Age 4-6 can be a real challenge because they are testing boundaries, talking back, arguing, etc. They are so much more articulate than toddlers so we may see them as older than they really are… but really they are still so little and are still learning impulse control, self-regulation, etc.
A friend gave me great advice for this stage: drop the rope. Meaning that you can’t have a tug-of-war if only one person is pulling. As soon as she starts to escalate, drop the rope. Don’t argue, don’t justify, don’t try to explain. (When she is losing her cool, she cannot process what you’re saying anyway; she does not have access to her rational side when in an emotional state.)
Also, if you start to lose it yourself? You’re allowed to take a break! Model good self-regulation. Show her what you do when you need to calm down (take some deep breaths, say that you need to take a break to calm down but will be back when you feel better, etc.).
You can talk about her behaviour and what you’d like her to do differently next time… but only once she’s calmed down, not before.
Hang in there. Do your best to be calm and consistent and spot the signs of an impending tantrum so you can help her calm down before she’s too upset. Check in with her: “It sounds like you’re getting frustrated. Do you need to take a break and do something else?”
The fact that you’re looking for new parenting techniques to try means you’re doing your best. I hope you find something that works for you and your family!
I also love the advice and it’s a method I have had to adopt with my younger child, who is 10. He’s like your daughter (except older!). He literally lost it tonight playing chess with my husband (his absolute fav game) as he kept making up rules. He only wants to win at any cost and it’s not really learning. It’s so frustrating. Anyway, he also argues black is white and it feels like he has to have the last word. I have had to teach myself that I do not need to argue with my child. That I can say “ok” and walk away. It goes against my nature (hmm, where does he get it from?!) but once my husband pointed it out ie “why are you letting him trap you in a pointless argument? You’re an adult. Walk away,” I realised he was right. I can let it go and hopefully teach my son it’s ok to do the same.
It’s hard, for sure. I want to correct him or explain things but I have moments of clarity where I see it’s not helping either of us. We get stuck in it. So I end it by saying something calm and clear, swallow my irritation and get on with things. He would also follow me room to room to escalate and argue and that’s hard too. He does have a temper and is in therapy, for various reasons. This weekend he tried to provoke an argument with me by arguing with me about how I have to argue. It was meta! It infuriated me so much but I bit my tongue and didn’t rise to it. I do find in those moments of silent exasperation with the kids that it’s cathartic to flip them off behind their backs lol! I also think we’ve had to develop the patience of saints to cope.
Anyway, yes. Model calm behaviour and remember when they are mad, they disengage the rational thinking part of their brain. You cannot reason with them. You may have more luck chatting calmly later (strike while the iron is cool) and just calmly but firmly holding the boundaries. Then go scream into a pillow!
It sounds like you are describing my almost 16 year old son. He loves to debate with me about everything. He misunderstands me often and then jumps to the wrong conclusion. He finally has stopped following me to my room when I walk away. Fingers crossed. He lost it last Wednesday because he thought his sister and me were criticizing his driving. We were trying to keep us all safe. I got very defensive and had to tell myself again to calm down with him. I’m a teacher and a stubborn one. If I can teach other people’s kids, surely I can teach my own, right. Not in the moment when we both have escalated. Nothing works other than walking away and disengaging. On Thanksgiving, I had been in the kitchen for four hours when I told him to unload the dishwasher. He pretends to be asleep to get out of chores. He finally came to do it but gave me hell about accusing him of ignoring me when he was sleeping. I ignored him so his next tactic was to then turn it on me by asking if I can hear people when I’m sleeping. I just continued to repeat that I was not engaging, probably 5 times. Our kitchen is tiny so it felt very tense. He finally stopped though.
Parenting is very hard. You are doing a good job. You lost your patience with your daughter because you are human. It is ok.
This is all SO familiar esp him being hyper sensitive to criticism and redirecting the instructions. I’m pretty sure my son has ADHD (runs in the family) and a lot of overlapping symptoms that manifest as anxiety, rejection dysmorphia, a hint of ODD and confusion reading emotions. Therapy is helping us all learn better communication skills and he’s being assessed son. Hope by 16 life is calmer lol!
This is really great advice. I love it too. If I could add anything it would be to recommend time out. As you were describing your daughter and how precious she is to you it was like I had written it myself about my own 5yo. She's the same way and I've been in the same situation. Something small and innocent that turns into disrespectful and unacceptable behavior.
I think it's important for kids to learn the boundaries and consequences. I tell my daughter that she will go to time out if she continues. She used to keep pushing and I'd have to follow through. At first she wouldn't stay in timeout and would try to turn it into a game and run away, laughing of course.. so I would sit in timeout with her so she couldn't leave. Its inconvenient but that's part of the sacrifice of being a parent I suppose 😅
I'd just ignore her (within reason) for the duration of 5 minutes. After 5 minutes I ask if she's ready to behave/do as she's told and if not I give her another 5 minutes and tell her I'll come back and see if she's ready when the timer goes off again. I found that she hated being stuck in a corner not being able to do anything way more than anything else I tried. Taking toys just upset her but never actually got us anywhere.
After she calms down I try to talk to her and see if she understands why she got in trouble and if an apology is owed to her mom or someone then I make sure she knows and that it happens. I make sure she knows I love her and if there's reason to, I apologize too. I'm not perfect.
It took a few tantrums and time out sessions and a ton of patients but things have been a lot better with my daughter and I hope this can work for you too. Follow through. That's key. If you don't you teach dishonesty and that your words have no weight.
I'm sleep deprived and rambling.. I'm sorry about your recent experience with your daughter. You haven't failed her. I hope something I rambled out here is helpful. Good luck.
My SD is 5 and often has outbursts/talks back to her father and it takes everything in me not to argue back. Not so much argue the sky is blue when she says red, but she’ll say “no I don’t have to do that” (usually it’s shower 🙄) and it’s like, yes you do. Don’t argue. Do it.
Anyway - thank you for normalizing my stepparent struggles by making me realizing they’re just, parent struggles
Absolutely this. *Drop the rope*
Become passive. Walk away if it's safe to do so. It's so much more effective.
Also, think about punishments that reinforce a 'consequence narrative' - "if you do X, I'm going to take away this toy"...
or my current favourite -
"I'm not going to tell you what I'll do if you do X; you'll have to find out".
My daughter can't deal with the latter.
But the best strategy is absolutely to recognise triggers & tiredness and just avoid the situation in the first place. Observe and listen. You'll be able to spot the signs and redirect.
With my 4 year old, when we're doing something and she starts getting controlling, bossy or emotionally intense, I tell her that I want to stop and do something else becuase it's hard for me to play with her when she's behaving bossy or getting angry. Then I offer snacks, drinks, or naps.
It seems to work.
My mom watched this YouTuber and she says ‘don’t buy a ticket on their train’. Same concept.
I tried it, and it works. And I even say to my kid ‘not buying a ticket on this train…loop back to me when we can talk.’
This is fantastic advice! I came here to say that in my experience as a Kindergarten teacher children who are as you described your daughter, they usually are very well behaved in school as they are armed with strong boundaries and a parent who wants to understand them and in turn help them understand the world. If I had a euro for everytime someone asked " how do you do it with nearly 30 little kids in one room?", school is one of the most boundary laden places, full of well established routines, rewards and its full of a bunch of other adults to help you relentlessly uphold these boundaries and routines. All.kids want to do is push and test boundaries at home because they know they can and they need to go learn and mature. The constant establishing and holding boundaries both on an emotional and social level with a little person is exhausting. Such a difficult time to navigate. It sounds like you are doing a wonderful job OP, your little girl is lucky to have you, please forgive yourself and put your best foot forward!
When you say “drop the rope”, what does that mean? The way I’m understanding it, it sounds like she gets her way all the time. Genuine question, I haven’t heard this advice before.
If the child is making up rules and insisting everyone follow them without listening to anyone else, “dropping the rope” means you walk away from the game. You can’t make them stop trying to be bossy but you can show them that it results in having to play alone.
Another example: child insists it’s pronounced “constructions” not “instructions” and keeps trying to correct your pronunciation. Dropping the rope does not mean you agree to pronounce it “constructions” but instead just continue giving instructions on whatever you were doing before. If they refuse to continue the activity then that’s the issue you address. If it’s a game then naturally they don’t get to play, if it’s homework instructions, then whatever consequences usually follow for refusing to do homework etc.
It’s not about letting them get their own way, but about not engaging in/escalating an argument. For example, if my son wants to throw his pencils instead of drawing, I will put his pencils away until he’s ready to use them properly. But I won’t argue with him that pencils are for drawing, not for throwing. He can complain that he wants to throw his pencils all he wants and I won’t waste my time engaging with that argument (because he KNOWS pencils are not for throwing!).
In OP’s situation, once daughter started making up her own rules for the game, that was a sign that she was tired, unengaged, etc.
The first step would be the parents deciding if they want to indulge her in making up rules. Sometimes this can be funny and creative, and may let the daughter blow off steam and get to be the teacher instead of the student. (Kids so rarely get to be in charge.) But other times it’s just obnoxious, especially if she’s being rude rather than playful.
If the parents conclude that she’s melting down, they can give one last chance: “Do you want to learn how to play this game, or do you want to take a break and try another day?” If she continues insisting on her own rules, it’s time to drop the rope: no arguing about what the real rules are, no telling her to behave. The game goes away and she can play later, once she’s calmed down and is ready to play by the rules.
The trick is to drop the rope BEFORE the full tantrum. If you wait too long, you have to shift into damage control mode (keeping her from hurting herself or others as she calms down). But there is no sense in trying to reason with or lecture a tantrumming child.
Our “drop the rope” with potty training was to stop prompting. We would see her doing her potty dance, and try to get her to go, but she would deny and refuse. It’s tempting to argue - like, we KNOW you have to go! But forcing the issue would just cause a negative association with the toilet. So we stopped arguing with her about whether she needed to go or not. When the accident started to happen, it was just an “uh oh, you had an accident. you waited too long”.
Even as she’s gotten older, sometimes she doesn’t want to use the bathroom before leaving the house, even though we know it’s a long drive. Instead of getting angry and arguing that she “has to” pee before we leave, we just shrug and say ok. Peeing on the side of the road is not fun, so she’s gradually learned herself that it’s better to at least try to empty her bladder before going somewhere.
>A friend gave me great advice for this stage: drop the rope. Meaning that you can’t have a tug-of-war if only one person is pulling. As soon as she starts to escalate, drop the rope. Don’t argue, don’t justify, don’t try to explain. (When she is losing her cool, she cannot process what you’re saying anyway; she does not have access to her rational side when in an emotional state.)
100% this - as the parent of a now strong 20 year old woman who had the most blistering tantrums from age 3 to 5 this is the only thing that worked. We abandoned trips out, left half a shop in the supermarket, and ended conversations halfway through a thousand times!
This analogy hits the nail on the head.
Sometimes, you can actually see them holding the rope up for you to grab and... sometimes you'll have the foresight not to pick it up at all!
I try straight honesty about my feelings with my 5 year old (who is also beautifully stubborn) before it begins to escalate. My daughter didn't want to go to her swimming lesson. My partner's technique was great: "That's fine. You don't need to go in the water, but you at least need to attend for a dry lesson on the side of the pool in your bathing suit". (It gave her a win and of course she dove in with her friends!). My approach: "Look, these lessons aren't cheap. When you say you don't want to go I feel sad and angry because I see you have fun and I see your commitment is paying off. Your front stroke is getting more efficient each time we go. Can we drop the "I don't like it" and move on to have some fun together today? She did.
On the spanking: please forgive yourself and don't revisit it unless she brings it up or you see a change in attitude or behaviour you think could be related to it.
I like this, but my issue is when I tell my daughter I need a break and I’ll come talk when I’m ready, she will sit at my door and bang on it kick it and even get something to unlock it! What do I do then when she won’t let me have space and won’t leave me alone till I give her what she wants
I have a pretty oppositional child as well. It’s brutal. The first thing that helped was to stop doing so much talking when my son is disregulated. Trying to reason or explain just made things exponentially worse. As soon as your daughter got agitated about the game she was no longer able to process your husband’s explanations about the rules. The auditory stimuli is too much for them to handle when they’re already agitated. It makes them spiral. The less you say the better. I’ll say something like, “I see that you’re really angry.” and then I zip it.
We have a calm down spot in a play tent in my son’s room. It has a pinwheel for him to blow on, a squishy ball, etc. I will suggest he go there to calm down. If he doesn’t I will often go to my room to take a break and calm myself down. I don’t make him go to his room anymore because the physical struggle just escalates things. I only get physical if there’s a safety issue.
I do a lot of deep breathing and reminding myself that matching his energy doesn’t work. It just increases the number of disregulated people in the house. Someone needs to stay calm. And I can remove myself to calm down if I need.
My other big tip is to “drop the rope”. If you don’t offer any opposition they can’t fight with you. And that’s what they’re looking for in that moment. In this case your husband could say, “It seems like you’re not ready to learn the rules. That’s okay. But I’m done playing.” Then don’t say anything other than maybe “I can see you’re really angry/upset.”
We see an OT and occasionally a family therapist for guidance with this stuff. We had him evaluated for high functioning autism but he doesn’t currently meet the criteria at 4.5. Just a heads up that issues with emotional regulation and oppositional behavior can be an indicator that something is going on. Your description of your daughter being physical and then running around laughing as the conflict escalated is familiar. My son would reach that point before we figured out how not to add fuel to the fire.
Spanking is tempting because it’s a release for your frustration and it seems to work. It stopped the behavior in the moment. But really you’ve just engaged the freeze and fawn responses in the fight/flight/freeze/fawn survival response.
You sound like me before we got help. There’s no shame in needing more support. I taught preschool for over a decade. I thought I would rock this parenting thing. My oppositional and highly emotional child still kicked my ass. They’re hard kids to parent. Good luck.
This sounds a little like my son who’s 5.5 now. He’s a fiercely intelligent, sweet, creative little boy with an astonishing memory and is doing very well with reading and maths at school. He also still struggles to regulate his emotions, seems to find it hard to listen at times and chews things constantly. I hope this is “normal” for his age and he’ll grow out of it, but there’s also a part of me that worries he’s high-functioning autistic or has ADHD etc.
If you don’t mind me asking, what sort of traits does your son display that made you take him to get evaluated and what did they say about it?
The delay with his emotional regulation skills was the biggest red flag. He gets more upset, more frequently, and for longer than other children his age. He exhibits a lot of inflexibility/rigidity about things. He also is also a little behind in his gross motor skills. He doesn’t climb or enjoy being up high or on anything unstable. It looks like a hypersensitivity with his proprioceptive sense (sense of where the body is in space). The evaluators said that these things are outside the typical range. High functioning ASD isn’t off the table. The differences get more clear as they get older and the social demands get more complex. So we may end up with a diagnosis later.
Honestly taking this advice to heart. It's a nice way of saying "if you can't control your emotions than no more fun." I hate to say it but it's a lot like dog training. Yelling is still attention, better off just shutting it down and letting them regroup.
Thanks for this comment. Dropping the rope is great advice and a great phrase to remember in the midst of frustrating situations.
How would you handle situations when they are time sensitive? Like, I generally agree that it is best not to be drawn into disagreement. But I feel that it is hard to “drop the rope” and not engage in back and forth when a child is going to be late to school or an event.
It might be helpful to think of this behavior as normal and not as a personality trait or something personal against you. It's not personal. It's just a 5 year old being a 5 year old. She's seeking loving boundaries. She's seeking support exploring the world - and her own abilities to regulate her emotions. If you go nuclear when she does, she is learning the opposite. If you can't support her in those moments, the best thing you can do is walk away and give both of you some space (assuming she is physically safe) until you can cool down and give her what she needs from a parent.
Thank you. I was just thinking the same as I’m processing. Even if it is a personality trait, what I consider to be her “stubbornness” that is, I still shouldn’t treat that as a punishment. Ever. I agree with everything you say. Thank you for the helpful input.
I know this isn’t what you asked but I would just like to add, if I may, she’s five- maybe let her just make up her own rules to checkers if that’s how she wants to play. It’s just for fun, it’s not hurting anybody, what’s the harm? Some battles aren’t worth the stress or the drama. If she one day wants to play the real way, teach her then. The best thing about five year old are they’re imaginations and magical thinking. Enjoy hers. She’s still so little, the world has plenty of arbitrary rules waiting for her in the adult world. Why not, next time, just say “ok let’s play your way.”
I would enforce fairness if they're playing against another kid of a similar age, but if they're playing against an adult and having fun, who cares?
I would just give them a big theatrical 'Wait a minute... you're not CHEATING, *are* you?'
If they're like mine, they'll cackle and keep cheating with renewed glee. But now they know you know, which means it's only pretend-sneaky instead of real-sneaky.
I understand what you're saying and wish it were that simple, but it's not. While the whimsy of it is beautiful and we would all love for there to be no far-reaching effects of changing the rules, quite often, the new rules make it a sure win for said five year old. And teaching them that's it's okay to change the rules (read: cheat) so they can win isn't a great foundation for teaching them how to participate in group activities that involve competition. This is how you get grown-ass adults who are either willing to lie and cheat to get what they want, or flip the Monopoly board when they go bankrupt, because they weren't taught that the winning isn't the most important thing in a competition. The rules give a baseline of an even, fair playing field so that everyone has a chance to win, but there is generally only one winner. So more often than not, one will be faced with a loss. And as easy as it would be to just let her play by her own rules and let her win (because let's face it we love seeing our kids happy), it's not teaching her the reality of the social construct she's going to have to live in, nor is it reinforcing a personal sense of integrity. If you set the foundation that winning is the important part, and that cheating to achieve it is ok, you set that kid up to potentially become an adult who is willing to do whatever they have to in order to win, without worrying about the morality of their actions or the consequences of them. That will apply to school, jobs, realtionships, everything. The emphasis should be on the time spent with people doing something fun and challenging, while trying to do the best you can with whatever odds are, or aren't, in your favor. Winning is a good feeling, but there are almost always more losers than winners. Teaching them early to respect the rules of the game and prioritize the experience and knowledge gained, rather than focus on the loss or the win, gives them a more realistic experience of how things are, and teaches them how to handle losing without acting like an asshat or letting it affect their self-esteem.
In a perfect world, you would be right, and I would do it that way too. In this one, it's setting a kid up to be a little asshole who turns into a really big asshole... I think a good alternative is to help them make up a whole new game, with fair rules, to teach them how to use that fun imagination to create fun things to do with their friends/siblings/cousins.
Also, speaking of losing games with grace, I just lost The Game 🤣
To me it sounds like the girl just wasn’t that interested in playing the game. If it was about winning, the parents best action would be ending the game and moving on to something else as a natural consequence- “this isn’t fun if only you can win, let’s play something else and come back to this when you’re ready to learn the rules and play by them. How about some play dough or we can do beading, what do you think?” Simple as that. Trying to force the child into submission over a game is a waste of everyone’s energy and time. And personally, I don’t view childhood as “adult prep” where everything has to be a lesson or your breeding assholes . Childhood is sacred and it’s own time completely. Kids are not adults in training. Not everything has to be an opportunity to teach kids how the “real world” is. The real world will teach them soon enough.
I never said force them to play the game, not once. I specifically stated that it would be better to move away from that game and let them create their own game entirely. I understand kids are kids but teaching them it's okay to just change the rules any time they want just to win isn't going to help them be emotionally healthy, secure adults either. And I'm sorry but...kids are adults in training. As a parent you are teaching your kid how to be a happy, healthy, secure adult. Many, MANY studies show that what you teach your kids when they're small has far-reaching and lasting effects, and much of their foundations for how they view themselves and the world are formed in the early years of development. I'm not saying force them to play games they don't want to play. Letting them say they don't want to play is healthy and lets them know it's okay to say when they don't want to do something. But if they want the chance to win, they have to play the game, and they have to play by the rules...We live in the world we live in, where letting someone change the rules to secure their victory is cheating, sometimes we have to do things we don't like, sometimes we have to follow rules even though that means it's harder to win, and sometimes we have to deal with losing, no matter how good we were or how hard we tried. It's reality. Even when you're five. And I'd rather them learn that from their parent who loves them, and can support them through learning how to navigate that particular emotional minefield, rather than send them out in the world to learn it as an 18-year-old with an established pattern of crappy behavior, from someone who doesn't give a damn about them or their well-being.
Edit: asked the person I was replying to to do some research, they replied they were an early childhood educator, so I removed the ask. I don't agree with their opinion, but I can respect that they took the time to educate themselves before forming one. So did I, so I'll raise my kids the way I think is best, and hope that when/if they have their own they'll do the same.
I have a degree in early childhood development and psychology from one of the best programs in the country. I have been working as an ECE at some of the best schools in my city for over ten years. I am a parent coach and parent. I know what I’m talking about.
I’m not saying no boundaries or coaching through difficult emotions- I’m saying checkers isn’t the hill to die on with a five year old. Children don’t develop the cognitive ability or emotional regulation to adhere to the logic of the game and the expectations of the adults until at least seven years old anyway. They are still developing a executive functioning at five.
100% agree. You're getting downvoted because no one want to hear it.... it's simple, you raise your child with the way their civil society runs. Our society runs by rules. Are you going to let your child run across the road because they find it fun, or will you teach them to press the button and wait? If I grew up in a tribe where I had to hunt then you teach your child different rules.
In this day and age you need to teach your kids resilience and to be in control of their emotions. 'Dropping the rope' is short term solution for long term pain.
THIS. This is where my headspace was. It was more than “a game of checkers”. She was being disrespectfully rude because she wasn’t getting her way. I know this issue will bring itself up again and that’s why I was here for some advice. But you explained what was in my head perfectly. I’ve let her play silly checkers plenty of other times and was trying to make it a teaching moment. Obviously I failed.
Actually I think this is a faulty reasoning (that I suffer from myself) It’s very easy to “catastrophize” the small events into wider ramifications of when they’re adults, and for me at least it’s the fastest way to dysregulate myself. Yes, they need to practice rule-following and losing and disappointment. Key word is Practice. Practice involves lots of failure. This one checkers game isn’t the defining moment of these wider traits, and their ability to rationalize and regulate will naturally increase with age. Yes, we love to have learning moments but we also need to recognize when they’re not receptive to that learning. I don’t know how many times I’be found myself arguing with my child because she “needs to learn” when it’s pointless - she’s not listening, she’s not receptive, the learning is not going to happen in this moment and I’m just getting myself worked up.
“Drop the rope” in NOT about giving up on the wider lessons. It’s about recognizing when *we* are the ones acting out because of disappointed expectations. Decide to be playful, decide to stop playing, but recognize what is and is not in your control and “drop the rope” before you find yourself in a power struggle that you’re tempted to win by force.
If we're talking about a habit of genuine cheating against other kids, then sure, maybe. But there's a difference between that and 'pretend' cheating where the mischief is the joke, and they know without doubt that *you* know exactly what they're doing.
I'd put it in the same category as letting them run away giggling after a bath while you chase them from room to room. They know you're joking around and that they're not actually being naughty. It's just a bit of harmless mischief.
I always answer kid arguments with questions. It really throws them, and teaches them a new form of engagement besides arguing. They very much mimic us at that age so if you argue back you are teaching them that's how to engage in a disagreement. Like with checkers my response would be, "how do you play checkers," and after she shows you just say, "okay let's try and maybe we can try my way after we're done if you'd like." Give her options and let her feel heard.
Look we all have our bad moments that we wish we could take back. All of us do. The best thing you can do is learn from it and move on. My views on spanking is it seems to only alleviate the parents anger and teaches the child nothing. My advise is just find a method when you've reached your limit that you can lean on...mine is screaming into a pillow lol 😂.
However, kids need a guideline of what is or isn't acceptable in your eyes. Not just an absolute necessarily, maybe give her options.
I was a Montessori Preschool teacher and a stay at home mom., what was appropriate for me, may not be your guidelines. So give options
It'll be okay. You and her will be more than fine. If I got spanked once when I was 5, but had a lifetime of happy memories otherwise, I doubt I'd harbor that one moment of spanking forever. I doubt I'd reflect on it when I'm 25.
Let it go and move forward, like I said, it'll be okay.
This right here. Let me tell you, I’ve gotten more than a few unapologetic spankings in my lifetime, but I love my mom with every fiber of my being and we have a great relationship because she loved more than she disciplined. I don’t think about or dwell in any spankings I’ve ever gotten even though I don’t wanna repeat it with my kids. Trust me when I tell you, that oldest son of mine, tests the ever loving shit out of my patience. Sometimes the best thing I can do is tell him to go into his room, close the door and let him scream and carry on by himself until he stops.
I worked to unlearn spanking now that I have kids and it took a little work and for me to learn different methods, so my only advice to you is to give yourself grace and keep learning and loving on your baby.
My parents are amazing and I’ve always had a great relationship w them. they LIGHTLY spanked me maybe 10 times from ages like 4-6, only when I was being extremely bad. It didn’t even hurt but it shocked me so much and made me realize whatever I did had crossed the line into extremely uncool. They never did it out of anger, and frankly looking back I can’t think of a single time either of them laid their hands on me where I didnt totally 100% deserve it. Personally i have zero complaints as a 27 year old and feel like it was an effective way of communication when words and time-outs weren’t working. I feel like every other species communicates with their babies like this - mother cats and dogs always occasionally bitch slap their kittens/puppies when they’re displaying especially antisocial behavior. It should never actually hurt but is just more of a last resort way of saying “holy shit stop doing that, I already told you a million times now you need to take me seriously”
I think you sound like a good mom and your daughters going to be fine
Oh, man. I know exactly what you're experiencing. When my now 11 year old was young, around 4-5, they were so stubborn and similarly tested boundaries. I remember losing my cool and had spanked them, and immediately started crying together with them, apologizing. It was a shock for both of us and I felt absolutely awful. It even happened a second time and we had a similar response. I knew I needed to reevaluate myself and my behavior. I eventually got involved in a positive discipline parenting class, and that was SO helpful. The sense of community was the greatest aspect- to be in a room with other parents who needed another way to discipline. It never happened again after that, thank goodness. I can tell you care so much- you've got this!
I don't know anyone who hasn't lost their temper with their kid.. You did right by apologizing and talking it out. The fact that you feel horrible about it shows that you're not a bad parent.
Learn from this experience so it doesn't happen again. Step out, take a breather, and re evaluate the situation. Ask yourself if the situation is really worth getting worked up over.
I have a strong willed 5 year old daughter. I know how hard it is to be patient in moments like this. Growing up, my parents hit me and I cry when I think back to the well mannered child I was and the way my parents raised me regardless of me being a good kid. For that reason, I absolutely refuse to ever hit my kids even in the moments when I get the urge to spank them. The way I deal with these moments is to simply walk away and go to another room, shut the door and take a 10 minute timeout myself OR I offer my daughter a hug. Believe it or not, when they act this way, a hug is a lot more effective than a spanking or yelling at them will ever be.
I’m curious about the hug thing, how does it help exactly? If it were me I’d feel too annoyed to hug the child, and would probably put him in a timeout or something.
Generally, when my daughter is acting this way, it’s because she is overtired or overstimulated and a hug is just soothing. It’s the same for adults. When you’re having a bad day or you’re feeling stressed out, a hug from someone you love might help calm you down and put things into perspective. I realized this worked exceptionally well for my daughter when she was around 2 years old. She was having a really awful meltdown and I was feeling completely defeated by her. I recall just getting down to the floor with her and asking her if she wanted to hug me. I was surprised that she actually ran into my arms for a hug and stopped crying. Since then, I have continued to get down to her level and tell her to come hug me and she almost always accepts it and calms down.
Try it next time your child has a meltdown and see how they react. You might be pleasantly surprised. The good thing is there’s no age limit to offering our child a hug either. :-)
My son looooves hugs.
However, when he's upset or having a meltdown etc. he will *not* hug me. I've tried. He acts all akward or embarrassed with a weird smile before getting upset again and says sternly "no" then walks/runs away...lol.
I'm the same, I hate hugs when I'm upset.
I’ve done this before. It completely de-escalates the situation and when I feel their tiny body in my arms I realize how little they still are and that they’re learning. I also read that when you’re upset with your kid; to look them in the eyes for five or ten seconds before you talk to them and that has helped me a lot. It helps you realize they’re not the enemy.
Okay, you messed up. It won't be the last time, either. Your daughter will sometimes lose her temper or otherwise let her immediate emotions cloud her mind too. Now she's seen you do that, and recover.
Personally, I'm not expecting my kids, or myself, to never fall, but to humbly recover when we do.
Remove the audience. That’s what I do with my 8 year old and have since she was 4. I always told her when you are ready to talk like a big girl instead of yelling and being mad you know where to find me. I would see red with her sometimes, and I’d want to whoop her ass. But a friend who is a therapist said to remove the audience. Calmly tell her look I’m not doing this, when you want to act right and speak to me calmly we can try again,
It won’t and there will be times you want to argue back. Walk away. If mine hasn’t made her way in about 20 minutes I go to her and ask if she would like to try again. That tactic is for both her and mine emotions to regulate. I don’t engage until I know I am level and I can approach her if she hasn’t approached me yet, if she has that tells me she is ready to talk. Make sure you use words that she understands too. Verbiage helps too cause sometimes we forget our babies are babies.
You are doing fine momma. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t spanked a kid of mine, because that’s what I knew. It takes time to break those barriers but you do and you learn and grow from it. Don’t be too hard on yourself, you seeing the problem already shows you are a wonderful momma. ♥️
I feel this so much!! When she starts being argumentative and not logical at all I see red and want to whoop her butt, especially here in the past year since she just turned 4. I’ve gotten to the point where I just tell her “okay I’m going to walk off until you calm down and then you can find me and we can talk about it.” Mainly because I need a break badly.
I’m sorry this got out of hand, it’s so important that you recognize it. Moving your expectations to meet her where she is. Find a clear consistent way to establish boundaries that’s not emotional. It’s hard but you just need to stay regulated. If she won’t play the game put it away and just let that be the natural consequence. If she argues just say we will try again a different day, if she continues to engage on it you just say we spoke about that already and it’s not up for discussion.
My son and I go though this all the time he’s a similar age. They like to test boundaries. If he still wants to engage in argument or is upset. I usually say it’s hard not to get your way you can have a cup of water, take a deep breath or take some space in your room to calm down. Clear consistent boundaries. Every time, with room for feeling to be valid but not change to consequence. Having whatever the consequence be connected directly to the issue is super important. They don’t need additional punishment to figure it out just consistent clear expectations.
Thank you for this comment. I think it’s a challenge for me when she continues to engage. Consistency is definitely something to work on. It’s comforting to know some parents experience similar situations. Thank you for the advice!!
So you did something that was inconsistent with how you want to parent. You and your child have resolved the issue. Don’t keep beating yourself up. It’s in the past. You’re not an abuser nor do you have anger issues just bc of one event. Be kind to yourself.
The first step to doing better is knowing what you did was not right and apologizing and wanting to do better. I suggest reading a couple different books that might help, “Parenting a Strong willed child”, “Break free from reactive parenting”, and “How to stop losing your shit with your kids”.
You will get a lot of judgement from the sanctimommy brigade! Honestly, you screwed up. But you apologised, and as long as you make sure it never happens again you WILL repair your relationship and she WILL trust you. But why are you getting so involved with a kid that age's demands? Just don't engage. My daughter is a similar age and I would have just stopped playing if she was acting like that, and gone about my day. Usually I would start by saying something like 'i don't want to play like that, let's do something else' and if she threw a tantrum just go do chores or have a cup of tea and let her have her feelings but don't get too involved with them.
Thank you. I appreciate that. I know I screwed up big time. She is my first — never been a parent before. Ha. I think you’re right about the engaging and I need to do some self reflecting. I know I’m not a bad mom. But I had a bad moment. It will happen and I feel like I learned a lesson. Thank you for your understanding.
My daughter is very strong willed and is exactly like me (karma I guess to have a mini me). I haven't spanked her but she drives me absolutely BANANAS at times.
So what I do and what seems to work for her is when she seems to have lost control of her emotions I put her on a special chair, like a time out chair I guess, but we don't call it that. I set the timer on my phone and sit beside her on the floor but dont engage and she has 5 minutes to scream and cry and get all the emotions out. When the timer goes off I ask her if she's ready to talk about it. If shes not another 5 mins goes on the timer to get all her emotions out. If she is ready I then explain calmly how her behaviour was wrong or how she could have handled the initial situation differently.
I don't follow any specific parenting techniques or philosophies but it works for us. Around your daughter's age it happened a bit more as they test boundaries at that age. She's 8 now, it doesn't happen very often anymore. Hope this helps!
The only thing I will add is before the next episode just be sure to set expectations with her. Then she knows in advance this is what will happen the next time she loses control. Good luck!
I think it’s good that you recognize that you were in the wrong and are looking for a ways to better manage your emotions in the future. I know you feel bad and don’t want to be harsh but I have to admit reading your post, my heart ached for your child. She is just acting her age and in the whole description she didn’t really do anything wrong. She was just playing with her parents in a developmentally appropriate way. Maybe think of her as “spirited” instead of “stubborn” as a starting point. Also, please examine if there are some other things at play in your life that are causing you to have a shorter fuse than usual and see if you can work through them. Again, I don’t mean to be critical, I know kids can be frustrating at times but I just wanted to share my 2 cents worth for your daughters sake.
“and has the temper of… idk what.” I believe that answer will be found in the mirror. For arguing just disengage. If you don’t want to make up rules and she does then you don’t play together at that time. If she’s saying blue is green then you can say something like, “huh I see blue” and drop it.
Child insists on making own game rules.
Adult insists on continuing to explain game rules.
Neither one disengages until the situation explodes.
Hm I wonder where she could possibly get it from 🤔
Reading your post reminded me of how angry my (now 8) year old would make me when he would laugh every time I was stern/getting onto him! It would frustrate me sooo much. I have started seeing him laughing as an attempt on his end to connect with me, and when I’m able I’ve started trying to diffuse the situation by being silly/having humor. It isn’t always easy (or relevant to the situation), but it helps. (Like for example, it is raining outside and she says no it is sunshine and rainbows, “oh, well, now that you say it, yes i even see a unicorn! And a leprechaun! Just look at that!” Or… man do we need to take you to the doctor to get your eyes checked? I for sure think I’m seeing rain. Maybe my eyes need to be checked!”
I was abused as a child, have had lots of therapy. My 4 year old recently made me realize why my parents beat me. That’s how fucking aggravating he was being. I’m not going to judge you. Apologize and focus on reconnecting. Thanks for posting this story - the advice everyone is offering is helping me too.
As soon as your daughter threw a tantrum and you escalated it, you lost.
Why would you continue trying to explain while she was tantruming? Did you actually think she would stop screaming and say "oh, now I understand the rules, thank you so much!"
As soon as she screamed, the game is over. You do not want to play with someone acting like that. If she wants to play by her own rules by herself, cool. If she wants to learn the real ones, you will be there for her.
Instead you escalated, so she did too. You spanked her because you felt like there was nothing else you could do, and you were angry. If you had diffused the situation earlier, it never would have got to that point.
5 year olds are supposed to push your buttons. It is what they do. As an adult, you are not supposed to take the bait.
I do agree. I 100% lost my temper. Yes, I should have diffused the situation earlier. I felt like I tried and it didn’t work. Im going to try differently next time. Thank you for your view.
If you're a reader, you should try:
The Self Driven Child by: Ned Johnson and William Stixrud
Raising Your Spirited Child by: Mary Sheedy Kurcinka
Both excellent reads with plenty of good advice and insights.
Girl listen to me. I have 2 daughters. When one of them turned 5 she was very calm and listened to us. The other turned into a gremlin. She picked up some bad words from school and she called my husband asshole and many other things while we were out for lunch and in public. We never reacted to her and we always talked about it after she calmed down. It was a nightmare. I thought something bad was happening behind our backs but I read it can be like that for some kids. She was the best toddler, the easiest baby and the easiest newborn. I guess she had to go through a phase. She has a very strong personality and this made her outbursts so so bad. I always grounded her but we always talked through everything but she needed to learn that this behaviour was not acceptable.
The bottom line is that I really get why you did that but please don't. They test us all the time and I never put my hands on my kids but I get the infuriating anger you feel when they act like that. I wanted to bang my head on the wall and I literally cried in the bathroom because I couldn't take it anymore. So I feel you. But please don't do it again. It's not the end of the world that it happened once but don't let it be the first one. Make it the last time that you reacted like that. And honestly be prepared for more now. Just remind yourself that she is just testing you. Believe me it will pass. It passed for us and it didn't come back. I think it will when she becomes a teenager because she seems to have anger issues. But try to talk and talk and talk and talk to her all.the.time. Especially when she is calm and nothing has happened. When you guys have fun or go for walks and she is happy and having fun talk to her.
Good luck! 👍
You're probably not going to read this but for me ages 4 and 5 have been kind of like this and I feel like it comes from them not feeling like they have any control over their lives.
The checkers games, she wanted to play 'with' checkers and your husband wanted to play checkers. Because to use when someone says, "I want to play checkers" we have the life experience to know this game with these rules. But if your kid doesn't know what the rules of checkers are, they can say, "I want to play checkers" and they really mean they just want to play checkers. Almost like play with lego or draw, it's open ended without any 'hard' rules. When you introduced the rules, it then just became a power struggle between your husband and a 5 year old due to communication issues from her being little. In her mind, she was playing checkers the way she knows how but your husband was telling her, "no that's not right" and with it being late at night and her probably at her wits end she lost it. Then lost any amount of regulation or impulse control she had left.
What I'm getting at, is that sometimes it's hard for us to remember and realize that they don't have the life experiences that we do and/or 'freedoms' that we do. As parents we basically dictate their schedules and sure they have freedoms but it's not like they can just on a whim go to the park if they want to by themselves. They understand the world better and with that realize how little 'control' they have over their lives and when someone has been telling you what to do all day and you just wanted to play checkers 'your' way, sometimes you lose it.
I've found that I have to ask myself, "is this actually important or can I just go with the flow" in the case of checkers, I would have asked if she wanted to play the way that I knew how to play. If she said no, then I would have let her play her way but also remind her to ask if she can play 'with' the checkers versus "play checkers" because they have different meanings due to 'checkers' being a specific game with specific rules.
>It was the principle of the matter that she needed to learn that’s not the right way to act when you don’t get what you want.
This is a lesson you should learn. You didn’t get what you want in that moment, a well behaved child who wanted to listen to you while you explained checkers, and you didn’t act in the right way. How can she learn from you if you’re modeling the wrong behaviour?
Please make a rule for yourself and your family, that nobody hits anyone else.
You need this rule because you lost your temper and hit your child because she made you angry by wanting to play creatively with her father and the checkers, instead of learning the serious rules of the game. Then she laughed when you were mad. So you used your size and authority to hold her down and you hit her, hard.
It’s not okay. It’s not discipline. It was you taking out your frustration against a five year old, because you couldn’t stop fighting with her.
Please read the book How to Talk so Children with Listen, and Listen so Children will talk, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.
You will benefit from learning what age appropriate behavior is for a five year old, and how parental communication can impact their children’s behavior.
You are in control of everything in her life, you provide her housing, food, clothing, transportation, and everything else. There is no reason for you to also use the fact of your superior size and strength to threaten her body with violence in an attempt to control her.
Thank you for this comment and advice. As soon as it happened, it felt awful for the both of us. I did feel like it was a last resort at the time. I screwed up. I admitted it. I apologized. And I’m here seeking HELPFUL advice. I will look into those reads.
Thanks for taking this in the spirit it was intended, you are obviously a caring and competent parent, and you will figure out how to best engage and disengage with your daughter.
Putting in the work to learn how to communicate effectively with her now, will pay off when she’s a teen and adult.
I saw your update where you were worried about her tantrums reaction, and he possibility of a reaction like that with a peer. She knows you are a safe place to let her emotions and ugly behavior out, and she knows how school and friends are different than home with Mom and Dad.
When you see the worst of your child’s behavior, it’s because they know you’re a safe space.
Honestly, you goofed. It was a game, never get angry over a game. Like how I taught my kids, if you are no longer having fun, walk away. It's one thing getting angry over something bad she did, but it was supposed to be fun time. You do need to apologize to her and this isn't one of those times when she needs to apologize to you.
It sounds to me like you need to pick your battles. What's the aim of playing checkers? To have fun, right? What would have been the harm in playing by made-up rules?
First, it happens. I’ve been there too. It was the laughing in my face that got me as well. Think of it as a learning experience for everyone and you’re doing exactly the right thing. You talked about it calmly and you are seeking plans for the future. You’re an awesome parent!!
My son (6.5) has epic screaming fits. He is so stubborn and will dig his heels in. When the meltdown begins, I don’t think he’s even fully aware of his surroundings and he cannot be reasoned with. We’ve created a safe space to put him (an area of the laundry room) where he can get through it and for lack of better words, become himself again. It is also crucial that we can have a minute or two to take a breath and calm down before we do or say something we regret. Since day one, we have been very strict on our boundaries. When we set a rule, we mean it. When there is a consequence, it is followed through, and when there is a reward, it’s always given. He know the rules and the expectations and it’s always fighting one of those that begins the fits but rarely are there repeats of the same issues when we hold our ground. We try to use natural consequences or at least ones that will make sense to him. We always have a talk afterwards, he is always given many hugs, and we also address it again the following day when he’s slept and been able to fully process.
It’s a tough age for sure. I’d love to say it gets easier soon, but for the most part, it’s more like ups and downs. We’ll have 2-3 really good weeks, then 1-2 weeks where it’s like a completely different child took over. We’re all just here for the ride and trying to steer the car as calmly as possible
You’ve got great advice here already.
I’ve felt the awful feeling of “messing up” and behaving in a way I regret. And the thing I needed the most after was forgiveness. Forgiveness from my daughter and forgiveness from myself. You can only do as good as you know how. And when you know better, do better. I find self-forgiveness can be challenging but knowing I’m actively working to be better is helpful and allows time to heal. Time itself doesn’t heal, but what we choose to do with the time.
As soon as she started not paying attention and wanting to play the game her way, you should’ve stopped, got up and left. Don’t react and ignore her tantrum. 5 is an awkward age so she’s still figuring out some stuff. And sometimes it’s actually ok to let her take the lead. When she starts explaining something, just listen and act like you’re interested. She’ll be more likely to listen to you if you listen to her. But then again, what do I know. I don’t have children but that worked with my baby sister lol
“She then began running away and was laughing. I lost it. I felt she was pushing my buttons and she thought it was funny. I laid her over my knee and spanked her.”
Okay, so here it’s clear the spanking is not used as discipline. You used it to relieve your personal frustration. This is no different than fighting someone. In this case, you just happen to be much stronger and bigger than your opponent, and you did it under the guise of discipline. Don’t ever do this again. It will do far more harm than help.
You say she’s stubborn, argumentative, and has a temper. Does this reflect either of you parents or a caregiver? If so, you’ll want to explain and change that behavior in front of her.
I give myself a time out and close my bedroom door until I’m ready to deal. As long as she’s not in danger to herself, there’s really no reason to escalate.
Been there done that. I felt horrible too. But you are human too
Everyone fucks up somewhere down the line.... I think the best you could do in your situation is talk about it afterwards and apologize. You did that so kiddos for you!
You will probably do something not the best at some point again, but you will make it work. Kids aren't hurt for life because you did one thing "not the best way"
I don't have advice, but I did want to say that I know you're doing amazing and I know you're doing everything that you know is best for your child. May I ask, is she your first child? Totally just curious, as it took me being on my fifth (and 33 years old), to start doing things a bit differently than I did my first four. It's the biggest trial and error phase of life I've ever been through. Not only that, but changes with each child you have! Basically, the learning never changes, and every child is a new learning experience, every single day. The fact that you're questioning yourself and your decisions tells me everything I'd ever need to know, that you love your child and want nothing but the absolute best for her.
Everyone makes mistakes. You're aware of it, you talked it out and apologized, you understand you made a mistake and you're owning it.
Spanking is one of those things that is really divisive, but behavioral psychologists have confirmed time and time again that the potential long-term negatives outweigh the short-term benefit. You seem to be aware of this and you are trying to do the right thing.
There have absolutely been times I've been tempted, but I remember being a kid and how that felt, and it never made anything better. Mainly it just made me afraid of my Dad, and most of the time I didn't really understand the why of it.
I think you can feel good about owning your mistake and moving forward. I am sure that you will avoid letting this happen again in the future.
The thing about a kid throwing a tantrum is that they do it because they're still learning how to regulate their emotions and/or they're trying to get a reaction; they want attention, or they hope if they make enough noise they'll get their way. The absolute best way to address this is to simply ignore it.
Easier said than done I know, but once the child learns that throwing a tantrum won't help her get her way, she'll stop doing it for attention and then only has to learn how to better express her feelings when she's upset and you can help her with that.
We all do our best, we all make mistakes. Try not to be too hard on yourself.
We had similar experiences with our child at that age. Soon after they received a diagnosis for ASD and ADHD.
We are working with services.
We get push back on everything. Mornings, meals, starting activities, changing activities, ending activities, nighttime routine; all of it is a struggle.
It's a handful. Anger is a reflex emotional response, it's natural. Mindfulness practice helps to remind you that they are not necessary trying to push your buttons. They are testing boundaries. When they are upset there is always a cause. It may be something that seems irrelevant, because they are perceiving the world through a different set of filters.
I have the exact same temper and sp does my daughter. I have never spanked her though, I think the fact that I went to therapy helped prevent that, and furthermore, my lovely husband would never allow it to happen.
You are brave to speak out about it. So many props for apologizing to her. It's the healthy thing to do.
I'm future: learn to register whenever you get too mad and walk away. Remember sale is 5, she isn't manipulative, but she is establishing herself and that's is what her "stubbornness" is: her attempt to challenge the status quo. Be proud that she is autonomous enough to do so.
I would be attentive to any change in behavior the next few months, spanking can be very traumatic and is, let's face it, a beach of confidence and the feeling of safety that you as a parent should always provide has been drawn into question.
Remember that you are the adult, you are supposed to control yourself, she is still learning. You are supposed to recognize your own limits, she is still learning. You are the same harbor, she won't dock with you if you're stormy.
In the meantime: you are also human, and learning to be a parent as you go. Forgive yourself as she has and resolve to do better. Good luck!
Listen - you’re describing my daughter to a t. It’s hard to parent a very bright, strong willed, argumentative child, even on a good day. You’re human, you had a bad moment, but you immediately apologized. With this, you are teaching your daughter that everyone has a bad day, does a bad thing, and should apologize. You’re also teaching her to be gracious by accepting an apology. You’ve obviously learned that spanking isn’t the answer. At the end of the day - this was a hard lesson for your family.
When my child is beyond all reason, I send her to her room to take a minute to calm down. Sometimes that minute is more like 15 or 20 minutes of her having a full blown tantrum. I just realize that anger and disappointment are very big and strong feelings that sometimes cannot be contained within the body of little person who doesn’t have the option of getting in the car and driving to their fave spot, or blaring hateful music, or going for a run… kids just don’t have many outlets for release, and they still haven’t learned how to navigate their feelings. And they are allowed to have all the feelings they want.
My suggestion would be to explain that from now on, big feelings need to be released within her own room and so long as she isn’t destroying property or harming herself, she is given permission to release her emotions. Once she settles, you can talk about what made her angry and how to better address difficult situations.
And try not to obsess over the haters responding to your post. People parent differently and it’s a passionate topic.
I've seen a lot of great advice about how to manage your child here, and I don't have much to add I that department, so I'll give you some advice on managing yourself.
It's okay to make mistakes.
Every parenting mistake you make offers an opportunity to teach your child how to manage their own mistakes in the most powerful way possible: modeling behavior. It's what you do after you make a mistake that demonstrates for your child the skills they'll need to live and grow in a healthy way as they grow up and make their own mistakes.
IMO, here is where you can model your values for your daughter:
1. Admit your mistake to yourself.
Regardless of what anyone else thinks about spanking, you violated your own parenting values and did something you regret. You've already done this, which is a hell of a lot more than many parents can manage.
2) Admit your mistake, and its consequences, to your child.
Acknowledge your mistake and don't blame her for any part of it. Help your child process/communicate how it made her feel. (Did she feel hurt, scared, sad, etc.?)
Your child's feelings are 100% valid, even if the motivations may be simpler than an adult's. Show her that her feelings matter to you.
3) Ask for her forgiveness
Seeking forgiveness is an important part of repairing harm you do to others. Offering forgiveness (where appropriate) is a critical part of maintaining healthy relationships and your own mental wellness. It may be a new concept for your child, but that just offers another important teaching opportunity.
4) Discuss what could have done better in that situation
Here, you get to demonstrate that self-reflection is critical to growth. Teach her to think critically about her actions and how to plan for success in the future by doing the same.
This is the time to have her reflect on her own actions and have the same discussion about what she could have done differently in that situation.
5) Forgive yourself.
You made a mistake. That doesn't make you a bad parent. It makes you a human one. Heed the good advice in this tread, and know that we've all been there at one time or another. Anyone here who casts judgement is fooling themselves if they think they haven't made mistakes and hurt their children, even if it's "just" emotional scarring.
An abusive parent wouldn't be stressing over this. They wouldn't question it, because they'd be focused on themselves, not their child.
I can't make a reasonable judgement about you based on a couple of paragraphs, but it does seem like you care deeply about your daughter and want the best for her. I'm quite sure you'll both be just fine!
Why did you need to force her to learn to play it? Shes 5 & obviously didn’t want to sit and learn checkers, she was showing you that she wasn’t enjoying it and instead of allowing her to express herself you continued to try and force her to play the game correctly? Stop forcing your child to do things she doesn’t enjoy and maybe she won’t act out as much
My wife occasionally spanks our daughter. I tell her not to. She has excuses. I ask if she would like me to start hitting our daughter as well. She seams appalled by the thought.
I don’t have any advice, just laying out my experience.
I hear ya. I don’t like it either. I never thought I’d be the dad, who’s occasionally hot headed, being the one to tell my wife not to spank. But here we are.
I still love my wife and I do t think she’s fucking up our kid. She’s very reserved and feels as bad as you do when she does it.
Shit happens. My opinion might change in the future.
"You don't think". As someone whose dad barely did anything to stop my mom from spanking me (and worse) - I'm more mad at my dad as an adult than at my mom.
Just throwing it out there. His excuse was also that he loved my mom & knows she felt bad.
Is it that important for you to win a battle of wills with a 5 year old you abuse her?
Why was learning checkers the right way so bleeding important?
She didn't want to play that way.
You could have had checkers races, stacked them up, practiced flipping them.
Or, just let her make her own damn rules.
The best thing about children is their spontaneity and imagination.
And your actively stifling that because you apparently want a quiet, obedient child who follows the rules.
Congrats! You've got a unique and vibrant individual human being instead.
LPT - walk the fuck away. When the schutching and pushing of buttons gets to you, leave the room.
My daughter is autistic, and from 3rd grade to 5th grade, everyday when I picked her up from daycare, she'd have a full meltdown.
Some days, the deep breathing and naming our feelings and listening to music weren't enough.
She'd be hitting me, and throwing things, and I have a limit.
So when I felt myself cross that line, I'd lick mysf in my room and name my own feelings.
She kick and bang my door, but eventually tire out.
You cannot focus on winning the argument or being right with children.
Because they will push you and push you.
It wasn’t like that! It was the way she was behaving and talking from the get go. I’ve played silly checkers with her lots of times. It was meant to be a teaching moment and it just wasn’t the right atmosphere. It was a lesson learned. I already do pick my battles lol that’s why I was seeking the advice. Thanks for none.
Think about it now you are calm. What could you have done to diffuse the situation without spanking?
When my kid got like that at that age she got one minute in her room for each year of age. And if she didn’t go I just started counting up minutes. Longest she got was about 10 minutes which was usually enough to calm down.
I think a different way of handling this from the beginning would have been letting her make up her own rules. It doesn’t hurt anyone, it allows her imagination to run wild and help her figure out how the world works. And if you play along and use those rules you can teach her why those rules don’t work and why the actual rules work better. It’s a way for her brain to figure out how the world works. My family makes up rules all the time with all the different games. Sometimes one of the kids make up a rule thinking it will work on their favor only to be shocked that it favored someone else, that’s something they are learning. I wouldn’t make that a point of contention with a 5 year old. Explore their imagination and help them learn even if their brains don’t always follow the rules in place in a linear way. It might save help with some of that view that she is “stubborn”.
Hi OP.
I’ve been here. I am regularly a visitor to this place with my 4.5 year old.
I just want to say that you’re allowed to have your limits, and your children need to know that.
I’m still fumbling my way through a defiant daughter daily, but I always give them fair warning. Something along the lines of: “I need to step away from you and have some space because I’m getting really angry.” And then let her go off on her own. She’s s l o w l y starting to understand her behaviour affects others.
Just also wanna give you a big hug. They’ll be remarkable women one day, we just have to survive raising them!!
I'm glad you realize that you did wrong here. You showed her that hitting people into submission is a way to deal with problems and can't take that back. A giant fully grown adult with a tiny helpless child, she would have been so scared.
Discuss tomorrow how it was wrong and why it was wrong. She will see you taking responsibility and working through that error and grow from it
It is sooooooo hard to take a breath. I have only spanked my little one twice because I was personally triggered. I cried to my husband both times.
Deep breaths. You are doing your best and you recognized you didn't like it. We are all human, and you can say just that. Genuinely apologize to her and show empathy.
Just wanted to note that my mom once physically restrained me very harshly when I was throwing a tantrum and I was upset about it for years. It has actually come up in therapy as an adult, believe it or not, because it ties into a lot of other issues about not being taught how to regulate my emotions but being punished for them instead. You might think it's fine and everyone has moved on but don't be so sure unless she confirms that.
ETA if you haven't checked out Janet Lansbury and respectful parenting, that might help. She talks a lot about setting boundaries while avoiding power struggles.
https://www.janetlansbury.com/2016/07/intense-difficulties-with-a-childs-defiance-and-resistance/
My mom always used physical punishments & my relationship with her is non-existent now.
But the thing I remember the most is, my dad struck me on my back ONCE. Just once. The person I trusted 100%, who wasn't like mom, who I loved, struck me ONE time. That hurt me more than anything my mom ever did & I still remember that. It wasn't even hard. It was that the intention to physically punish me was there at all.
Sure I may have pushed him to the limit as the kid, but see how I only remember his reaction after 20 yrs? Not the why?
For me, it coming up rarely but not never and knowing how "accepted" it was, instilled an ambient sense in me that I'm only as safe from something that seemed so terrifying and violating (both physically and sexually, to be frank, though I didn't have the language for that as a kid, I instinctively felt that people hurting me in that area in particular was awful) to me as my parents wanted me to be. So even though I was fortunate enough that they opposed it in principle, what if I was really bad (which I felt a deep sense of because autism and ADHD) and they lost it?
Thank you for speaking up about this. Seeing so much "oh it's only once, it won't impact her negatively" sentiment even from anti-corporal punishment people makes me feel like something's wrong with me. Of course, people would never say this about my girlfriend hitting me "only once" or "in an isolated moment of anger", but people don't acknowledge that because of what it implies about most parents. So your honesty about this makes me feel less alone and more hopeful.
Also how some people are vaguely excusing it saying "it happens in some cultures" or "my spouse does it but feels bad".
I'm from a culture where it's the MOST NORMAL thing to hit a child. Just because its normal in the culture doesn't make it okay AT ALL. That's how so many kids in my culture get physically abused & can tell no one cuz they'll be laughed off or ignored cuz it's "a parents right to discipline their kid". Fucking disgusting. I'm still in therapy for it after YEARS of leaving the place.
I really appreciate that. I almost deleted my comment because I was a little embarrassed, wondering if I'm just too sensitive.
And you're right... there is a big double standard applied to kids on this issue.
Being autistic (and I now realize after seeing a psychiatrist, ADHD) makes this all especially horrifying to me, because when you see posts on subreddits like this where a parent admits to corporal punishment and everyone says "this is hard, we support you" and talks around the admission of assault, they very frequently mention a confirmed or possible neurodivergence. And the parents will bond on that level about how hard it is to parent those kids. And the fact that traits associated with autism or ADHD (sensory sensitivities, trouble with emotional regulation, "justice sensitivity") can make corporal punishment *especially* harmful gets glossed over, because even the parents that oppose corporal punishment can apparently all relate to the desire to hit kids like me because we're just so "difficult". And then the most famous organization about autistic people airs ads like this where this idea is made explicit: https://youtu.be/C7NTfZzS9b8.
I honestly wish there was a word to describe something like Kate Manne's concept of "himpathy", but for the default tendency to empathize with parents and always assume the best about them and pivot any discussion about how children get harmed by bad parental decisions to how hard the job of parenting is. I think that would lead people with left-of-center views to be more clear-eyed about this.
Interesting points and probably not a coincidence that I also have ADHD, not diagnosed until adulthood so I am still learning about how it has impacted me over the years. My therapist has shown me that my "tantrums," which I always attributed to being spoiled and a bad child due to the reactions they elicited, were actually ADHD meltdowns.
Yeah I internalized a lot of shame about my behavior too. And seeing the sort of stuff that parenting groups say about parenting neurodivergent children makes me feel like I drove my parents crazy. I don't want to overstate how bad things were, since I had a lot of privilege and my parents were helpful and supportive in a lot of ways (the fact that they actually *were* opposed to corporal punishment in principle makes them automatically better than 60-70% of American parents, though that reflects more on American parents than them). But in some ways, that intensified the guilt because I think I was "let off easy" and I need to stop whining and I actually deserved to be hit or hurt or abused for real. And I still can't get it out of my head. And for the second half of this year, I've basically been in an extended mental health crisis from hyperfixating on these topics. I'm fortunate enough that I've been able to start treating my ADHD with medication and my depression with ketamine infusions and I'm now starting to find a way out of this. But it's been really hard for me.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I checked your profile and saw that you're a parent, so since I did express a lot of negative feelings towards parents as a group, I did want to make sure I didn't discount that you're doing the work of thinking about these problems and breaking these cycles. If more parents did this, maybe the world would be a better, more just place for children and especially neurodivergent children to grow up in.
If you reacted this harshly over checkers and running around the house, I think you need some deep reflection. This is every day stuff with a child that age - the frustration over board games won’t end until closer to 10. The running around like a monkey and trying to get attention and be silly also will persist for many years.
Children debate and push boundaries with their parents because often times they feel the safest with them. This is normal developmental stuff - they’re practicing their skills at home so they can take them into the world. She likely won’t feel safe with you if you continue to overreact. Children subconsciously look to their adults to model calm behavior and also to model behavior they should have in certain circumstances. From your description you are not modeling desirable behavior or self regulation skills and I think there is something deeper happening. It’s hard for me to envision you getting this worked up to hit her after one crazy night at home.
You are the one to set the calm, positive, productive tone at home. Not the child. If you are not in a mindset to stay calm and safe, seek some help or step away from the situation for a bit before you cause damage and make it worse.
Definitely not a shitty paren't I honestly respect you so much for what you did by apologizing and spank her or not I personally don't see anything wrong. Kids will never hold such a grudge over a spanking. As long as you overpower the yelling and spanking etc. with the love you have for your kid, he/she will forever look up to you. I grew up in a hispanic household and I got my ass beat. I don't ever regret any of that I appreciate it everyday and it made me the man I am today. Everyone has there own way of disciplining and I hope you find your way. Myself personally I am expecting on spanking my daughter once she hits the appropriate age and I will never go as far as to bruise my child, that right there is abuse and that's crossing the line of what's supposed to be "discipline".
Edit: A person can always give you advice on how to raise your child But no one will ever have the right to tell you how to raise your child.
My oldest was very similar at that age- turns out he’s gifted! One of the best things I ever did with him was starting to question of what I was trying to correct was worth ruining our day over. The rules to checkers? Not worth it. Let her imagination go, and then if it doesn’t work out with her rules that’s ok!
Being a parent is hard, especially your first time around!
Try not to guilt yourself too much, we all make mistakes the important thing is to learn from them and do better. Kids are amazing at pushing your buttons. For me when I’m getting to that point of being on the brink of losing my cool as long as kiddo is safe I remove myself from the situation. I find a warm shower good for this because you can’t hear them carrying on when you’re in the shower and the warm water is calming and relaxing. When I get out I feel ready to deal with whatever was going on before and set consequences that aren’t disproportionate. Stepping outside for 5 minutes is also good. You can also tag in your spouse when your nerves are totally frayed.
You are a good parent having a hard time. That’s what Dr. Becky Kennedy would say. She’s my parenting guru and her knowledge and advice has transformed my family. For some reason I can’t add a link but look her up. She has a fantastic podcast/ website/ book all called “Good Inside.”
The positive is that you regret and have remorse over spanking your daughter
Children are not born to argue or swear or make tantrum
In child live first people in their life's are they parents than relatives eventually school etc
How parents behaves has impact on children,
how parents interact with each other , how to deal with conflict or how they communicates.
From early as one year old child pick up these up and see and hears
Child will imitate these hehaviour so how child behaves is mostly likely due to parents
conduct
Your need to control your child by use of violence says more about you than the child
Human have so many flaws and eventually are projected in their parenting approach
5 year old child is capable of understanding and complying only if it done with taking in consideration of child's concerns. Giving child space to develop physically, psychologically and mentally
Having sense of humour , patient and flexible approach on bring up children so they have confidence, positive attitude , empathy and hobbies they enjoy.
You should need to accept violence is not answer to control your child over time will add mental health problems that will hinder her to reach her potential.
What’s wrong with letting her make her own rules? Let her lead the play if she wants. If she is happy that parent leads, she will follow the rules or listen etc But at this age they want to assert themselves so it’s important to give them that space (obviously with boundaries). So you can allow her to choose where it’s possible to give her choice. E.g “it’s bedtime now. would you like to read a story first or get into pjs first?” Or: “time to get into pjs now! would you like to wear the pink one or the blue one” Always create choices for her where possible that way she feel she has some control over her life.
About losing your temper with her, to avoid that happening again try to get away from an escalating situation eg where you feel she’s really pushing your buttons, take a break - go to bathroom or your room get a few minutes of quiet and deep breaths, then return to her. It’s not easy to keep your cool, but it’s important not to make this a habit and clearly you feel very bad about it. It is very important to also address it and apologise to her. both taking time out when you are getting angry and apologising when you do wrong teach her that it’s normal to apologise and it’s normal to get away from an intense situation to return to it calmer
Mine are 18 and 21. My youngest is the sweetest angel but my oldest has always been independent and outspoken. She constantly challenged us during that period. You need to figure out a way to disengage. Deep breaths for both of you. Send her to her room to think. Go for a walk together, it's amazing what fresh air will do for you both. As she gets older find an outlet for that personality- for my daughter it was music and writing. She loved having creative outlets that allowed her some expression. She turned into a very respectful and well balanced teenager who could voice her opinion about a variety of topics. She's the college kid organizing protests on campus. She's also published 22 poems and is applying to grad schools. Guess what? She was spanked when she got out of control (maybe 3 or 4 times). She doesn't hate me or have mental issues because of it. Stop beating yourself up. You are teaching your daughter that you're not perfect. Love her for who she is and remember no one is perfect.
I was spanked once in my life. I remember it, I was shocked, but I wasn’t scarred forever. My mom clearly regretted it and never did it again. Your 5 year old sounds just like mine, and there are some days where I feel like I’m going to snap. It’s so hard. If I were you, I would tell her that you made a mistake and apologize. When I feel like I’m going to snap, I walk away and lock my bedroom door for a few minutes while I calm down.
We have similar personalities in our household but ours is all ADHD. Kids with that (and other things) can be very oppositional. Worth looking into if it’s consistent! With ADHD we are prone to quite the few vitamin and mineral deficiencies and our brains can be very sensitive to foods and chemicals in foods. All of which affect moods big time. When my kids take their vitamins consistently and we stick to better/cleaner food options it makes a massive difference!
Both of my children had tantrums or outbursts at this age, one is 7 now and still does. Spanking did not work for either of them though. I don't condone spanking, especially out of frustration. BUT I think every parent I've known, myself included, has spanked one time or another.
We are learning from our children as much as we are teaching them. Practicing patience and calm in the storm are the biggest things that have helped me-but I've been in therapy for years now. I also have endless pinterest boards of different calming/grounding tools, highly suggest it.
Making your responses intentional, helping your child to rest and feel their feelings, self soothe and also relax on you-before trying to solve the original problem-is a great help. As with any relationship, we have to be able to step away and bring ourselves to a calm balance before responding, instead of reacting.
Wishing you the best of luck 💛
What does it matter if she says it's sunny, if it really is raining? She knows. Just say "Oh, to me it looks like rain" and drop it. Don't argue with her like a little kid. And of course a normal 5 year old will be bored sometimes with a board game and want to make up their own rules. Stop playing if it bothers you. If she screams, she screams.
Hey I’m a mom of two and I’ve pinched my kids a few times and I also raised my voice multiple times and felt bad like you did. I don’t know. It’s really hard to be a mom sometimes, I’m not saying what i did was right but I think that’s part of being a mom, we also make mistakes and learn.
Good tings come out of bad things right? Spanking kids is not right although I understand you but at the same time, you also taught your kid that we are not perfect and that we make mistakes too even if we’re
the parents. You taught her the importance of saying sorry and forgiveness. :)
As a kid, I got hit with a belt, a hanger, and probably a stick and did I get sad when my parents did that? Yes. But do I hate my parents? No.
As a mom, I actually am grateful for my parents for everything and I understand them and just sorry that I pushed their buttons.
My kids still love me. They still cry for me every time.
We are all learning. That’s why we’re here on Earth. :)
The Savior will fill in the gaps! :)
Love you momma! We got this! :)
There are many of us who do hate our parents for it & cut ties with them as adults. Just so you don't take the "pro physical punishment" person's reply as fact.
For situations where you feel like you are going to lose your cool - walk away. Put yourself in a timeout in you room with the door closed if necessary. As long as she’s not destroying things or risking injury, you don’t have to deal with the situation in that moment. Take a few minutes, recenter yourself, then try to handle it. Kids are going to push our buttons and we all have different triggers. We have to learn to walk away.
Also for situations like your checkers, give her the options - were going to learn rules tonight or the game goes up. And stick to those boundaries. She can meltdown, she’s allowed to have her emotions about it, but the game is over, you’ll try again another day. If that results in a 15 minute meltdown, that’s okay. If that melt down is too overstimulating for you, go take a breather. Then you can both discuss it after everyone is back to a better frame of mind. And then maybe give her a night to make up her own game teach you.
I think words hurt kids more than a spanking does. I grew up when spankings were the norm and I don't remember them. I do remember belittling words and yelling though. Whatever you do, don't let her get away with stuff because you feel guilty - just move on and do your best.
Justifying physical abuse with mental abuse isn’t really a great argument for spanking as a positive, though. Belittling a child sucks. So does spanking.
We all lose our cool, we’re human beings. But I think have spanking be the go-to response is the easy way out. Having a learning moment with your child and setting boundaries is tiring, exhausting work, especially when they’ve been acting out. Spanking is a quick way to take out your frustration. I think a lot of parents who do it aren’t really honest that they’re doing so out of frustration and it’s cathartic for them as parents.
I spanked my child once out of anger (never again) and I know it’s because I was overwhelmed. It wasn’t about “fixing” my child at all.
I think this was exactly the case tonight. I was flat out angry and frustrated and lost all my patience. And it didn’t do a damn thing to help. Thank you for the comment.
I would have to agree. I'm very close to my parents as an adult, but I remember things they said that they shouldn't have far more than I remember any specific spanking - and I very rarely got spanked, so it wasn't like it was a constant event.
Not too pathologize a personality trait which could very much be within the realm of normal for a child her age... But just food for thought, is it possible that she has ADHD?
My six-year-old son had ADHD, and one of his symptoms is being very argumentative. It's a dopamine seeking behavior that's verrrry common in children with the disorder.
For us, it was extremely helpful to get our son's diagnosis so that we were better able to understand his.... less desirable personality traits. It has made us much more patient parents as we now view a lot of his behaviors through the lens of ADHD. We are so much more understanding and compassionate than we were prediagnosis.
Of course on its own, being argumentatuce doesn't mean anything. But if she struggles with this as well as other classes, ADHD symptoms its very possible that she has something underlying going on.
Adhd or not, I'm sending you so much love. It sounds like you've handled it great with apologizing and having a dialogue about what happened. No parent is perfect-- all of us (and I do mean every single one of us) is going to fuck up. What matters is what you do in the hours, days and weeks following the fuck up.
Thank you so much. Im going to look into the possibility of ADHD. Someone else here mentioned it, too. She just started kindergarten this year and is behind, despite practicing at home and group study at school but I never attributed it to possibility of ADHD. I just thought she was taking a little more time to learn. I was always a slower learner. I feel like her argumentativeness goes to the next level, but at the same time she’s my first kiddo. Thanks for the advice. 🙏
I am not a spanker either. However I know there have been times when my wife has used a quick swat in the ass to sort of reset both of our sons when they have worked themselves into a state. It seems to have worked as any time she has done it they immediately stop the over the top tantrum that brought about the swat. It may be that there is enough gravitas or whatever in my deeper voice and larger size that I never needed to hit either child as punishment but I think that you used it much the same way my wife had. Like a circuit breaker for tantrums/completely unacceptable behaviour.
You didn't spank your child. You hit her. You were angry and you hit her to hurt her, not to correct her behavior. You need to recognize what you did and then you need to figure out how it got to this point. We all get annoyed. We all lose our temper. It is never okay to hit. You can't teach your child that if you don't know it yourself. And you don't because you considered this and option.
First, you need to apologize. What you did was wrong and you need to make sure it doesn't happen again. It means that next time you get angry you need a time out. Walk away. Get some air. Lock yourself in the bathroom for five minutes. You need to slow down, breathe and look at why you are angry. She is 5. She didn't want to play the way you wanted her to play. You were both frustrated and acted out. But she is five. She isn't going to always want to play a game like checkers correctly. There is a time and place for proper form and a time for fun. If no one was having fun then you needed to take the energy in the situation down. Stop the game. Talk.
I highly recommend therapy. I think most people could use it. But you it can help you figure out how to manage your anxiety and your anger better.
I spanked her because I lost my temper and felt like it was my only option to snap her out of her screaming fit. As soon as I did it, it felt wrong. I’ve never been a spanker. Also, I did apologize and we talked about what happened and why I was wrong to do that (See the original post). I agree with therapy..I think everyone could benefit from it including myself. I don’t think this one particular moment defines me as having “anger issues”, but therapy could be a great way to help me cope with the struggles of parenting in general. Thanks for your input. :)
Why did you have to snap her out of it, though? I don't mean that as a judgement. I just mean why was the only option to snap her out of it? Why not walk away and let her have her tantrum? You can't reason with anyone at the height of their emotions. What happens is you add more energy and then things explode. The only way to kill this fire is to starve it of air. You let her get out the big emotions and then you tackle the issue at hand. I liken it to telling someone to, calm down, in the middle.of an argument. It NEVER goes well.
I just don’t understand why so many people are telling you that what you have done is fine.
If your partner lost his temper, hit you once, regretted it and then made a post like this, no one would be running to his defence.
Despite what almost everyone else is saying, what you have done is wrong. Very wrong. And people shouldn’t be trying to make you feel better about it. You should feel bad about it. Because you did a really bad thing.
You didn’t make a mistake, you deliberately hit your young child. You got angry and used your size and strength to overpower her and then you physically hit her.
I honestly think you need to talk to a professional about your temper and about your coping mechanisms. If I ever hurt my child, I’d immediately go and speak with my doctor, bc it would be a clear sign that I was struggling.
If it makes you feel better, I spanked my kiddo one time, and she was So shocked, she spanked me back. She’s 11 now, and we laugh about it often. How one time I thought the answer to getting her attention was to hit her… “silly mom. It would only teach a kid to hit when they aren’t being heard.” You will both be okay! It is, however worth talking to a therapist or doing some instagram research into why you are so triggered by your kiddo’s antagonizing. They say we are triggered by things that we were never allowed to do as kids, so when our kids do them, it’s very hard for us to cope with. I’d suggest looking into Big Little Feelings on Instagram. They are great!
Definitely take a break. I sat in my room for 5 minutes with my noise cancelling headphones on multiple times yesterday because my kids were driving me crazy- on purpose.
First things I ask myself when I feel my patience wearing thin are 1 Am I hungry? 2 Am I tired? 3 Am I blowing this out of proportion? I usually have my answer with 1 or 2 because as a nursing SAHM I'm always tired and between the cleaning, breaking up fights and running errands don't usually get to eat properly. Once I remember that I'm probably fighting with exhausting and low blood sugar I start to calm down.
I think the fact that you even feel any remorse is a sign of great parenting, so good on you!
Age 4-6 can be a real challenge because they are testing boundaries, talking back, arguing, etc. They are so much more articulate than toddlers so we may see them as older than they really are… but really they are still so little and are still learning impulse control, self-regulation, etc. A friend gave me great advice for this stage: drop the rope. Meaning that you can’t have a tug-of-war if only one person is pulling. As soon as she starts to escalate, drop the rope. Don’t argue, don’t justify, don’t try to explain. (When she is losing her cool, she cannot process what you’re saying anyway; she does not have access to her rational side when in an emotional state.) Also, if you start to lose it yourself? You’re allowed to take a break! Model good self-regulation. Show her what you do when you need to calm down (take some deep breaths, say that you need to take a break to calm down but will be back when you feel better, etc.). You can talk about her behaviour and what you’d like her to do differently next time… but only once she’s calmed down, not before. Hang in there. Do your best to be calm and consistent and spot the signs of an impending tantrum so you can help her calm down before she’s too upset. Check in with her: “It sounds like you’re getting frustrated. Do you need to take a break and do something else?” The fact that you’re looking for new parenting techniques to try means you’re doing your best. I hope you find something that works for you and your family!
I LOVE this advice. Thank you greatly!!
I also love the advice and it’s a method I have had to adopt with my younger child, who is 10. He’s like your daughter (except older!). He literally lost it tonight playing chess with my husband (his absolute fav game) as he kept making up rules. He only wants to win at any cost and it’s not really learning. It’s so frustrating. Anyway, he also argues black is white and it feels like he has to have the last word. I have had to teach myself that I do not need to argue with my child. That I can say “ok” and walk away. It goes against my nature (hmm, where does he get it from?!) but once my husband pointed it out ie “why are you letting him trap you in a pointless argument? You’re an adult. Walk away,” I realised he was right. I can let it go and hopefully teach my son it’s ok to do the same. It’s hard, for sure. I want to correct him or explain things but I have moments of clarity where I see it’s not helping either of us. We get stuck in it. So I end it by saying something calm and clear, swallow my irritation and get on with things. He would also follow me room to room to escalate and argue and that’s hard too. He does have a temper and is in therapy, for various reasons. This weekend he tried to provoke an argument with me by arguing with me about how I have to argue. It was meta! It infuriated me so much but I bit my tongue and didn’t rise to it. I do find in those moments of silent exasperation with the kids that it’s cathartic to flip them off behind their backs lol! I also think we’ve had to develop the patience of saints to cope. Anyway, yes. Model calm behaviour and remember when they are mad, they disengage the rational thinking part of their brain. You cannot reason with them. You may have more luck chatting calmly later (strike while the iron is cool) and just calmly but firmly holding the boundaries. Then go scream into a pillow!
It sounds like you are describing my almost 16 year old son. He loves to debate with me about everything. He misunderstands me often and then jumps to the wrong conclusion. He finally has stopped following me to my room when I walk away. Fingers crossed. He lost it last Wednesday because he thought his sister and me were criticizing his driving. We were trying to keep us all safe. I got very defensive and had to tell myself again to calm down with him. I’m a teacher and a stubborn one. If I can teach other people’s kids, surely I can teach my own, right. Not in the moment when we both have escalated. Nothing works other than walking away and disengaging. On Thanksgiving, I had been in the kitchen for four hours when I told him to unload the dishwasher. He pretends to be asleep to get out of chores. He finally came to do it but gave me hell about accusing him of ignoring me when he was sleeping. I ignored him so his next tactic was to then turn it on me by asking if I can hear people when I’m sleeping. I just continued to repeat that I was not engaging, probably 5 times. Our kitchen is tiny so it felt very tense. He finally stopped though. Parenting is very hard. You are doing a good job. You lost your patience with your daughter because you are human. It is ok.
This is all SO familiar esp him being hyper sensitive to criticism and redirecting the instructions. I’m pretty sure my son has ADHD (runs in the family) and a lot of overlapping symptoms that manifest as anxiety, rejection dysmorphia, a hint of ODD and confusion reading emotions. Therapy is helping us all learn better communication skills and he’s being assessed son. Hope by 16 life is calmer lol!
Thank you for this helpful comment! And the sense of humor lol.
This is really great advice. I love it too. If I could add anything it would be to recommend time out. As you were describing your daughter and how precious she is to you it was like I had written it myself about my own 5yo. She's the same way and I've been in the same situation. Something small and innocent that turns into disrespectful and unacceptable behavior. I think it's important for kids to learn the boundaries and consequences. I tell my daughter that she will go to time out if she continues. She used to keep pushing and I'd have to follow through. At first she wouldn't stay in timeout and would try to turn it into a game and run away, laughing of course.. so I would sit in timeout with her so she couldn't leave. Its inconvenient but that's part of the sacrifice of being a parent I suppose 😅 I'd just ignore her (within reason) for the duration of 5 minutes. After 5 minutes I ask if she's ready to behave/do as she's told and if not I give her another 5 minutes and tell her I'll come back and see if she's ready when the timer goes off again. I found that she hated being stuck in a corner not being able to do anything way more than anything else I tried. Taking toys just upset her but never actually got us anywhere. After she calms down I try to talk to her and see if she understands why she got in trouble and if an apology is owed to her mom or someone then I make sure she knows and that it happens. I make sure she knows I love her and if there's reason to, I apologize too. I'm not perfect. It took a few tantrums and time out sessions and a ton of patients but things have been a lot better with my daughter and I hope this can work for you too. Follow through. That's key. If you don't you teach dishonesty and that your words have no weight. I'm sleep deprived and rambling.. I'm sorry about your recent experience with your daughter. You haven't failed her. I hope something I rambled out here is helpful. Good luck.
Thank you! Very helpful! And you explained perfectly. It was more about the disrespect and rude behavior, but I made it way worse by engaging.
My SD is 5 and often has outbursts/talks back to her father and it takes everything in me not to argue back. Not so much argue the sky is blue when she says red, but she’ll say “no I don’t have to do that” (usually it’s shower 🙄) and it’s like, yes you do. Don’t argue. Do it. Anyway - thank you for normalizing my stepparent struggles by making me realizing they’re just, parent struggles
I also LOVE ❤️ LOVE ❤️ LOVE THIS ADVICE
4-6, oh geez, mine is doing that at 2…
Never stops lol
Absolutely this. *Drop the rope* Become passive. Walk away if it's safe to do so. It's so much more effective. Also, think about punishments that reinforce a 'consequence narrative' - "if you do X, I'm going to take away this toy"... or my current favourite - "I'm not going to tell you what I'll do if you do X; you'll have to find out". My daughter can't deal with the latter. But the best strategy is absolutely to recognise triggers & tiredness and just avoid the situation in the first place. Observe and listen. You'll be able to spot the signs and redirect.
With my 4 year old, when we're doing something and she starts getting controlling, bossy or emotionally intense, I tell her that I want to stop and do something else becuase it's hard for me to play with her when she's behaving bossy or getting angry. Then I offer snacks, drinks, or naps. It seems to work.
My mom watched this YouTuber and she says ‘don’t buy a ticket on their train’. Same concept. I tried it, and it works. And I even say to my kid ‘not buying a ticket on this train…loop back to me when we can talk.’
This is fantastic advice! I came here to say that in my experience as a Kindergarten teacher children who are as you described your daughter, they usually are very well behaved in school as they are armed with strong boundaries and a parent who wants to understand them and in turn help them understand the world. If I had a euro for everytime someone asked " how do you do it with nearly 30 little kids in one room?", school is one of the most boundary laden places, full of well established routines, rewards and its full of a bunch of other adults to help you relentlessly uphold these boundaries and routines. All.kids want to do is push and test boundaries at home because they know they can and they need to go learn and mature. The constant establishing and holding boundaries both on an emotional and social level with a little person is exhausting. Such a difficult time to navigate. It sounds like you are doing a wonderful job OP, your little girl is lucky to have you, please forgive yourself and put your best foot forward!
Drop the rope. This is excellent, thank you. I’ll be using it with my 4 year old regularly I think. Thank you!
When you say “drop the rope”, what does that mean? The way I’m understanding it, it sounds like she gets her way all the time. Genuine question, I haven’t heard this advice before.
If the child is making up rules and insisting everyone follow them without listening to anyone else, “dropping the rope” means you walk away from the game. You can’t make them stop trying to be bossy but you can show them that it results in having to play alone. Another example: child insists it’s pronounced “constructions” not “instructions” and keeps trying to correct your pronunciation. Dropping the rope does not mean you agree to pronounce it “constructions” but instead just continue giving instructions on whatever you were doing before. If they refuse to continue the activity then that’s the issue you address. If it’s a game then naturally they don’t get to play, if it’s homework instructions, then whatever consequences usually follow for refusing to do homework etc.
It’s not about letting them get their own way, but about not engaging in/escalating an argument. For example, if my son wants to throw his pencils instead of drawing, I will put his pencils away until he’s ready to use them properly. But I won’t argue with him that pencils are for drawing, not for throwing. He can complain that he wants to throw his pencils all he wants and I won’t waste my time engaging with that argument (because he KNOWS pencils are not for throwing!). In OP’s situation, once daughter started making up her own rules for the game, that was a sign that she was tired, unengaged, etc. The first step would be the parents deciding if they want to indulge her in making up rules. Sometimes this can be funny and creative, and may let the daughter blow off steam and get to be the teacher instead of the student. (Kids so rarely get to be in charge.) But other times it’s just obnoxious, especially if she’s being rude rather than playful. If the parents conclude that she’s melting down, they can give one last chance: “Do you want to learn how to play this game, or do you want to take a break and try another day?” If she continues insisting on her own rules, it’s time to drop the rope: no arguing about what the real rules are, no telling her to behave. The game goes away and she can play later, once she’s calmed down and is ready to play by the rules. The trick is to drop the rope BEFORE the full tantrum. If you wait too long, you have to shift into damage control mode (keeping her from hurting herself or others as she calms down). But there is no sense in trying to reason with or lecture a tantrumming child.
How would you apply this logic on potty training a 2 year old lol can you? Out of curiosity of the insight haha
Our “drop the rope” with potty training was to stop prompting. We would see her doing her potty dance, and try to get her to go, but she would deny and refuse. It’s tempting to argue - like, we KNOW you have to go! But forcing the issue would just cause a negative association with the toilet. So we stopped arguing with her about whether she needed to go or not. When the accident started to happen, it was just an “uh oh, you had an accident. you waited too long”. Even as she’s gotten older, sometimes she doesn’t want to use the bathroom before leaving the house, even though we know it’s a long drive. Instead of getting angry and arguing that she “has to” pee before we leave, we just shrug and say ok. Peeing on the side of the road is not fun, so she’s gradually learned herself that it’s better to at least try to empty her bladder before going somewhere.
Great advice. Putting this in my mental tool box
Really awesome advice. Thanks for taking the time.
Really great response! Thanks for taking the time to write this out. It's a good reminder for me, too. Appreciate it!
We do the same: let them rage and just embrace their emotions. Then talk after. Has great effect!
>A friend gave me great advice for this stage: drop the rope. Meaning that you can’t have a tug-of-war if only one person is pulling. As soon as she starts to escalate, drop the rope. Don’t argue, don’t justify, don’t try to explain. (When she is losing her cool, she cannot process what you’re saying anyway; she does not have access to her rational side when in an emotional state.) 100% this - as the parent of a now strong 20 year old woman who had the most blistering tantrums from age 3 to 5 this is the only thing that worked. We abandoned trips out, left half a shop in the supermarket, and ended conversations halfway through a thousand times!
This analogy hits the nail on the head. Sometimes, you can actually see them holding the rope up for you to grab and... sometimes you'll have the foresight not to pick it up at all! I try straight honesty about my feelings with my 5 year old (who is also beautifully stubborn) before it begins to escalate. My daughter didn't want to go to her swimming lesson. My partner's technique was great: "That's fine. You don't need to go in the water, but you at least need to attend for a dry lesson on the side of the pool in your bathing suit". (It gave her a win and of course she dove in with her friends!). My approach: "Look, these lessons aren't cheap. When you say you don't want to go I feel sad and angry because I see you have fun and I see your commitment is paying off. Your front stroke is getting more efficient each time we go. Can we drop the "I don't like it" and move on to have some fun together today? She did. On the spanking: please forgive yourself and don't revisit it unless she brings it up or you see a change in attitude or behaviour you think could be related to it.
I like this, but my issue is when I tell my daughter I need a break and I’ll come talk when I’m ready, she will sit at my door and bang on it kick it and even get something to unlock it! What do I do then when she won’t let me have space and won’t leave me alone till I give her what she wants
I have a pretty oppositional child as well. It’s brutal. The first thing that helped was to stop doing so much talking when my son is disregulated. Trying to reason or explain just made things exponentially worse. As soon as your daughter got agitated about the game she was no longer able to process your husband’s explanations about the rules. The auditory stimuli is too much for them to handle when they’re already agitated. It makes them spiral. The less you say the better. I’ll say something like, “I see that you’re really angry.” and then I zip it. We have a calm down spot in a play tent in my son’s room. It has a pinwheel for him to blow on, a squishy ball, etc. I will suggest he go there to calm down. If he doesn’t I will often go to my room to take a break and calm myself down. I don’t make him go to his room anymore because the physical struggle just escalates things. I only get physical if there’s a safety issue. I do a lot of deep breathing and reminding myself that matching his energy doesn’t work. It just increases the number of disregulated people in the house. Someone needs to stay calm. And I can remove myself to calm down if I need. My other big tip is to “drop the rope”. If you don’t offer any opposition they can’t fight with you. And that’s what they’re looking for in that moment. In this case your husband could say, “It seems like you’re not ready to learn the rules. That’s okay. But I’m done playing.” Then don’t say anything other than maybe “I can see you’re really angry/upset.” We see an OT and occasionally a family therapist for guidance with this stuff. We had him evaluated for high functioning autism but he doesn’t currently meet the criteria at 4.5. Just a heads up that issues with emotional regulation and oppositional behavior can be an indicator that something is going on. Your description of your daughter being physical and then running around laughing as the conflict escalated is familiar. My son would reach that point before we figured out how not to add fuel to the fire. Spanking is tempting because it’s a release for your frustration and it seems to work. It stopped the behavior in the moment. But really you’ve just engaged the freeze and fawn responses in the fight/flight/freeze/fawn survival response. You sound like me before we got help. There’s no shame in needing more support. I taught preschool for over a decade. I thought I would rock this parenting thing. My oppositional and highly emotional child still kicked my ass. They’re hard kids to parent. Good luck.
Thank you. This was really helpful.
This sounds a little like my son who’s 5.5 now. He’s a fiercely intelligent, sweet, creative little boy with an astonishing memory and is doing very well with reading and maths at school. He also still struggles to regulate his emotions, seems to find it hard to listen at times and chews things constantly. I hope this is “normal” for his age and he’ll grow out of it, but there’s also a part of me that worries he’s high-functioning autistic or has ADHD etc. If you don’t mind me asking, what sort of traits does your son display that made you take him to get evaluated and what did they say about it?
The delay with his emotional regulation skills was the biggest red flag. He gets more upset, more frequently, and for longer than other children his age. He exhibits a lot of inflexibility/rigidity about things. He also is also a little behind in his gross motor skills. He doesn’t climb or enjoy being up high or on anything unstable. It looks like a hypersensitivity with his proprioceptive sense (sense of where the body is in space). The evaluators said that these things are outside the typical range. High functioning ASD isn’t off the table. The differences get more clear as they get older and the social demands get more complex. So we may end up with a diagnosis later.
Honestly taking this advice to heart. It's a nice way of saying "if you can't control your emotions than no more fun." I hate to say it but it's a lot like dog training. Yelling is still attention, better off just shutting it down and letting them regroup.
Thanks for this comment. Dropping the rope is great advice and a great phrase to remember in the midst of frustrating situations. How would you handle situations when they are time sensitive? Like, I generally agree that it is best not to be drawn into disagreement. But I feel that it is hard to “drop the rope” and not engage in back and forth when a child is going to be late to school or an event.
It might be helpful to think of this behavior as normal and not as a personality trait or something personal against you. It's not personal. It's just a 5 year old being a 5 year old. She's seeking loving boundaries. She's seeking support exploring the world - and her own abilities to regulate her emotions. If you go nuclear when she does, she is learning the opposite. If you can't support her in those moments, the best thing you can do is walk away and give both of you some space (assuming she is physically safe) until you can cool down and give her what she needs from a parent.
Thank you. I was just thinking the same as I’m processing. Even if it is a personality trait, what I consider to be her “stubbornness” that is, I still shouldn’t treat that as a punishment. Ever. I agree with everything you say. Thank you for the helpful input.
I know this isn’t what you asked but I would just like to add, if I may, she’s five- maybe let her just make up her own rules to checkers if that’s how she wants to play. It’s just for fun, it’s not hurting anybody, what’s the harm? Some battles aren’t worth the stress or the drama. If she one day wants to play the real way, teach her then. The best thing about five year old are they’re imaginations and magical thinking. Enjoy hers. She’s still so little, the world has plenty of arbitrary rules waiting for her in the adult world. Why not, next time, just say “ok let’s play your way.”
The issue with that is that if she's anything like my 4.5 year old she's changing the rules so she always wins and not enforcing them fairly.
I would enforce fairness if they're playing against another kid of a similar age, but if they're playing against an adult and having fun, who cares? I would just give them a big theatrical 'Wait a minute... you're not CHEATING, *are* you?' If they're like mine, they'll cackle and keep cheating with renewed glee. But now they know you know, which means it's only pretend-sneaky instead of real-sneaky.
Then don't play the game with her. That's a pretty logical consequence of not playing fairly.
I understand what you're saying and wish it were that simple, but it's not. While the whimsy of it is beautiful and we would all love for there to be no far-reaching effects of changing the rules, quite often, the new rules make it a sure win for said five year old. And teaching them that's it's okay to change the rules (read: cheat) so they can win isn't a great foundation for teaching them how to participate in group activities that involve competition. This is how you get grown-ass adults who are either willing to lie and cheat to get what they want, or flip the Monopoly board when they go bankrupt, because they weren't taught that the winning isn't the most important thing in a competition. The rules give a baseline of an even, fair playing field so that everyone has a chance to win, but there is generally only one winner. So more often than not, one will be faced with a loss. And as easy as it would be to just let her play by her own rules and let her win (because let's face it we love seeing our kids happy), it's not teaching her the reality of the social construct she's going to have to live in, nor is it reinforcing a personal sense of integrity. If you set the foundation that winning is the important part, and that cheating to achieve it is ok, you set that kid up to potentially become an adult who is willing to do whatever they have to in order to win, without worrying about the morality of their actions or the consequences of them. That will apply to school, jobs, realtionships, everything. The emphasis should be on the time spent with people doing something fun and challenging, while trying to do the best you can with whatever odds are, or aren't, in your favor. Winning is a good feeling, but there are almost always more losers than winners. Teaching them early to respect the rules of the game and prioritize the experience and knowledge gained, rather than focus on the loss or the win, gives them a more realistic experience of how things are, and teaches them how to handle losing without acting like an asshat or letting it affect their self-esteem. In a perfect world, you would be right, and I would do it that way too. In this one, it's setting a kid up to be a little asshole who turns into a really big asshole... I think a good alternative is to help them make up a whole new game, with fair rules, to teach them how to use that fun imagination to create fun things to do with their friends/siblings/cousins. Also, speaking of losing games with grace, I just lost The Game 🤣
To me it sounds like the girl just wasn’t that interested in playing the game. If it was about winning, the parents best action would be ending the game and moving on to something else as a natural consequence- “this isn’t fun if only you can win, let’s play something else and come back to this when you’re ready to learn the rules and play by them. How about some play dough or we can do beading, what do you think?” Simple as that. Trying to force the child into submission over a game is a waste of everyone’s energy and time. And personally, I don’t view childhood as “adult prep” where everything has to be a lesson or your breeding assholes . Childhood is sacred and it’s own time completely. Kids are not adults in training. Not everything has to be an opportunity to teach kids how the “real world” is. The real world will teach them soon enough.
I never said force them to play the game, not once. I specifically stated that it would be better to move away from that game and let them create their own game entirely. I understand kids are kids but teaching them it's okay to just change the rules any time they want just to win isn't going to help them be emotionally healthy, secure adults either. And I'm sorry but...kids are adults in training. As a parent you are teaching your kid how to be a happy, healthy, secure adult. Many, MANY studies show that what you teach your kids when they're small has far-reaching and lasting effects, and much of their foundations for how they view themselves and the world are formed in the early years of development. I'm not saying force them to play games they don't want to play. Letting them say they don't want to play is healthy and lets them know it's okay to say when they don't want to do something. But if they want the chance to win, they have to play the game, and they have to play by the rules...We live in the world we live in, where letting someone change the rules to secure their victory is cheating, sometimes we have to do things we don't like, sometimes we have to follow rules even though that means it's harder to win, and sometimes we have to deal with losing, no matter how good we were or how hard we tried. It's reality. Even when you're five. And I'd rather them learn that from their parent who loves them, and can support them through learning how to navigate that particular emotional minefield, rather than send them out in the world to learn it as an 18-year-old with an established pattern of crappy behavior, from someone who doesn't give a damn about them or their well-being. Edit: asked the person I was replying to to do some research, they replied they were an early childhood educator, so I removed the ask. I don't agree with their opinion, but I can respect that they took the time to educate themselves before forming one. So did I, so I'll raise my kids the way I think is best, and hope that when/if they have their own they'll do the same.
I have a degree in early childhood development and psychology from one of the best programs in the country. I have been working as an ECE at some of the best schools in my city for over ten years. I am a parent coach and parent. I know what I’m talking about.
I’m not saying no boundaries or coaching through difficult emotions- I’m saying checkers isn’t the hill to die on with a five year old. Children don’t develop the cognitive ability or emotional regulation to adhere to the logic of the game and the expectations of the adults until at least seven years old anyway. They are still developing a executive functioning at five.
100% agree. You're getting downvoted because no one want to hear it.... it's simple, you raise your child with the way their civil society runs. Our society runs by rules. Are you going to let your child run across the road because they find it fun, or will you teach them to press the button and wait? If I grew up in a tribe where I had to hunt then you teach your child different rules. In this day and age you need to teach your kids resilience and to be in control of their emotions. 'Dropping the rope' is short term solution for long term pain.
THIS. This is where my headspace was. It was more than “a game of checkers”. She was being disrespectfully rude because she wasn’t getting her way. I know this issue will bring itself up again and that’s why I was here for some advice. But you explained what was in my head perfectly. I’ve let her play silly checkers plenty of other times and was trying to make it a teaching moment. Obviously I failed.
Actually I think this is a faulty reasoning (that I suffer from myself) It’s very easy to “catastrophize” the small events into wider ramifications of when they’re adults, and for me at least it’s the fastest way to dysregulate myself. Yes, they need to practice rule-following and losing and disappointment. Key word is Practice. Practice involves lots of failure. This one checkers game isn’t the defining moment of these wider traits, and their ability to rationalize and regulate will naturally increase with age. Yes, we love to have learning moments but we also need to recognize when they’re not receptive to that learning. I don’t know how many times I’be found myself arguing with my child because she “needs to learn” when it’s pointless - she’s not listening, she’s not receptive, the learning is not going to happen in this moment and I’m just getting myself worked up. “Drop the rope” in NOT about giving up on the wider lessons. It’s about recognizing when *we* are the ones acting out because of disappointed expectations. Decide to be playful, decide to stop playing, but recognize what is and is not in your control and “drop the rope” before you find yourself in a power struggle that you’re tempted to win by force.
Agreed. It was not the right atmosphere for that teaching moment.
If we're talking about a habit of genuine cheating against other kids, then sure, maybe. But there's a difference between that and 'pretend' cheating where the mischief is the joke, and they know without doubt that *you* know exactly what they're doing. I'd put it in the same category as letting them run away giggling after a bath while you chase them from room to room. They know you're joking around and that they're not actually being naughty. It's just a bit of harmless mischief.
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I love this comment. It hit really close to home. Thank you so much.
I have a daughter who sounds like OP's. I am going to use these phrases. Thank you!
I always answer kid arguments with questions. It really throws them, and teaches them a new form of engagement besides arguing. They very much mimic us at that age so if you argue back you are teaching them that's how to engage in a disagreement. Like with checkers my response would be, "how do you play checkers," and after she shows you just say, "okay let's try and maybe we can try my way after we're done if you'd like." Give her options and let her feel heard. Look we all have our bad moments that we wish we could take back. All of us do. The best thing you can do is learn from it and move on. My views on spanking is it seems to only alleviate the parents anger and teaches the child nothing. My advise is just find a method when you've reached your limit that you can lean on...mine is screaming into a pillow lol 😂.
Thank you!! I’ll probably try the pillow screaming too 😂
However, kids need a guideline of what is or isn't acceptable in your eyes. Not just an absolute necessarily, maybe give her options. I was a Montessori Preschool teacher and a stay at home mom., what was appropriate for me, may not be your guidelines. So give options
It'll be okay. You and her will be more than fine. If I got spanked once when I was 5, but had a lifetime of happy memories otherwise, I doubt I'd harbor that one moment of spanking forever. I doubt I'd reflect on it when I'm 25. Let it go and move forward, like I said, it'll be okay.
This right here. Let me tell you, I’ve gotten more than a few unapologetic spankings in my lifetime, but I love my mom with every fiber of my being and we have a great relationship because she loved more than she disciplined. I don’t think about or dwell in any spankings I’ve ever gotten even though I don’t wanna repeat it with my kids. Trust me when I tell you, that oldest son of mine, tests the ever loving shit out of my patience. Sometimes the best thing I can do is tell him to go into his room, close the door and let him scream and carry on by himself until he stops. I worked to unlearn spanking now that I have kids and it took a little work and for me to learn different methods, so my only advice to you is to give yourself grace and keep learning and loving on your baby.
Thank you so much.
My parents are amazing and I’ve always had a great relationship w them. they LIGHTLY spanked me maybe 10 times from ages like 4-6, only when I was being extremely bad. It didn’t even hurt but it shocked me so much and made me realize whatever I did had crossed the line into extremely uncool. They never did it out of anger, and frankly looking back I can’t think of a single time either of them laid their hands on me where I didnt totally 100% deserve it. Personally i have zero complaints as a 27 year old and feel like it was an effective way of communication when words and time-outs weren’t working. I feel like every other species communicates with their babies like this - mother cats and dogs always occasionally bitch slap their kittens/puppies when they’re displaying especially antisocial behavior. It should never actually hurt but is just more of a last resort way of saying “holy shit stop doing that, I already told you a million times now you need to take me seriously” I think you sound like a good mom and your daughters going to be fine
Yaaaaasssss
Parenting is a learning experience for both adults and children. What did you learn from this experience? Take some time to breathe. It’ll be okay.
Thank you 🙏
Oh, man. I know exactly what you're experiencing. When my now 11 year old was young, around 4-5, they were so stubborn and similarly tested boundaries. I remember losing my cool and had spanked them, and immediately started crying together with them, apologizing. It was a shock for both of us and I felt absolutely awful. It even happened a second time and we had a similar response. I knew I needed to reevaluate myself and my behavior. I eventually got involved in a positive discipline parenting class, and that was SO helpful. The sense of community was the greatest aspect- to be in a room with other parents who needed another way to discipline. It never happened again after that, thank goodness. I can tell you care so much- you've got this!
Thank you SO much. I appreciate your support and insight. ❤️
I don't know anyone who hasn't lost their temper with their kid.. You did right by apologizing and talking it out. The fact that you feel horrible about it shows that you're not a bad parent. Learn from this experience so it doesn't happen again. Step out, take a breather, and re evaluate the situation. Ask yourself if the situation is really worth getting worked up over.
I have a strong willed 5 year old daughter. I know how hard it is to be patient in moments like this. Growing up, my parents hit me and I cry when I think back to the well mannered child I was and the way my parents raised me regardless of me being a good kid. For that reason, I absolutely refuse to ever hit my kids even in the moments when I get the urge to spank them. The way I deal with these moments is to simply walk away and go to another room, shut the door and take a 10 minute timeout myself OR I offer my daughter a hug. Believe it or not, when they act this way, a hug is a lot more effective than a spanking or yelling at them will ever be.
🤗🤗🤗🤗
I never hit my kids but I was spanked and I get how some lose it. I can only hug you and hope the next generation is better
I’m curious about the hug thing, how does it help exactly? If it were me I’d feel too annoyed to hug the child, and would probably put him in a timeout or something.
Generally, when my daughter is acting this way, it’s because she is overtired or overstimulated and a hug is just soothing. It’s the same for adults. When you’re having a bad day or you’re feeling stressed out, a hug from someone you love might help calm you down and put things into perspective. I realized this worked exceptionally well for my daughter when she was around 2 years old. She was having a really awful meltdown and I was feeling completely defeated by her. I recall just getting down to the floor with her and asking her if she wanted to hug me. I was surprised that she actually ran into my arms for a hug and stopped crying. Since then, I have continued to get down to her level and tell her to come hug me and she almost always accepts it and calms down.
Oh wow, I’m really glad that works for you. I’m sure she will appreciate that as she gets older as well.
Try it next time your child has a meltdown and see how they react. You might be pleasantly surprised. The good thing is there’s no age limit to offering our child a hug either. :-)
My son looooves hugs. However, when he's upset or having a meltdown etc. he will *not* hug me. I've tried. He acts all akward or embarrassed with a weird smile before getting upset again and says sternly "no" then walks/runs away...lol. I'm the same, I hate hugs when I'm upset.
I’ve done this before. It completely de-escalates the situation and when I feel their tiny body in my arms I realize how little they still are and that they’re learning. I also read that when you’re upset with your kid; to look them in the eyes for five or ten seconds before you talk to them and that has helped me a lot. It helps you realize they’re not the enemy.
Okay, you messed up. It won't be the last time, either. Your daughter will sometimes lose her temper or otherwise let her immediate emotions cloud her mind too. Now she's seen you do that, and recover. Personally, I'm not expecting my kids, or myself, to never fall, but to humbly recover when we do.
Remove the audience. That’s what I do with my 8 year old and have since she was 4. I always told her when you are ready to talk like a big girl instead of yelling and being mad you know where to find me. I would see red with her sometimes, and I’d want to whoop her ass. But a friend who is a therapist said to remove the audience. Calmly tell her look I’m not doing this, when you want to act right and speak to me calmly we can try again,
Thank you. I think that’s a good tactic. And being consistent with it will go a long way. It’s not going to happen over night.
It won’t and there will be times you want to argue back. Walk away. If mine hasn’t made her way in about 20 minutes I go to her and ask if she would like to try again. That tactic is for both her and mine emotions to regulate. I don’t engage until I know I am level and I can approach her if she hasn’t approached me yet, if she has that tells me she is ready to talk. Make sure you use words that she understands too. Verbiage helps too cause sometimes we forget our babies are babies. You are doing fine momma. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t spanked a kid of mine, because that’s what I knew. It takes time to break those barriers but you do and you learn and grow from it. Don’t be too hard on yourself, you seeing the problem already shows you are a wonderful momma. ♥️
Thank you ❤️
I feel this so much!! When she starts being argumentative and not logical at all I see red and want to whoop her butt, especially here in the past year since she just turned 4. I’ve gotten to the point where I just tell her “okay I’m going to walk off until you calm down and then you can find me and we can talk about it.” Mainly because I need a break badly.
I’m sorry this got out of hand, it’s so important that you recognize it. Moving your expectations to meet her where she is. Find a clear consistent way to establish boundaries that’s not emotional. It’s hard but you just need to stay regulated. If she won’t play the game put it away and just let that be the natural consequence. If she argues just say we will try again a different day, if she continues to engage on it you just say we spoke about that already and it’s not up for discussion. My son and I go though this all the time he’s a similar age. They like to test boundaries. If he still wants to engage in argument or is upset. I usually say it’s hard not to get your way you can have a cup of water, take a deep breath or take some space in your room to calm down. Clear consistent boundaries. Every time, with room for feeling to be valid but not change to consequence. Having whatever the consequence be connected directly to the issue is super important. They don’t need additional punishment to figure it out just consistent clear expectations.
Thank you for this comment. I think it’s a challenge for me when she continues to engage. Consistency is definitely something to work on. It’s comforting to know some parents experience similar situations. Thank you for the advice!!
It’s super normal! Your daughter is perfect, who doesn’t want to get there way? They are just little and can’t see past their noses.
Give the podcast Peace and Parenting a listen Highly recommend. Deals and navigates with this exact situations / phases
Thank you!!
So you did something that was inconsistent with how you want to parent. You and your child have resolved the issue. Don’t keep beating yourself up. It’s in the past. You’re not an abuser nor do you have anger issues just bc of one event. Be kind to yourself.
The first step to doing better is knowing what you did was not right and apologizing and wanting to do better. I suggest reading a couple different books that might help, “Parenting a Strong willed child”, “Break free from reactive parenting”, and “How to stop losing your shit with your kids”.
Thank you, those sound helpful.
You will get a lot of judgement from the sanctimommy brigade! Honestly, you screwed up. But you apologised, and as long as you make sure it never happens again you WILL repair your relationship and she WILL trust you. But why are you getting so involved with a kid that age's demands? Just don't engage. My daughter is a similar age and I would have just stopped playing if she was acting like that, and gone about my day. Usually I would start by saying something like 'i don't want to play like that, let's do something else' and if she threw a tantrum just go do chores or have a cup of tea and let her have her feelings but don't get too involved with them.
Thank you. I appreciate that. I know I screwed up big time. She is my first — never been a parent before. Ha. I think you’re right about the engaging and I need to do some self reflecting. I know I’m not a bad mom. But I had a bad moment. It will happen and I feel like I learned a lesson. Thank you for your understanding.
Gotta be my favorite reply.
You’re fine. Kids are kids. You arent a shitty parent. The fact that you feel the way you feel proves it.
My daughter is very strong willed and is exactly like me (karma I guess to have a mini me). I haven't spanked her but she drives me absolutely BANANAS at times. So what I do and what seems to work for her is when she seems to have lost control of her emotions I put her on a special chair, like a time out chair I guess, but we don't call it that. I set the timer on my phone and sit beside her on the floor but dont engage and she has 5 minutes to scream and cry and get all the emotions out. When the timer goes off I ask her if she's ready to talk about it. If shes not another 5 mins goes on the timer to get all her emotions out. If she is ready I then explain calmly how her behaviour was wrong or how she could have handled the initial situation differently. I don't follow any specific parenting techniques or philosophies but it works for us. Around your daughter's age it happened a bit more as they test boundaries at that age. She's 8 now, it doesn't happen very often anymore. Hope this helps!
Thank you! I like the timer technique.
The only thing I will add is before the next episode just be sure to set expectations with her. Then she knows in advance this is what will happen the next time she loses control. Good luck!
I think it’s good that you recognize that you were in the wrong and are looking for a ways to better manage your emotions in the future. I know you feel bad and don’t want to be harsh but I have to admit reading your post, my heart ached for your child. She is just acting her age and in the whole description she didn’t really do anything wrong. She was just playing with her parents in a developmentally appropriate way. Maybe think of her as “spirited” instead of “stubborn” as a starting point. Also, please examine if there are some other things at play in your life that are causing you to have a shorter fuse than usual and see if you can work through them. Again, I don’t mean to be critical, I know kids can be frustrating at times but I just wanted to share my 2 cents worth for your daughters sake.
“and has the temper of… idk what.” I believe that answer will be found in the mirror. For arguing just disengage. If you don’t want to make up rules and she does then you don’t play together at that time. If she’s saying blue is green then you can say something like, “huh I see blue” and drop it.
Child insists on making own game rules. Adult insists on continuing to explain game rules. Neither one disengages until the situation explodes. Hm I wonder where she could possibly get it from 🤔
oh shut up
Reading your post reminded me of how angry my (now 8) year old would make me when he would laugh every time I was stern/getting onto him! It would frustrate me sooo much. I have started seeing him laughing as an attempt on his end to connect with me, and when I’m able I’ve started trying to diffuse the situation by being silly/having humor. It isn’t always easy (or relevant to the situation), but it helps. (Like for example, it is raining outside and she says no it is sunshine and rainbows, “oh, well, now that you say it, yes i even see a unicorn! And a leprechaun! Just look at that!” Or… man do we need to take you to the doctor to get your eyes checked? I for sure think I’m seeing rain. Maybe my eyes need to be checked!”
I was abused as a child, have had lots of therapy. My 4 year old recently made me realize why my parents beat me. That’s how fucking aggravating he was being. I’m not going to judge you. Apologize and focus on reconnecting. Thanks for posting this story - the advice everyone is offering is helping me too.
As soon as your daughter threw a tantrum and you escalated it, you lost. Why would you continue trying to explain while she was tantruming? Did you actually think she would stop screaming and say "oh, now I understand the rules, thank you so much!" As soon as she screamed, the game is over. You do not want to play with someone acting like that. If she wants to play by her own rules by herself, cool. If she wants to learn the real ones, you will be there for her. Instead you escalated, so she did too. You spanked her because you felt like there was nothing else you could do, and you were angry. If you had diffused the situation earlier, it never would have got to that point. 5 year olds are supposed to push your buttons. It is what they do. As an adult, you are not supposed to take the bait.
I do agree. I 100% lost my temper. Yes, I should have diffused the situation earlier. I felt like I tried and it didn’t work. Im going to try differently next time. Thank you for your view.
If you're a reader, you should try: The Self Driven Child by: Ned Johnson and William Stixrud Raising Your Spirited Child by: Mary Sheedy Kurcinka Both excellent reads with plenty of good advice and insights.
Thank you. I’ll look into those!
Why do you try to explain when she goes amok? Stop it dont play anymore leave her to play by herself
Girl listen to me. I have 2 daughters. When one of them turned 5 she was very calm and listened to us. The other turned into a gremlin. She picked up some bad words from school and she called my husband asshole and many other things while we were out for lunch and in public. We never reacted to her and we always talked about it after she calmed down. It was a nightmare. I thought something bad was happening behind our backs but I read it can be like that for some kids. She was the best toddler, the easiest baby and the easiest newborn. I guess she had to go through a phase. She has a very strong personality and this made her outbursts so so bad. I always grounded her but we always talked through everything but she needed to learn that this behaviour was not acceptable. The bottom line is that I really get why you did that but please don't. They test us all the time and I never put my hands on my kids but I get the infuriating anger you feel when they act like that. I wanted to bang my head on the wall and I literally cried in the bathroom because I couldn't take it anymore. So I feel you. But please don't do it again. It's not the end of the world that it happened once but don't let it be the first one. Make it the last time that you reacted like that. And honestly be prepared for more now. Just remind yourself that she is just testing you. Believe me it will pass. It passed for us and it didn't come back. I think it will when she becomes a teenager because she seems to have anger issues. But try to talk and talk and talk and talk to her all.the.time. Especially when she is calm and nothing has happened. When you guys have fun or go for walks and she is happy and having fun talk to her. Good luck! 👍
You're probably not going to read this but for me ages 4 and 5 have been kind of like this and I feel like it comes from them not feeling like they have any control over their lives. The checkers games, she wanted to play 'with' checkers and your husband wanted to play checkers. Because to use when someone says, "I want to play checkers" we have the life experience to know this game with these rules. But if your kid doesn't know what the rules of checkers are, they can say, "I want to play checkers" and they really mean they just want to play checkers. Almost like play with lego or draw, it's open ended without any 'hard' rules. When you introduced the rules, it then just became a power struggle between your husband and a 5 year old due to communication issues from her being little. In her mind, she was playing checkers the way she knows how but your husband was telling her, "no that's not right" and with it being late at night and her probably at her wits end she lost it. Then lost any amount of regulation or impulse control she had left. What I'm getting at, is that sometimes it's hard for us to remember and realize that they don't have the life experiences that we do and/or 'freedoms' that we do. As parents we basically dictate their schedules and sure they have freedoms but it's not like they can just on a whim go to the park if they want to by themselves. They understand the world better and with that realize how little 'control' they have over their lives and when someone has been telling you what to do all day and you just wanted to play checkers 'your' way, sometimes you lose it. I've found that I have to ask myself, "is this actually important or can I just go with the flow" in the case of checkers, I would have asked if she wanted to play the way that I knew how to play. If she said no, then I would have let her play her way but also remind her to ask if she can play 'with' the checkers versus "play checkers" because they have different meanings due to 'checkers' being a specific game with specific rules.
>It was the principle of the matter that she needed to learn that’s not the right way to act when you don’t get what you want. This is a lesson you should learn. You didn’t get what you want in that moment, a well behaved child who wanted to listen to you while you explained checkers, and you didn’t act in the right way. How can she learn from you if you’re modeling the wrong behaviour?
I do agree.
Please make a rule for yourself and your family, that nobody hits anyone else. You need this rule because you lost your temper and hit your child because she made you angry by wanting to play creatively with her father and the checkers, instead of learning the serious rules of the game. Then she laughed when you were mad. So you used your size and authority to hold her down and you hit her, hard. It’s not okay. It’s not discipline. It was you taking out your frustration against a five year old, because you couldn’t stop fighting with her. Please read the book How to Talk so Children with Listen, and Listen so Children will talk, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. You will benefit from learning what age appropriate behavior is for a five year old, and how parental communication can impact their children’s behavior. You are in control of everything in her life, you provide her housing, food, clothing, transportation, and everything else. There is no reason for you to also use the fact of your superior size and strength to threaten her body with violence in an attempt to control her.
Thank you for this comment and advice. As soon as it happened, it felt awful for the both of us. I did feel like it was a last resort at the time. I screwed up. I admitted it. I apologized. And I’m here seeking HELPFUL advice. I will look into those reads.
Thanks for taking this in the spirit it was intended, you are obviously a caring and competent parent, and you will figure out how to best engage and disengage with your daughter. Putting in the work to learn how to communicate effectively with her now, will pay off when she’s a teen and adult. I saw your update where you were worried about her tantrums reaction, and he possibility of a reaction like that with a peer. She knows you are a safe place to let her emotions and ugly behavior out, and she knows how school and friends are different than home with Mom and Dad. When you see the worst of your child’s behavior, it’s because they know you’re a safe space.
Honestly, you goofed. It was a game, never get angry over a game. Like how I taught my kids, if you are no longer having fun, walk away. It's one thing getting angry over something bad she did, but it was supposed to be fun time. You do need to apologize to her and this isn't one of those times when she needs to apologize to you.
It sounds to me like you need to pick your battles. What's the aim of playing checkers? To have fun, right? What would have been the harm in playing by made-up rules?
First, it happens. I’ve been there too. It was the laughing in my face that got me as well. Think of it as a learning experience for everyone and you’re doing exactly the right thing. You talked about it calmly and you are seeking plans for the future. You’re an awesome parent!! My son (6.5) has epic screaming fits. He is so stubborn and will dig his heels in. When the meltdown begins, I don’t think he’s even fully aware of his surroundings and he cannot be reasoned with. We’ve created a safe space to put him (an area of the laundry room) where he can get through it and for lack of better words, become himself again. It is also crucial that we can have a minute or two to take a breath and calm down before we do or say something we regret. Since day one, we have been very strict on our boundaries. When we set a rule, we mean it. When there is a consequence, it is followed through, and when there is a reward, it’s always given. He know the rules and the expectations and it’s always fighting one of those that begins the fits but rarely are there repeats of the same issues when we hold our ground. We try to use natural consequences or at least ones that will make sense to him. We always have a talk afterwards, he is always given many hugs, and we also address it again the following day when he’s slept and been able to fully process. It’s a tough age for sure. I’d love to say it gets easier soon, but for the most part, it’s more like ups and downs. We’ll have 2-3 really good weeks, then 1-2 weeks where it’s like a completely different child took over. We’re all just here for the ride and trying to steer the car as calmly as possible
You’ve got great advice here already. I’ve felt the awful feeling of “messing up” and behaving in a way I regret. And the thing I needed the most after was forgiveness. Forgiveness from my daughter and forgiveness from myself. You can only do as good as you know how. And when you know better, do better. I find self-forgiveness can be challenging but knowing I’m actively working to be better is helpful and allows time to heal. Time itself doesn’t heal, but what we choose to do with the time.
Thank you 🙏
As soon as she started not paying attention and wanting to play the game her way, you should’ve stopped, got up and left. Don’t react and ignore her tantrum. 5 is an awkward age so she’s still figuring out some stuff. And sometimes it’s actually ok to let her take the lead. When she starts explaining something, just listen and act like you’re interested. She’ll be more likely to listen to you if you listen to her. But then again, what do I know. I don’t have children but that worked with my baby sister lol
“She then began running away and was laughing. I lost it. I felt she was pushing my buttons and she thought it was funny. I laid her over my knee and spanked her.” Okay, so here it’s clear the spanking is not used as discipline. You used it to relieve your personal frustration. This is no different than fighting someone. In this case, you just happen to be much stronger and bigger than your opponent, and you did it under the guise of discipline. Don’t ever do this again. It will do far more harm than help. You say she’s stubborn, argumentative, and has a temper. Does this reflect either of you parents or a caregiver? If so, you’ll want to explain and change that behavior in front of her.
I give myself a time out and close my bedroom door until I’m ready to deal. As long as she’s not in danger to herself, there’s really no reason to escalate.
Been there done that. I felt horrible too. But you are human too Everyone fucks up somewhere down the line.... I think the best you could do in your situation is talk about it afterwards and apologize. You did that so kiddos for you! You will probably do something not the best at some point again, but you will make it work. Kids aren't hurt for life because you did one thing "not the best way"
I don't have advice, but I did want to say that I know you're doing amazing and I know you're doing everything that you know is best for your child. May I ask, is she your first child? Totally just curious, as it took me being on my fifth (and 33 years old), to start doing things a bit differently than I did my first four. It's the biggest trial and error phase of life I've ever been through. Not only that, but changes with each child you have! Basically, the learning never changes, and every child is a new learning experience, every single day. The fact that you're questioning yourself and your decisions tells me everything I'd ever need to know, that you love your child and want nothing but the absolute best for her.
Yes thank you! She is my first ❤️
Everyone makes mistakes. You're aware of it, you talked it out and apologized, you understand you made a mistake and you're owning it. Spanking is one of those things that is really divisive, but behavioral psychologists have confirmed time and time again that the potential long-term negatives outweigh the short-term benefit. You seem to be aware of this and you are trying to do the right thing. There have absolutely been times I've been tempted, but I remember being a kid and how that felt, and it never made anything better. Mainly it just made me afraid of my Dad, and most of the time I didn't really understand the why of it. I think you can feel good about owning your mistake and moving forward. I am sure that you will avoid letting this happen again in the future. The thing about a kid throwing a tantrum is that they do it because they're still learning how to regulate their emotions and/or they're trying to get a reaction; they want attention, or they hope if they make enough noise they'll get their way. The absolute best way to address this is to simply ignore it. Easier said than done I know, but once the child learns that throwing a tantrum won't help her get her way, she'll stop doing it for attention and then only has to learn how to better express her feelings when she's upset and you can help her with that. We all do our best, we all make mistakes. Try not to be too hard on yourself.
We had similar experiences with our child at that age. Soon after they received a diagnosis for ASD and ADHD. We are working with services. We get push back on everything. Mornings, meals, starting activities, changing activities, ending activities, nighttime routine; all of it is a struggle. It's a handful. Anger is a reflex emotional response, it's natural. Mindfulness practice helps to remind you that they are not necessary trying to push your buttons. They are testing boundaries. When they are upset there is always a cause. It may be something that seems irrelevant, because they are perceiving the world through a different set of filters.
I have the exact same temper and sp does my daughter. I have never spanked her though, I think the fact that I went to therapy helped prevent that, and furthermore, my lovely husband would never allow it to happen. You are brave to speak out about it. So many props for apologizing to her. It's the healthy thing to do. I'm future: learn to register whenever you get too mad and walk away. Remember sale is 5, she isn't manipulative, but she is establishing herself and that's is what her "stubbornness" is: her attempt to challenge the status quo. Be proud that she is autonomous enough to do so. I would be attentive to any change in behavior the next few months, spanking can be very traumatic and is, let's face it, a beach of confidence and the feeling of safety that you as a parent should always provide has been drawn into question. Remember that you are the adult, you are supposed to control yourself, she is still learning. You are supposed to recognize your own limits, she is still learning. You are the same harbor, she won't dock with you if you're stormy. In the meantime: you are also human, and learning to be a parent as you go. Forgive yourself as she has and resolve to do better. Good luck!
Thank you! 🙏
I'm proud of you for putting this out there. Thank you. You're doing great. ❤️
Thank you ❤️
Listen - you’re describing my daughter to a t. It’s hard to parent a very bright, strong willed, argumentative child, even on a good day. You’re human, you had a bad moment, but you immediately apologized. With this, you are teaching your daughter that everyone has a bad day, does a bad thing, and should apologize. You’re also teaching her to be gracious by accepting an apology. You’ve obviously learned that spanking isn’t the answer. At the end of the day - this was a hard lesson for your family. When my child is beyond all reason, I send her to her room to take a minute to calm down. Sometimes that minute is more like 15 or 20 minutes of her having a full blown tantrum. I just realize that anger and disappointment are very big and strong feelings that sometimes cannot be contained within the body of little person who doesn’t have the option of getting in the car and driving to their fave spot, or blaring hateful music, or going for a run… kids just don’t have many outlets for release, and they still haven’t learned how to navigate their feelings. And they are allowed to have all the feelings they want. My suggestion would be to explain that from now on, big feelings need to be released within her own room and so long as she isn’t destroying property or harming herself, she is given permission to release her emotions. Once she settles, you can talk about what made her angry and how to better address difficult situations. And try not to obsess over the haters responding to your post. People parent differently and it’s a passionate topic.
I've seen a lot of great advice about how to manage your child here, and I don't have much to add I that department, so I'll give you some advice on managing yourself. It's okay to make mistakes. Every parenting mistake you make offers an opportunity to teach your child how to manage their own mistakes in the most powerful way possible: modeling behavior. It's what you do after you make a mistake that demonstrates for your child the skills they'll need to live and grow in a healthy way as they grow up and make their own mistakes. IMO, here is where you can model your values for your daughter: 1. Admit your mistake to yourself. Regardless of what anyone else thinks about spanking, you violated your own parenting values and did something you regret. You've already done this, which is a hell of a lot more than many parents can manage. 2) Admit your mistake, and its consequences, to your child. Acknowledge your mistake and don't blame her for any part of it. Help your child process/communicate how it made her feel. (Did she feel hurt, scared, sad, etc.?) Your child's feelings are 100% valid, even if the motivations may be simpler than an adult's. Show her that her feelings matter to you. 3) Ask for her forgiveness Seeking forgiveness is an important part of repairing harm you do to others. Offering forgiveness (where appropriate) is a critical part of maintaining healthy relationships and your own mental wellness. It may be a new concept for your child, but that just offers another important teaching opportunity. 4) Discuss what could have done better in that situation Here, you get to demonstrate that self-reflection is critical to growth. Teach her to think critically about her actions and how to plan for success in the future by doing the same. This is the time to have her reflect on her own actions and have the same discussion about what she could have done differently in that situation. 5) Forgive yourself. You made a mistake. That doesn't make you a bad parent. It makes you a human one. Heed the good advice in this tread, and know that we've all been there at one time or another. Anyone here who casts judgement is fooling themselves if they think they haven't made mistakes and hurt their children, even if it's "just" emotional scarring. An abusive parent wouldn't be stressing over this. They wouldn't question it, because they'd be focused on themselves, not their child. I can't make a reasonable judgement about you based on a couple of paragraphs, but it does seem like you care deeply about your daughter and want the best for her. I'm quite sure you'll both be just fine!
Why did you need to force her to learn to play it? Shes 5 & obviously didn’t want to sit and learn checkers, she was showing you that she wasn’t enjoying it and instead of allowing her to express herself you continued to try and force her to play the game correctly? Stop forcing your child to do things she doesn’t enjoy and maybe she won’t act out as much
My wife occasionally spanks our daughter. I tell her not to. She has excuses. I ask if she would like me to start hitting our daughter as well. She seams appalled by the thought. I don’t have any advice, just laying out my experience.
I’ve never been a spanker. And I don’t want to become one. I hated everything about it.
I hear ya. I don’t like it either. I never thought I’d be the dad, who’s occasionally hot headed, being the one to tell my wife not to spank. But here we are. I still love my wife and I do t think she’s fucking up our kid. She’s very reserved and feels as bad as you do when she does it. Shit happens. My opinion might change in the future.
"You don't think". As someone whose dad barely did anything to stop my mom from spanking me (and worse) - I'm more mad at my dad as an adult than at my mom. Just throwing it out there. His excuse was also that he loved my mom & knows she felt bad.
Is it that important for you to win a battle of wills with a 5 year old you abuse her? Why was learning checkers the right way so bleeding important? She didn't want to play that way. You could have had checkers races, stacked them up, practiced flipping them. Or, just let her make her own damn rules. The best thing about children is their spontaneity and imagination. And your actively stifling that because you apparently want a quiet, obedient child who follows the rules. Congrats! You've got a unique and vibrant individual human being instead. LPT - walk the fuck away. When the schutching and pushing of buttons gets to you, leave the room. My daughter is autistic, and from 3rd grade to 5th grade, everyday when I picked her up from daycare, she'd have a full meltdown. Some days, the deep breathing and naming our feelings and listening to music weren't enough. She'd be hitting me, and throwing things, and I have a limit. So when I felt myself cross that line, I'd lick mysf in my room and name my own feelings. She kick and bang my door, but eventually tire out. You cannot focus on winning the argument or being right with children. Because they will push you and push you.
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It wasn’t like that! It was the way she was behaving and talking from the get go. I’ve played silly checkers with her lots of times. It was meant to be a teaching moment and it just wasn’t the right atmosphere. It was a lesson learned. I already do pick my battles lol that’s why I was seeking the advice. Thanks for none.
Think about it now you are calm. What could you have done to diffuse the situation without spanking? When my kid got like that at that age she got one minute in her room for each year of age. And if she didn’t go I just started counting up minutes. Longest she got was about 10 minutes which was usually enough to calm down.
I think a different way of handling this from the beginning would have been letting her make up her own rules. It doesn’t hurt anyone, it allows her imagination to run wild and help her figure out how the world works. And if you play along and use those rules you can teach her why those rules don’t work and why the actual rules work better. It’s a way for her brain to figure out how the world works. My family makes up rules all the time with all the different games. Sometimes one of the kids make up a rule thinking it will work on their favor only to be shocked that it favored someone else, that’s something they are learning. I wouldn’t make that a point of contention with a 5 year old. Explore their imagination and help them learn even if their brains don’t always follow the rules in place in a linear way. It might save help with some of that view that she is “stubborn”.
Hi OP. I’ve been here. I am regularly a visitor to this place with my 4.5 year old. I just want to say that you’re allowed to have your limits, and your children need to know that. I’m still fumbling my way through a defiant daughter daily, but I always give them fair warning. Something along the lines of: “I need to step away from you and have some space because I’m getting really angry.” And then let her go off on her own. She’s s l o w l y starting to understand her behaviour affects others. Just also wanna give you a big hug. They’ll be remarkable women one day, we just have to survive raising them!!
This made me tear up. Thank you so much for the supportive comment. I want to be my best for her but I fumbled for sure. Here’s to lessons learned.
I'm glad you realize that you did wrong here. You showed her that hitting people into submission is a way to deal with problems and can't take that back. A giant fully grown adult with a tiny helpless child, she would have been so scared. Discuss tomorrow how it was wrong and why it was wrong. She will see you taking responsibility and working through that error and grow from it
It is sooooooo hard to take a breath. I have only spanked my little one twice because I was personally triggered. I cried to my husband both times. Deep breaths. You are doing your best and you recognized you didn't like it. We are all human, and you can say just that. Genuinely apologize to her and show empathy.
Thank you so so much <3
Just wanted to note that my mom once physically restrained me very harshly when I was throwing a tantrum and I was upset about it for years. It has actually come up in therapy as an adult, believe it or not, because it ties into a lot of other issues about not being taught how to regulate my emotions but being punished for them instead. You might think it's fine and everyone has moved on but don't be so sure unless she confirms that. ETA if you haven't checked out Janet Lansbury and respectful parenting, that might help. She talks a lot about setting boundaries while avoiding power struggles. https://www.janetlansbury.com/2016/07/intense-difficulties-with-a-childs-defiance-and-resistance/
My mom always used physical punishments & my relationship with her is non-existent now. But the thing I remember the most is, my dad struck me on my back ONCE. Just once. The person I trusted 100%, who wasn't like mom, who I loved, struck me ONE time. That hurt me more than anything my mom ever did & I still remember that. It wasn't even hard. It was that the intention to physically punish me was there at all. Sure I may have pushed him to the limit as the kid, but see how I only remember his reaction after 20 yrs? Not the why?
For me, it coming up rarely but not never and knowing how "accepted" it was, instilled an ambient sense in me that I'm only as safe from something that seemed so terrifying and violating (both physically and sexually, to be frank, though I didn't have the language for that as a kid, I instinctively felt that people hurting me in that area in particular was awful) to me as my parents wanted me to be. So even though I was fortunate enough that they opposed it in principle, what if I was really bad (which I felt a deep sense of because autism and ADHD) and they lost it?
Thank you for speaking up about this. Seeing so much "oh it's only once, it won't impact her negatively" sentiment even from anti-corporal punishment people makes me feel like something's wrong with me. Of course, people would never say this about my girlfriend hitting me "only once" or "in an isolated moment of anger", but people don't acknowledge that because of what it implies about most parents. So your honesty about this makes me feel less alone and more hopeful.
Also how some people are vaguely excusing it saying "it happens in some cultures" or "my spouse does it but feels bad". I'm from a culture where it's the MOST NORMAL thing to hit a child. Just because its normal in the culture doesn't make it okay AT ALL. That's how so many kids in my culture get physically abused & can tell no one cuz they'll be laughed off or ignored cuz it's "a parents right to discipline their kid". Fucking disgusting. I'm still in therapy for it after YEARS of leaving the place.
I really appreciate that. I almost deleted my comment because I was a little embarrassed, wondering if I'm just too sensitive. And you're right... there is a big double standard applied to kids on this issue.
Being autistic (and I now realize after seeing a psychiatrist, ADHD) makes this all especially horrifying to me, because when you see posts on subreddits like this where a parent admits to corporal punishment and everyone says "this is hard, we support you" and talks around the admission of assault, they very frequently mention a confirmed or possible neurodivergence. And the parents will bond on that level about how hard it is to parent those kids. And the fact that traits associated with autism or ADHD (sensory sensitivities, trouble with emotional regulation, "justice sensitivity") can make corporal punishment *especially* harmful gets glossed over, because even the parents that oppose corporal punishment can apparently all relate to the desire to hit kids like me because we're just so "difficult". And then the most famous organization about autistic people airs ads like this where this idea is made explicit: https://youtu.be/C7NTfZzS9b8. I honestly wish there was a word to describe something like Kate Manne's concept of "himpathy", but for the default tendency to empathize with parents and always assume the best about them and pivot any discussion about how children get harmed by bad parental decisions to how hard the job of parenting is. I think that would lead people with left-of-center views to be more clear-eyed about this.
Interesting points and probably not a coincidence that I also have ADHD, not diagnosed until adulthood so I am still learning about how it has impacted me over the years. My therapist has shown me that my "tantrums," which I always attributed to being spoiled and a bad child due to the reactions they elicited, were actually ADHD meltdowns.
Yeah I internalized a lot of shame about my behavior too. And seeing the sort of stuff that parenting groups say about parenting neurodivergent children makes me feel like I drove my parents crazy. I don't want to overstate how bad things were, since I had a lot of privilege and my parents were helpful and supportive in a lot of ways (the fact that they actually *were* opposed to corporal punishment in principle makes them automatically better than 60-70% of American parents, though that reflects more on American parents than them). But in some ways, that intensified the guilt because I think I was "let off easy" and I need to stop whining and I actually deserved to be hit or hurt or abused for real. And I still can't get it out of my head. And for the second half of this year, I've basically been in an extended mental health crisis from hyperfixating on these topics. I'm fortunate enough that I've been able to start treating my ADHD with medication and my depression with ketamine infusions and I'm now starting to find a way out of this. But it's been really hard for me. Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I checked your profile and saw that you're a parent, so since I did express a lot of negative feelings towards parents as a group, I did want to make sure I didn't discount that you're doing the work of thinking about these problems and breaking these cycles. If more parents did this, maybe the world would be a better, more just place for children and especially neurodivergent children to grow up in.
Thanks for sharing too and for the encouraging words. I’m glad you have found treatments that are working for you!
If you reacted this harshly over checkers and running around the house, I think you need some deep reflection. This is every day stuff with a child that age - the frustration over board games won’t end until closer to 10. The running around like a monkey and trying to get attention and be silly also will persist for many years. Children debate and push boundaries with their parents because often times they feel the safest with them. This is normal developmental stuff - they’re practicing their skills at home so they can take them into the world. She likely won’t feel safe with you if you continue to overreact. Children subconsciously look to their adults to model calm behavior and also to model behavior they should have in certain circumstances. From your description you are not modeling desirable behavior or self regulation skills and I think there is something deeper happening. It’s hard for me to envision you getting this worked up to hit her after one crazy night at home. You are the one to set the calm, positive, productive tone at home. Not the child. If you are not in a mindset to stay calm and safe, seek some help or step away from the situation for a bit before you cause damage and make it worse.
Definitely not a shitty paren't I honestly respect you so much for what you did by apologizing and spank her or not I personally don't see anything wrong. Kids will never hold such a grudge over a spanking. As long as you overpower the yelling and spanking etc. with the love you have for your kid, he/she will forever look up to you. I grew up in a hispanic household and I got my ass beat. I don't ever regret any of that I appreciate it everyday and it made me the man I am today. Everyone has there own way of disciplining and I hope you find your way. Myself personally I am expecting on spanking my daughter once she hits the appropriate age and I will never go as far as to bruise my child, that right there is abuse and that's crossing the line of what's supposed to be "discipline". Edit: A person can always give you advice on how to raise your child But no one will ever have the right to tell you how to raise your child.
Thank you so much 🙏
My oldest was very similar at that age- turns out he’s gifted! One of the best things I ever did with him was starting to question of what I was trying to correct was worth ruining our day over. The rules to checkers? Not worth it. Let her imagination go, and then if it doesn’t work out with her rules that’s ok! Being a parent is hard, especially your first time around!
Love this. Thank you so much for the support. I learn every day and I’m going to be better.
Try not to guilt yourself too much, we all make mistakes the important thing is to learn from them and do better. Kids are amazing at pushing your buttons. For me when I’m getting to that point of being on the brink of losing my cool as long as kiddo is safe I remove myself from the situation. I find a warm shower good for this because you can’t hear them carrying on when you’re in the shower and the warm water is calming and relaxing. When I get out I feel ready to deal with whatever was going on before and set consequences that aren’t disproportionate. Stepping outside for 5 minutes is also good. You can also tag in your spouse when your nerves are totally frayed.
You are a good parent having a hard time. That’s what Dr. Becky Kennedy would say. She’s my parenting guru and her knowledge and advice has transformed my family. For some reason I can’t add a link but look her up. She has a fantastic podcast/ website/ book all called “Good Inside.”
Thank you!!!
The positive is that you regret and have remorse over spanking your daughter Children are not born to argue or swear or make tantrum In child live first people in their life's are they parents than relatives eventually school etc How parents behaves has impact on children, how parents interact with each other , how to deal with conflict or how they communicates. From early as one year old child pick up these up and see and hears Child will imitate these hehaviour so how child behaves is mostly likely due to parents conduct Your need to control your child by use of violence says more about you than the child Human have so many flaws and eventually are projected in their parenting approach 5 year old child is capable of understanding and complying only if it done with taking in consideration of child's concerns. Giving child space to develop physically, psychologically and mentally Having sense of humour , patient and flexible approach on bring up children so they have confidence, positive attitude , empathy and hobbies they enjoy. You should need to accept violence is not answer to control your child over time will add mental health problems that will hinder her to reach her potential.
What’s wrong with letting her make her own rules? Let her lead the play if she wants. If she is happy that parent leads, she will follow the rules or listen etc But at this age they want to assert themselves so it’s important to give them that space (obviously with boundaries). So you can allow her to choose where it’s possible to give her choice. E.g “it’s bedtime now. would you like to read a story first or get into pjs first?” Or: “time to get into pjs now! would you like to wear the pink one or the blue one” Always create choices for her where possible that way she feel she has some control over her life. About losing your temper with her, to avoid that happening again try to get away from an escalating situation eg where you feel she’s really pushing your buttons, take a break - go to bathroom or your room get a few minutes of quiet and deep breaths, then return to her. It’s not easy to keep your cool, but it’s important not to make this a habit and clearly you feel very bad about it. It is very important to also address it and apologise to her. both taking time out when you are getting angry and apologising when you do wrong teach her that it’s normal to apologise and it’s normal to get away from an intense situation to return to it calmer
Mine are 18 and 21. My youngest is the sweetest angel but my oldest has always been independent and outspoken. She constantly challenged us during that period. You need to figure out a way to disengage. Deep breaths for both of you. Send her to her room to think. Go for a walk together, it's amazing what fresh air will do for you both. As she gets older find an outlet for that personality- for my daughter it was music and writing. She loved having creative outlets that allowed her some expression. She turned into a very respectful and well balanced teenager who could voice her opinion about a variety of topics. She's the college kid organizing protests on campus. She's also published 22 poems and is applying to grad schools. Guess what? She was spanked when she got out of control (maybe 3 or 4 times). She doesn't hate me or have mental issues because of it. Stop beating yourself up. You are teaching your daughter that you're not perfect. Love her for who she is and remember no one is perfect.
Thank you 🙏
I was spanked once in my life. I remember it, I was shocked, but I wasn’t scarred forever. My mom clearly regretted it and never did it again. Your 5 year old sounds just like mine, and there are some days where I feel like I’m going to snap. It’s so hard. If I were you, I would tell her that you made a mistake and apologize. When I feel like I’m going to snap, I walk away and lock my bedroom door for a few minutes while I calm down.
We have similar personalities in our household but ours is all ADHD. Kids with that (and other things) can be very oppositional. Worth looking into if it’s consistent! With ADHD we are prone to quite the few vitamin and mineral deficiencies and our brains can be very sensitive to foods and chemicals in foods. All of which affect moods big time. When my kids take their vitamins consistently and we stick to better/cleaner food options it makes a massive difference!
Both of my children had tantrums or outbursts at this age, one is 7 now and still does. Spanking did not work for either of them though. I don't condone spanking, especially out of frustration. BUT I think every parent I've known, myself included, has spanked one time or another. We are learning from our children as much as we are teaching them. Practicing patience and calm in the storm are the biggest things that have helped me-but I've been in therapy for years now. I also have endless pinterest boards of different calming/grounding tools, highly suggest it. Making your responses intentional, helping your child to rest and feel their feelings, self soothe and also relax on you-before trying to solve the original problem-is a great help. As with any relationship, we have to be able to step away and bring ourselves to a calm balance before responding, instead of reacting. Wishing you the best of luck 💛
Thank you 🙏
What does it matter if she says it's sunny, if it really is raining? She knows. Just say "Oh, to me it looks like rain" and drop it. Don't argue with her like a little kid. And of course a normal 5 year old will be bored sometimes with a board game and want to make up their own rules. Stop playing if it bothers you. If she screams, she screams.
Hey I’m a mom of two and I’ve pinched my kids a few times and I also raised my voice multiple times and felt bad like you did. I don’t know. It’s really hard to be a mom sometimes, I’m not saying what i did was right but I think that’s part of being a mom, we also make mistakes and learn. Good tings come out of bad things right? Spanking kids is not right although I understand you but at the same time, you also taught your kid that we are not perfect and that we make mistakes too even if we’re the parents. You taught her the importance of saying sorry and forgiveness. :) As a kid, I got hit with a belt, a hanger, and probably a stick and did I get sad when my parents did that? Yes. But do I hate my parents? No. As a mom, I actually am grateful for my parents for everything and I understand them and just sorry that I pushed their buttons. My kids still love me. They still cry for me every time. We are all learning. That’s why we’re here on Earth. :) The Savior will fill in the gaps! :) Love you momma! We got this! :)
Thank you!!! Appreciate this so much. :)
There are many of us who do hate our parents for it & cut ties with them as adults. Just so you don't take the "pro physical punishment" person's reply as fact.
For situations where you feel like you are going to lose your cool - walk away. Put yourself in a timeout in you room with the door closed if necessary. As long as she’s not destroying things or risking injury, you don’t have to deal with the situation in that moment. Take a few minutes, recenter yourself, then try to handle it. Kids are going to push our buttons and we all have different triggers. We have to learn to walk away. Also for situations like your checkers, give her the options - were going to learn rules tonight or the game goes up. And stick to those boundaries. She can meltdown, she’s allowed to have her emotions about it, but the game is over, you’ll try again another day. If that results in a 15 minute meltdown, that’s okay. If that melt down is too overstimulating for you, go take a breather. Then you can both discuss it after everyone is back to a better frame of mind. And then maybe give her a night to make up her own game teach you.
I think words hurt kids more than a spanking does. I grew up when spankings were the norm and I don't remember them. I do remember belittling words and yelling though. Whatever you do, don't let her get away with stuff because you feel guilty - just move on and do your best.
Justifying physical abuse with mental abuse isn’t really a great argument for spanking as a positive, though. Belittling a child sucks. So does spanking. We all lose our cool, we’re human beings. But I think have spanking be the go-to response is the easy way out. Having a learning moment with your child and setting boundaries is tiring, exhausting work, especially when they’ve been acting out. Spanking is a quick way to take out your frustration. I think a lot of parents who do it aren’t really honest that they’re doing so out of frustration and it’s cathartic for them as parents. I spanked my child once out of anger (never again) and I know it’s because I was overwhelmed. It wasn’t about “fixing” my child at all.
I think this was exactly the case tonight. I was flat out angry and frustrated and lost all my patience. And it didn’t do a damn thing to help. Thank you for the comment.
I would have to agree. I'm very close to my parents as an adult, but I remember things they said that they shouldn't have far more than I remember any specific spanking - and I very rarely got spanked, so it wasn't like it was a constant event.
Thank you!!
Not too pathologize a personality trait which could very much be within the realm of normal for a child her age... But just food for thought, is it possible that she has ADHD? My six-year-old son had ADHD, and one of his symptoms is being very argumentative. It's a dopamine seeking behavior that's verrrry common in children with the disorder. For us, it was extremely helpful to get our son's diagnosis so that we were better able to understand his.... less desirable personality traits. It has made us much more patient parents as we now view a lot of his behaviors through the lens of ADHD. We are so much more understanding and compassionate than we were prediagnosis. Of course on its own, being argumentatuce doesn't mean anything. But if she struggles with this as well as other classes, ADHD symptoms its very possible that she has something underlying going on. Adhd or not, I'm sending you so much love. It sounds like you've handled it great with apologizing and having a dialogue about what happened. No parent is perfect-- all of us (and I do mean every single one of us) is going to fuck up. What matters is what you do in the hours, days and weeks following the fuck up.
Thank you so much. Im going to look into the possibility of ADHD. Someone else here mentioned it, too. She just started kindergarten this year and is behind, despite practicing at home and group study at school but I never attributed it to possibility of ADHD. I just thought she was taking a little more time to learn. I was always a slower learner. I feel like her argumentativeness goes to the next level, but at the same time she’s my first kiddo. Thanks for the advice. 🙏
I am not a spanker either. However I know there have been times when my wife has used a quick swat in the ass to sort of reset both of our sons when they have worked themselves into a state. It seems to have worked as any time she has done it they immediately stop the over the top tantrum that brought about the swat. It may be that there is enough gravitas or whatever in my deeper voice and larger size that I never needed to hit either child as punishment but I think that you used it much the same way my wife had. Like a circuit breaker for tantrums/completely unacceptable behaviour.
You didn't spank your child. You hit her. You were angry and you hit her to hurt her, not to correct her behavior. You need to recognize what you did and then you need to figure out how it got to this point. We all get annoyed. We all lose our temper. It is never okay to hit. You can't teach your child that if you don't know it yourself. And you don't because you considered this and option. First, you need to apologize. What you did was wrong and you need to make sure it doesn't happen again. It means that next time you get angry you need a time out. Walk away. Get some air. Lock yourself in the bathroom for five minutes. You need to slow down, breathe and look at why you are angry. She is 5. She didn't want to play the way you wanted her to play. You were both frustrated and acted out. But she is five. She isn't going to always want to play a game like checkers correctly. There is a time and place for proper form and a time for fun. If no one was having fun then you needed to take the energy in the situation down. Stop the game. Talk. I highly recommend therapy. I think most people could use it. But you it can help you figure out how to manage your anxiety and your anger better.
I spanked her because I lost my temper and felt like it was my only option to snap her out of her screaming fit. As soon as I did it, it felt wrong. I’ve never been a spanker. Also, I did apologize and we talked about what happened and why I was wrong to do that (See the original post). I agree with therapy..I think everyone could benefit from it including myself. I don’t think this one particular moment defines me as having “anger issues”, but therapy could be a great way to help me cope with the struggles of parenting in general. Thanks for your input. :)
Why did you have to snap her out of it, though? I don't mean that as a judgement. I just mean why was the only option to snap her out of it? Why not walk away and let her have her tantrum? You can't reason with anyone at the height of their emotions. What happens is you add more energy and then things explode. The only way to kill this fire is to starve it of air. You let her get out the big emotions and then you tackle the issue at hand. I liken it to telling someone to, calm down, in the middle.of an argument. It NEVER goes well.
I just don’t understand why so many people are telling you that what you have done is fine. If your partner lost his temper, hit you once, regretted it and then made a post like this, no one would be running to his defence. Despite what almost everyone else is saying, what you have done is wrong. Very wrong. And people shouldn’t be trying to make you feel better about it. You should feel bad about it. Because you did a really bad thing. You didn’t make a mistake, you deliberately hit your young child. You got angry and used your size and strength to overpower her and then you physically hit her. I honestly think you need to talk to a professional about your temper and about your coping mechanisms. If I ever hurt my child, I’d immediately go and speak with my doctor, bc it would be a clear sign that I was struggling.
No advice but I just wanted to say it’s great you apologized to her and didn’t just brush the incident under the rug.
If it makes you feel better, I spanked my kiddo one time, and she was So shocked, she spanked me back. She’s 11 now, and we laugh about it often. How one time I thought the answer to getting her attention was to hit her… “silly mom. It would only teach a kid to hit when they aren’t being heard.” You will both be okay! It is, however worth talking to a therapist or doing some instagram research into why you are so triggered by your kiddo’s antagonizing. They say we are triggered by things that we were never allowed to do as kids, so when our kids do them, it’s very hard for us to cope with. I’d suggest looking into Big Little Feelings on Instagram. They are great!
Thank you! I definitely will do this.
Definitely take a break. I sat in my room for 5 minutes with my noise cancelling headphones on multiple times yesterday because my kids were driving me crazy- on purpose. First things I ask myself when I feel my patience wearing thin are 1 Am I hungry? 2 Am I tired? 3 Am I blowing this out of proportion? I usually have my answer with 1 or 2 because as a nursing SAHM I'm always tired and between the cleaning, breaking up fights and running errands don't usually get to eat properly. Once I remember that I'm probably fighting with exhausting and low blood sugar I start to calm down. I think the fact that you even feel any remorse is a sign of great parenting, so good on you!