Alright, as a mommy blogger, I have not yet posted anything about my role as a mom. After the last couple of days, I am pretty motivated to post my first mommy-related blog.
I am truly perplexed by the mind of 5-year-olds, more specifically MY 5-year-old. I read articles in Parenting magazine and talk to other moms and have even talked to my child's preschool teacher and pediatrician. I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere. I am perplexed about why it seems as though my offspring intentionally does the opposite of what we ask of her and all that we've taught her; why it seems as though when we talk it sounds like static as her eyes glaze over; why it seems as though she thinks the entire world revolves primarily around her!!! This frustrates my husband and I to no end!!!!
In reading the magazine articles and even watching Super Nanny, I've come to the conclusion that children this age really are just looking for attention and to feel important and assert their decision-making abilities and that they may not have the ability to empathize with others. I can get that. I think. But I feel like we've tried everything that we possibly can to make things work for her as well as us as her parents. We've tried the whole time out thing - when she can't play nicely and share with her brothers she gets sent to a corner and sits for 5 minutes and then have a short discussion about what she did wrong, apologize, etc, etc, etc. We've also tried the whole reward chart thing - she seems to enjoy getting stickers to put on her chart and earning prizes, but isn't phased at all by not receiving her reward or having one even taken away. At one point, we even gathered up all of her toys and put them in trash bags and hid them so she would understand that she would not get whatever she wants despite her attitude. But then she realized that as she behaved better, we would return one toy and then another and it all went downhill fast. We have tried speaking to her nicely and giving her one-on-one time and even grounding. All of which have gone kaput.
I will be the first to admit that I do not necessarily stick to one process for too long. That could be my biggest downfall. I get excited when I see progress and I praise my child whenever she does things that make me happy, but the moment things start not going my way, I revert back to hollering and yelling and all that good stuff. I hate this "game" very much. It may be too much to ask, but I just want for my child to think about others as much as she does herself. I don't want to resent her for the way she upsets us and I do not want her to resent us for the way we react. She is our first-born and therefore our experimental child. But our experiments are producing no positive results. She is also extremely jealous of her little brothers craves soooooo much attention. It's quite exhausting. Any advice or other moms experiencing similar things out there?
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You could have written this about Ayden. Please tell me if you find something that works. Because I'm out of ideas!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, thank you for visiting and replying. Secondly, I'm glad that I'm not alone, though this is not fun in any way! It's easy to shell out advice on the whole situation, but it's easier said than done unfortunately. I'm sure I could give you advice after advice, but I myself don't necessarily follow it so that wouldn't really be fair.
ReplyDeleteI think as a young mom, I lose patience rather quickly and want my children to change their behavior overnight. I think parents need to work together to keep each other in check when we see things getting out of hand and we need to give ourselves and our children more time to work out a system that works for everyone. So far, the only thing I've done that has shown even the slightest bit of change in my child is giving her more one on one time and giving her the power to make decisions. But like I said, the moment that the attention is transferred to her brothers, she's back to doing anything and everything to get attention.
I'm still working on it...if I start seeing any positive results, I'll let you know. I'd love to hear any insight from you, too. :)