A defiant 3 year old

My daughter is also 3 and we have had some "defiance" issues since she's been home (about the same amount of time as your son). I also have a 7 year old biological son and remember him doing a lot of the same things when he was that age (typical 3 year old behavior). I recently started a game with her that she loves and has made this issue so much easier to deal with. Whenever I am trying to get her to do something that I know she either doesn't want to do or will take FOREVER to do, I will challenge her with, "I don't think you can _____. Can you _____?" It works every time as she tries to "prove" to me that she CAN do it! And it's really fun to say "Wow, I didn't know you could do that!" when she's done. Makes us both feel good and keeps us from having that dreaded battle of the wills. Hope this helps! :)

werner719 -- about the same game here. Mine is "I'll bet you can't_____" "...can't get your shoes on before I count to 10.""...can't finish your toast in 2 minutes." Bedtime variation: "I'll bet you can't get your pajamas on by the time I count to ten." Kids usually start zooming around! Me, "Onnnnne, twooooooo, threeeeeeeeeeeeee, fooooooooooooourrrrrrr," with twinkle in my eye and voice. When I get to 7, if they're trying but not quite there, it's "... 7 and a halfffff... 7 and three fourrrrrrrrrths... eightttttttttttttt...." I start dragging out the words more, putting pauses between them, and making it clear I'm on their side to help them "win". For me, the tiny time I put into this, making it fun, is so worth it because it avoids whining, crying, floor tantrums, and is way faster than the child doing by themselves. (Teaches counting, too.)FWIW, I have a 3-minute hourglass for the kids who think they'll drive you nuts by eating slowly. Cheerfully, "Dinner will be over when this runs out of sand in 3 minutes, so feel free to eat all you want!" That concrete item in front of them sure motivates that spoon.FWIW to OP, sounds like you're having some great successes. Congratulations on that. All parents are works in progress for sure! AFA the general situation of children not doing what they're told, one book I read said that when wives quit doing what husbands said each and every time, and quit being beaten for infractions, children took notice... and quit doing what parents said every time. Hasn't been that long in history, we're all adjusting.

How did you all get my daughter's x-tuplet clones??? Just kidding, mostly. My three-year-old is wonderful until she gets into one of her "defiance and destruction" moods. She starts grabbing thins, destroying everything she can, hitting, scratching, grabbing. Often it is around not allowing her little brother to have anything. If he wants it, she decides she does. If he wants to sit on my lap, she decides she does. Sometimes it is just all around defiance. We've tried: Noticing and praising good behaviors (doesn't appear to have an effect but we keep trying anyway) Giving choices (Sometimes works but often she just chooses what we would rather she didn't - "okay, the toys can disappear, I don't want to clean them up.") Writing things down (Picture calendar and daily routine chart, rules chart all help some. Worth it but no magic pil.) Time-outs (Worked well until recently, now have completely disintegrated.) Quiet time in the play room to calm down (does not really help to change behaviors but does save parent sanity and thus makes for better parenting) Natural consequences (mediocre success, oddly she usually simply seems to think that the consequence is worth doing what she wants) We won't do X until you do Y (works reasonably well if she really wants X. Sometimes I have to just put a moratorium on all requests until Y is done, i.e. we'll make a snack, play with blocks, go outside, anything else after you clean up the art supplies.) Do-over practice (Moderately successful on dealing with grabbing toys from others, worked some but again no magic pill and very time consuming and hard for parents to do consistently, as the grabbing is an every ten-seconds type of issue.) Reparations (still hard to do with a three year old but there are some times when the child can be made to clean up or fix what they destroyed or gleefully spilled.) Ominous counting (sometimes helps, sometimes completely useless) Yelling, screaming, spanking... (well, we knew those wouldn't work) And, no, she doesn't have attachment disorder. She came home at 11 weeks and shows no other possible symptoms. She is too verbal (and very functionally bi-lingual) to be autistic spectrum. I think she is just very strong-willed. I will try the "bet you can't do X before I count to ten" trick. Thanks for the idea. One can never have too many tools. Arianna

My nearly 3 year old sounds like Grumbler's Ridge's twin. She's been in the first steps program (early intervention, speech, physical, behavioral, SPD therapy) since she was about 10 months old. She's wicked smart and I dont mean "My kids a genius kind of smart" but my kid is an evil genius kind of smart and has been since she was old enough to crawl. She defies us to an extend that sometimes boggles my mind. I feel like a bad parent (clearly there must be something wrong with my parenting if my kid is this defiant) nope.... I have come to learn that some kids just are "strong willed" and that my parenting skills are okay. But man alive when that one goes to be at night I feel like I've gotten the first real breath of the day (tired!) But I wouldn't change my little blonde bomb of life for anything on this planet. I'm just beyond thrilled her sister is as laid back and compliant as they come! Thank you god! We've done everything like the above poster said and I think some kids just can't be convinced if they truly don't feel like doing something. My daughter just doesn't care if you want her to do X. If it doesn't please her then it's just too bad (we've had 45 min tantrums before). They say it gets better but her terrible two's started at 10 months and her terrible three's at 2.5. So I'm hoping by 3.5 that hopefully we'll be in a better place.

This is a very common phenomenon as toddlers want to do things in their own sweet ways. We need to be friends with them and demonstrate all the good habits which we would like to inculcate in them as they like and love to imitate everything we do. For more information get in touch with PFF as it will show you what feeling is driving your childs behavior and give you techniques for dealing with that feeling successfully.