our house!!!). I found walking my daughter through what I wanted her to do was the only way at that age. It's time consuming but it cuts down on the battles and makes everyone's lives much less stressful. You know I also have a birth daughter, and all the usual methods work with her, but you have to do it differently with your adopted little ones. PM me if you want to chat. Life with adopted LOs is full on at times. (By the way DH bites his nails and it drives me mad so I totally get that!!!!) Ceci
Edited 17/02/2021
Pear Tree
September 12, 2013 12:43
What a smart little lady! Knows what buttons to press eh? Actually checking out what 'buttons' are yours would be a helpful think- mine are around food and dishonesty, but for others it's stuff like shoe tidying... But it's a help to know what's going to get under your skin the most then you've got a chance of heading it off at the pass. The positive wording method is one way, Another way is to look at wording it in a non personal way, so instead of "pop your coat on and make sure you do it up." Is "there's a coat there that needs putting on and doing up" Other sneaky things like giving 10seconds and then checking back with them they have understood can help. Both of mine accuse you of shouting when you're correcting them (even in a whisper!), you might want to read some things on semantic pragmatic difficulties. Not sweating the small stuff is very hard when it's constant, do you get a break at all?
Edited 17/02/2021
Flosskirk
September 12, 2013 17:17
What occurred to me is that you are using linear a-b thinking where you expect things to go logically - and often this isn't how our children think. I went on a course about this a few years ago - basically you are in left brain mode and she isn't. I think it might help if you stop expecting a logical, 'correct' response to what you say to her. For one thing, she might have a receptive language problem - apparently about half of all adopted children have this, though it's not well known of. It means that they don't fully catch the meaning of what you say to them. So you need to use short sentences and be very clear about what you want - and don't say what you don't want as that's confusing to them. They just pick up a few words and work with them, so if you say "don't pick your nails" she might just be hearing "pick nails" and so she genuinely might not understand. It's kind of complicated operating in this world, especially if you are very left brained and expect them to comply with what you say. A lot of this comes from our own upbringings - if you were a compliant child it can drive you crazy when they won't do it (I know that's what happened to me). You have to learn how to cope with a child who won't play ball. It might be worth trying to get hold of some Bryan Post stuff, which is really mainly about us the parents and how we can learn to live with the dysfunction we have brought into our homes, and there is a good book called 'The Explosive Child' which you can get from Amazon which is really about any child who doesn't do what he/she should. I think it's a good idea to try different strategies with her - less direct demands and more cajoling for example. Good luck.
Edited 17/02/2021
Flosskirk
September 12, 2013 17:19
By the way, have you heard that time out isn't really recommended for traumatised children? It just ramps them up and it doesn't do anything to build the relationship, which has to be the top priority. You might want to find out more about time in instead.
Edited 17/02/2021
want_to_adopt
September 12, 2013 21:06
Thanks for your replies guys. Lots of great advise (as always) Flosskirk - The biting her nails - she KNOWS what she is doing lol. She does it sometimes and I will look at her and she removes her hand herself and say 'me no bite nails, that not nice' while shaking her head, so she knows what she is doing. I think she got into such a habbit, I genuinely believe she doesn't know she is doing it! I do use short sentences for her as we have noticed that when she says a sentence, some of the words are missing (usually the middle ones) She does go to speech therapy, whn she moved in with us she could only say one or two words ... now we cant shut her up. Sometimes her words arnet always clear, but we understand her perfectly. Other people are understanding her much better, so she is thriving ... but for instance, she said to me the other day 'love you jelly tots' when what she meant was what I always say to her is ' love you LOTS LIKE jelly tots' so we do try to keep sentences short, but make sure we use all the words. I know I have to treat her differently than any other normal child, and I do .... up to a point! I will say that she is a clever little girl and knows what to do to get my attention, and when she does something wrong, she will look sly eyed at me to see if I am watching. If I ignore that behaviour, she will blatantly look at me and say 'whhhaaaaat' just for me to respond (I will say that we had this behaviour with her brother too (who is 5) and she is copying all his behaviour so im dealing with this twice over!!) The other day at the school gates when picking her brother up from school, there were other little girls playing and waiting with their parents, and my LO bolted in, stopped and looked at one little girl (and I knew what was coming and I started to move to go and get her) she just pushed this other little girl over!!! Now, I know she doesn't mean to hurt the other children, but she does this a lot to nieces and nephews etc, and she doesn't seem to understand that this too is not nice! She is due to start nursery in just over a week and she is very excited about it, she has been to meet her teacher and is always talking about her, and the fishes, and the splay sand etc. Im worried that her behaviour is going to make her the black sheep of the class :-(
Edited 17/02/2021
want_to_adopt
September 12, 2013 21:12
PT ... I've had 2 evenings out in the last 6mths. Other than that, they are both with me 24 hours a day! Altho like I said in earlier post, she is starting nursery so I will get 2.5 hrs a day then .... whatever will I do with that time ;-)
Edited 17/02/2021
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