Mikayla has always been a very good kid, we have not had to deal with a lot from her. If you ask my husband he would say otherwise but I think he demands too much out of her and he also needs to spend time with other 3 year old. But lately she is a little brat and she is really testing us.
She has been really pushing buttons, rude, mean and not listening at all to us. Last night Joe was giving Lily a bath and Mikayla wanted to get into the tub. Joe told her no. Mikayla refused to listen, took off her pants and started to get into the tub. Joe told her no again and made her leave the bathroom. She came out crying. I found out what had happened and told Mikayla that this is her warning for the evening and if she misbehaves again I was going to take something away from her. (We had a talk the night before that her behavior is not acceptable and time outs were not working so we are going to start taking a toy away from her.)
Back to the story - later in the evening I wanted her to come inside and help me clean up her room. I told her to leave the clothes pins outside on the step and she can come back to them in a few minutes. She threw them into her sandbox in a sassy way. I told her I did not like her behavior and she said, well "take a toy away." I could not believe this was coming from a 3 year old. I totally expect this type of behavior but not at age 3! I ended up not taking a toy away and we sat down and talked about her attitude.
A little bit later Mikayla and I went for a walk, just her and I. I am thinking she might be wanting more Mom time she since she is not the only kid anymore. We had a great walk together, we played outside and had fun. During dinner, I don’t remember what provoked her but she pushed her sippy cup away very rudely. So I took the cup and placed it in the sink, told her this behavior is not acceptable and I said that I was taking her tent away for 2 days (sorry mom). She was not upset at all over this. But she got upset when she asked for her juice. I told her no, she pushed it away and if she was thirsty she could drink water from my glass. This finally made her start crying.
Later when she was getting ready to take her bath Mikayla told me to take away her kitchen. I told her no, I decided what toy get taken away and I am removing her tent. She had trouble understanding that Mom gets to decided the punishment not her, but she finally got it.
Here is my question for you - is a 3 year old suppose to act like this??? I am not ready to deal with this yet - I though we were safe from this type of behavior for another couple of years. I was talking with a friend of mine that has a 6 year old and she said this behavior is normal and she also said that Mikayla being such a good kid is actually not very normal!
2 comments:
I don't think it has to do with the age. My LP is two and when she does something bad and I ask "Do you want to go to your room?" she says "Yes!". Same thing goes with, "do you want a spanking?"
sigh...they are smarter than us...
I think the person who came up with the "terrible 2's" didn't have a 3-year old. My son, Drew, was quite sassy at 3. He would talk back and throw attitude to the point we wanted to just strangle the little turkey!
It sounds crazy, but what we finally had to do with him is take everything away. We literally cleared out his entire bedroom and he had to earn his toys back. He never cared if we took something away because he had something else to play with. When we took everything he had to be good to earn a toy. He got to pick a toy at bedtime on the days he earned it.
I have found that as he has gotten older (he's 5 now) that sass has become an independent streak that I love. So...there is light at the end of the tunnel!
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