Hi, I need some advice or some sort of direction.We have a 6 year old,our only child so far.For some reason she does not listen to anything she is told to do.For example today,I asked her 15 times I know in a nice manner to get dressed,brush her hair ect.. so I could go to the post office, she says "no I do not want to" and the screaming and crying starts,if it's what she wants to do all is fine,it is like that everyday!!!!I have spanked her one time and that was today and it hurt me so bad but I felt I had no other choice but it did no good,my wife usually does the spanking but not often and not hard.Her grandmother has the same problem when watching her.Another issue is she is afraid of the weather, we had a bad storm 3 months ago with lots of wind,rain and hail while we were outside under the carport,since that day she watches the wind,the clouds,the news, if it's a black cloud she gets afraid and starts crying,it's really BAD when there is a actual storm.How can we help her with that? She is very smart in school and has went to 4k,5k and is now in the 1st grade,her teacher says she does very well and at the top of her class.I am unable to work a job due to health reasons and my wife works, I feel like I cannot do anything or go any where without the crying and asking a hundred times, if she does not have her way she cries for mom or her papa and vica versa with them to come to me but she never wants to be with who is telling her to do something.Are we not being aggressive enough? As a child I was tore up for doing wrong or not listning and even had to go pick my own switch.Any advice you all could give would be super!!

telling a child 15 times to do something, is 13 times too many! it's a problem i have recently discovered in my own parenting style! if i tell my oldest to do something, and then keep telling her over and over again, she just will NOT do it! i finally have started cracking down, and have told her i'll ask her to do something one time, then she'll get a warning, then she gets time out or a spanking, or some other punishment.

for example, today i asked her to clean her room so we could have lunch. she kept playing. i asked her again and told her if it wasn't done in three minutes, she'd go straight to bed with no lunch and a hungry tummy! well, she didn't clean her room, and so i made her go to bed without lunch. she screamed and cried and kicked the wall and threw a huge fit about it, but she eventually settled down and went to sleep and had a good nap. when she got up, she was good as gold and when the time came to clean up, she did a fantastic job, and she usually NEVER cleans up!

anyway, i think you give too many chances and she needs consistant discipline. as far as the fear of storms is concerned..... have you considered allowing her to "research" what makes a storm so that she can better understand them? you might take her to the library so she could pick out books about it, or let her look online... obviously you'd have to help her and guide her to appropriate material for her age.... but if she understood it better, she might not be so afraid..... just a thought.

I know it is very frustrating when you have to repeat yourself so many times. My daughter is also 6 and we have good days and bad days.

I have established a routine with her. When she wakes up she will sit down for breakfast. After that she goes and gets dressed, brushes her hair and teeth, and then makes her bed. When she is done with that then I will fix her hair however she wants. It took a while to get her into this routine but it really works considering how slow she is to get moving in the morning. If we start running out of time we tell her to speed it up because she will end up being late for school. She hates being late because it cuts into her playground time.

My husband and I have made it so we do not tell her more than twice to do something. If we ask twice and it doesn't happen then there is a consiquence for it. For example, yesterday I told her I needed her to put away her dress up clothes. She didn't want to. I told her again, and this time said that if I had to repeat myself one more time that she would lose her radio for the rest of the day. Well, she loves her radio and her CDs so knowing that she would lose them prompted her to do exactly as was asked.

Maybe something along those lines would work for you, I don't know. I just know that an established routine and solid consiquences have worked for us.

Also, I think researching storms with her would be a good idea. Help her to understand what is going on. The more you know about something the less frightening it will be.

Hi, thank you both for your replies,by reading your post I do think it is our parenting style and we have no routine we go by.I think I'll take a different approach today and be firm on my word about time outs.I think letting her get a better understanding of a storm is a great idea.Thanks for the much needed advice:angel:

When I read your post about your 6 year old being scared of storms, it made me think of myself when I was 5. We had a bad storm and I ended up seeing funnel clouds, and from that day on I was terrified of storms. I freaked anytime I saw a dark cloud or heard thunder. But it was just something I had to grow out of. I am 25 now and LOVE storms and tornadoes...so obviously no lasting harm done here! But my mom and dad just reasurred me when a storm came that I was safe inside the house with them, and then that's all they would say and they would get me into something. Like we'd get all my art stuff out and make a picture or play a game or something. So that storm you had just scared her and I really think she'll grow out of it. Just reasure her that she's safe, as I'm sure you already do, and then hopefully as time goes on she'll get better with it.

I had a foster child one time that threw huge screaming temper tantrums when she didn't get her way. When she threw a fit, I did not react at all, instead I calmly carried her to her room and shut the door. I explained to her that she could scream all she wanted in her room, and when she felt better she could come out. she got to the point that she put her self in her room to have a fit, and then finally gave them up all together.

Telling a child to do something over and over just teaches them to wait until you tell them over and over. I used to tell them to do something. Then I would repeat it once (if they didn't do it the first time) and tell them what would happen if they refused to comply. Then I followed through every time. for instance....If I told my daughter to pick up her toys or else I would take them away for a week, I followed through and took her toys for a week. Never make empty promises. I know a woman who threatened to cancel their family vacation to Disney world if the child refused to do his homework. she never intended to cancel the trip and he knew it....so all it did was tell the child two things: A...I don't have to listen and B....mommy does not mean what she says. I threatened to take a bedroom door off it's hinges before if my son slammed it one more time....which he did....and I followed through. No door for a week!! Believe me....only make threats that you will follow through on and you WILL see results!!

I had a foster child one time that threw huge screaming temper tantrums when she didn't get her way. When she threw a fit, I did not react at all, instead I calmly carried her to her room and shut the door. I explained to her that she could scream all she wanted in her room, and when she felt better she could come out. she got to the point that she put her self in her room to have a fit, and then finally gave them up all together.

Telling a child to do something over and over just teaches them to wait until you tell them over and over. I used to tell them to do something. Then I would repeat it once (if they didn't do it the first time) and tell them what would happen if they refused to comply. Then I followed through every time. for instance....If I told my daughter to pick up her toys or else I would take them away for a week, I followed through and took her toys for a week. Never make empty promises. I know a woman who threatened to cancel their family vacation to Disney world if the child refused to do his homework. she never intended to cancel the trip and he knew it....so all it did was tell the child two things: A...I don't have to listen and B....mommy does not mean what she says. I threatened to take a bedroom door off it's hinges before if my son slammed it one more time....which he did....and I followed through. No door for a week!! Believe me....only make threats that you will follow through on and you WILL see results!!


you remind me so much of the person i used to be before i had kids! i was a daycare teacher and i was so good at my job! i used all the methods you described and i had the best behaved classes because of it. i had a little boy in one of my classes that no other teachers could control, but when he was with me he was so good! i used to put him in the bathroom during his tantrums and it got to the point where he'd get mad about something and calmly walk into the bathroom before he started screaming!

why is it so much harder with my own two kids????? :confused:

It's always easier to do it with someone else's kids. Foster kids came complete with lots of problems. I used most of these methods with my kids and they never threw fits in public (thank God for that). They were pretty good kids overall. Now I need to remember all this stuff because my first grandchild was born Saturday. YAY!!