Having a hard time figuring out four...

[Mamatoto]

Wow. This is definitely a change for me. I am reading Your Four Year-Old which is helping me understand what dd is going through right now. But I am having a hard time going between being a loving, connected mama and having to almost constantly put boundaries on her, which I know is loving, so maybe it's more like yelling at her to stop!!! :shifty

Take for example today...

Ds is happily standing next to a kitchen chair. Dd decides she wants the chair to reach something so she drags the chair, knocks ds over, drags the chair over top of him. Shows no emotion whatsoever and tells me to shut up when I tell her to sit until I can talk to her as I am comforting ds.

A few moments later she pins him behind a cabinet door. A few moments after that she hits him on the head with a lincoln log. I am telling you I am right there when all this happens but it happens so fast. :banghead

But it's not just her brother. It's any limits that I enforce. I am met with a lot of anger and a lot of confusion like why would it not be alright to knock my brother over if I want the chair?

Some hints to keep me sane here would be appreciated. :pray ;)

[ArmsOfLove]

It's quite possible she feels badly but she's so egocentric that she doesn't get it at the time. I know both of my children, at 4, were often embarrassed when I was correcting them. It's a very immature stage where they also want more independance :rolleyes And it's square in the "words as magic" stage where they believe they are making it so to say it, and it's almost like they're starting to "put it all together" and testing boundaries is part of that. At 18 months they learned they were truly separate from mom, the 2's are about seeing how much power they have over themselves, 3 is about how much power they have over others, and 4 seems like how much power they have over their world. I find "try again" is a great tool for this age because it lets them actually *be* successful.

[Mamatoto]

We tried the "toasted marshmallow" technique tonight and it worked wonders!! I learned this in Your Four Year Old. When she started to get loud and annoying and wouldn't stop at dinner, I told her that a dinosaur would eat her if she didn't stop yelling. She looked at me funny and continued, so I asked her what the mouse said to the chicken. I gave some weird answer and then dh was looking at me funny and asking what Amish joke book I had read. :lol We were all laughing and then dd came over and pretended to eat me like a dinosaur. I told her she was a toasted marshmallow and then she said I was something funny and we were both laughing. That was a long story to say that simple humor will go a really really far way as a discipline technique. Dd told dh to shut up later when he said to come inside when she had run out to the porch. He called her a toasted marshmallow and she came running in to continue this "game". Wow. :shrug

[Mamatoto]

I have been thinking about the "words as magic" thing, Crystal. That is really interesting.