So mad! Feeling ignored!

[KarenBoo]

I am just so mad right now!!! And it's Christmas morning!!!

We gave roller blades to Kitten (8.5) and she was taking them out for a test spin around the living room. BUT, she has pneumonia (is recovering on antibiotics) PLUS she's never roller bladed before. So DH helped her around the living room twice. She's extremely unbalanced, as one would expect. She can't keep her feet under her *at all.*

We had originally told her no roller blading *at all* today because of the pneumonia, but changed our minds and let her have a couple laps around the living room with DH holding her. When she went into a coughing fit, I told her that was enough. She was sitting down in the chair and she said "I want to try a lap by myself." (note, no helmet, pads, etc. were on her)

I said "no." and she started protesting, so I looked at her and I said "no, no, and no again! absolutely not!" and she started to stand up like she was going to go anyway!!!:mad I was right next to her at that point and I put my hand on her to stop her and she sat back down, and I was just instantly furious of course.

It wasn't exactly a "feather that broke the camel's back" because that was a very big "ignore" right there, but I just got so furious instantly because I've been dealing with it so much lately. Let me say that she is such a "good girl!" She is basically easy-going and quite mature for her age. And maybe it's her maturity that makes her think she can just ignore me and go with her own thoughts and wishes. But it *drives me crazy!!!"

Yesterday, she brought in a hoola hoop and wanted to show me a trick. I said "not in the house, I'll go outside and watch you." She just slipped that hoola hoop on her ankle anyway and didn't stop until I yelled at her.

I have many more examples, and it's infuriating!!

Today, in my anger, I said to her: "If I raised you as a spanked child, I bet you would listen to me!" :doh:bag

Then I said I was taking a time out and stormed off into this room to type.

I just don't know how to get through to her about this issue, and it happens so much. I'm yelling at her a lot these days. I hate that so much! I don't want to yell, but it seems to be the only thing that will make her stop and "hear" me. And I feel so bad because I feel like I'm yelling at her so much and she's such a sweet girl and I feel is not really doing this on purpose to drive me crazy, it's like she just doesn't care or something.

She'll say "I'm not trying to ignore you." and I say "well, you need to *try* to actually listen to me!" She seems genuinely contrite each time, but the issue is not getting better, and it may be getting worse!

Help! Thanks!

[CapeTownMommy]

:hug Mine are younger but I can tell you that I would be steaming mad too. In fact just this morning in church my 2yo and 5yo were acting out to the point that we left the service and went home, and I was thinking "maybe if we spanked them they wouldn't be so out of control". So loads of sympathy, even if I don't have advice.

[Barefoot Bookworm]

:hug2 I'm sorry. I haaate being ignored and mine are in an ignoring stage too.

[Aisling]

I find making a gentle physical connection (a hand on a shoulder, a touch on the elbow) and speaking in a quieter voice gets me a lot further than becoming a screaming banshee...kids will literally habituate and cognitively learn to tune out yelling and repetition. So, if the first instruction doesn't work, I walk over, calmly put my hand on a shoulder and repeat the instruction when I have their attention. :hugheart

[NewCovenantMama]

Have you tried giving instructions with your hand on her shoulder (or some other way of making sure you have her attention) the first time (ie don't wait for her to fail to comply), then asking her to repeat back the instruction?

I suspect what's going on may be more of a developmental attention/impulse control thing, rather than coolly pre-meditated defiance. :heart

[amychelle]

I feel for you...my almost 7-year-old already does stuff like this on occasion. When I take a step back from my anger, I realize that sometimes she leaps ahead when I've told her no (or keeps repeatedly asking when I've already told her no!) about something because she can't see the *reason* behind the no. It may seem obvious to me (like she's doing something where she might very likely hurt herself) but she still needs that spelled out to help her accept the no.

[DavidKelleyMay18]

Hugs..soo sorry!

[arymanth]

I don't know if I see this as "ignoring" you, as much as "but I really want to do this". Honestly, I was relating more to your daughter's side on the rollerblading thing. I can only imagine how incredibly frustrating it must have been for her to have something she really wanted, and not be able to actually play with it... on Christmas of all days! I actually had a similar experience with one of my kids. He couldn't go on the school trip down to the Wis. Dells, so we saved up and went as a family... and he ended up getting pneumonia while we were there and spent the whole day in bed with a fever! We had to pack everything up and leave for home early the next morning (we just thought it was a virus, didn't know it was pneumonia till we got home) and everyone was so disappointed, but especially him. (we have lived in WI for 10 years, and this was the first time we had managed to go to the Dells)

It sounds like you are only seeing things from your own perspective and may be missing the real motivation on your daughter's part. She really, really wanted to show you that hoola hoop thing, and in her mind, she was probably thinking "but I'm not going to break anything, I'll be really careful, it will be fine, she'll see! Once she sees me do it, she will know that it's ok!" I guess I don't see why you would get so angry about it? It sounds like a control thing more than a parenting thing, especially with that comment about "if I was a spanking parent..." Well, the whole point to spanking is to FORCE a child to do what you want. If you are focusing on making her listen, you will be angry and frustrated with your child a lot, because you are trying to control her instead of working WITH her to do what you need her to do.

For example, with the roller blades, you might have tried letting her know you empathized with her WHILE you were helping her take the skates off so she couldn't hurt herself. Accept that she was going to be upset, it was a completely reasonable response to that situation. Put yourself in her shoes and imagine how bad she must have felt. Next time you could try helping her work through her feelings instead of getting angry that she can't just shut them off and do what you say.

With the hoola hoop... you probably knew that she was going to try that, instead of giving her a "not in the house", you could skip directly to moving her in the direction you wanted her to go with something like "Oh, that sounds so cool, lets go outside so you can show me!!!" while walking quickly up and escorting her outside. Don't give her a chance to make that mistake of being too eager to listen, HELP HER do the right thing instead. An enthusiastic response just might have been enough to help her hold on until she got outside, since it was her strong need to show you her trick that made her do what she did in the first place. She wasn't trying to do anything wrong, she was just overly excited about what she was doing.

You are so focused on her not listening to you... maybe she is feeling the same? Just because you are older and more experienced does not mean she doesn't have a right to her own opinions, or that she shouldn't ever question you or be able to have a discussion about things she doesn't agree with. You can do this without giving up your authority as a parent. I'm telling you, this is going to be a very, very important skill as she gets older, it will help you immensely if you can learn how to do it now, because it's a whole lot harder to get a teenager to listen to you.

I can relate to how your are feeling, I felt the same when my oldest kids were that young. The thing that helped me get over my own anger was putting myself in my child's place and thinking about how I would feel if I were them. It's funny how we can make all sorts of rational excuses for why we behave the way we do, (having a bad day, stressed out, but I was so excited, this is important to me, etc.) but we don't accept the same excuses from others. If you want her to listen to you, try finding ways to make her WANT to hear what you have to say.