I'm pretty sure I'm bound for the mental asylum [closed]

Question

Ok, so I'm 25, I live alone with my three year old (fiancé moving in with us next year) her father isn't involved enough, her behaviour is awful, time outs don't work and everytime we have a showdown I can feel an anxiety attack coming on and I want to cry. I feel like such a faliure and I'm so tired of being judged as a bad mother because it feels like I spend all my time fighting her....it's always people without kids too- mainly university friends. I'm at my wits end and any discipline techniques and coping mechanisms would be greatly received!!!!!

Answer 1

From what you've typed, you're clearly overwhelmed at the moment.

Step 1: Day without Child

• Arrange for a day where your child is either at their grandparent's, at the father's, at a nursery/creche, anywhere safe, when you can relax, get some sleep and move on to the further steps. Until you get a bare minimum of distance for a day, it's really hard to actually do anything. Needing some space doesn't make you a bad mother. Arranging for some makes you a good mother.

Step 2: Organise your Assets

• What support do you have? Do you have relatives you can lean on in an emergency? Can your university friends babysit. If not, you need to look into paid childcare, even if only for a day. Get a friendly neighbourhood teenager to take her to the park, or organise a playdate at someone else's house, promising to return the favour later. Don't be embarrassed to beg, this is important.

Step 3: Make a Plan

• What Marc says is pretty much perfect, and anyone upvoting my answer should upvote his. You feel a lot less like someone's judgement matters when you have a plan. And repeatable scenarios will provide your daughter with some structure.

Step 4: Cut Out the Negative Influences

• Identify anyone who makes you feel like you're struggling more, even if they're trying to help, and form this plan:
  • Are you actively helping me by doing something? If yes, I take advantage of that completely. If you've come over to play with her, I go for a lie down. If you've come over to see me, you're helping me get the chores done. If you've come over just for a coffee, you're making the coffee.
  • If you don't like this, don't come over. No, seriously, I literally do not have the time to look after two people, guest or no guest. Note that "just wanting you to sit and talk for a bit" is actually a big ask when you have 5 things to do and 1 hour of naptime to do it in. It still counts as looking after them.

Step 5: Self-Identify as a Parent

• You are not having a "showdown" with your daughter. You'll have a showdown when she's 15, but right now, YOU ARE IN CHARGE and she is being disobedient. This is not a negotiation, this is something where you can put her in her room and refuse to let her out if you want to.
  • Note that, as a comment to this post says, you're punishing the behaviour not the child. Once the row is over, they're still your little girl who behaved badly, they haven't become a "bad child". So first, ask for an apology, and then sit down and explain. Then cuddles and reading (or TV if you're frazzled).
• The counterbalance to this is that you need to construct your life where the situations where you have to be in charge don't come up as much. If you know there are foods or clothes she won't like, by simply not bringing them up or offering them. You're not trying to win, you're trying to live together.
• By the same token, you cannot make firm commitments about time. Not going to happen, give it up. If someone "needs you to be there at 6", either they come over and help, or you can't go. Because parent.
• The only exception to the "no firm commitments" is your Work, and even there, they need to be flexible. I don't know where you live, but in the UK, they legally have to be. In the states not so much, but any decent firm will have ways of handling these issues. Alternatively, you need to compromise on certain things; e.g. "Won't get dressed" is going to become "Willing to go to nursery in her pyjamas". You can mitigate this by having her "pyjamas" be basically loose fitting day clothes.

I hope some of this helps, but know that we've all had these moments. It's really easy to become overwhelmed, and the best thing you can do is ask for real actual help.

Answer 2

You can't get a three-year-old's behavior and emotions under her control if you can't get your own under your control. That's the first thing you've got to work on.

Start by thinking through the interactions you're having that cause you grief some time and place where you're calm.

• Make a plan on how you're going to react, what you'll do, how you'll react if your first attempt fails, and what your second and third steps will be.

• You can be certain you will not solve this in a day or a week or a year. You'll be growing as a parent as she grows.

• Don't beat yourself up when you fail, and don't give up when you fail. Failure is temporary until you stop trying.

It's easy to be the perfect parent when you don't have kids. It's also easy for one parent to have solutions problems they aren't experiencing, but you can be sure that they have problems of their own they haven't solved.

First, last, and always, you've got to stay calm and rational yourself. As you've discovered, two emotional, angry people is a lot worse than one! I know it sounds like something I can easily say, but is hard to do, but I've been through what you're going through, and developing your own patience and self-control is vital to successful parenting.