For my daughter at 3 1/2, it's extremely important to do everything before I do. "I want to beat you down the stairs!" she shrieks if I try to walk down the steps before she does. "I want to brush my teeth before you! I want to wash my hands first!" If I space out and put on my jacket before I help her get hers on, she wants me to take my jacket off and do everything over again so that she's the first one suited up for the outdoors.
For a while, to avoid trouble, I was going along with the "do-overs." But lately I've stopped. I do try to go ahead and let her do things first if I remember, but I'll be darned if I'm going to go all the way back to the top of the steps so we can "do over" going downstairs. It's only going to backfire on all of us if I pretend to have patience I don't really have and then lose my temper about something else later on.
When this kind of controlling stuff happened with my son, right around the same age, I was absolutely panic-stricken, sure that it was something I'd done that was going to screw him up for LIFE. I pored over endless parenting manuals. I tried Positive Discipline. I tried Unconditional Parenting. I tried Nonviolent Communication. I think I even briefly contemplated 1-2-3 Magic, which if you know me, is so completely, utterly not me as a parent.
With my daughter, I'm really aware this time that this is probably developmental and not something I need to panic about. That doesn't mean that I don't sometimes have a wee bit of an urge to kick her down the stairs she's so hellbent on getting down before me.
I'd never act on that urge, of course. I feel guilty and a little scared even admitting to such a hideous thought about this girl whom I love so much. But I know when I've heard other mothers admit to their own horrible thoughts, my response to them hasn't been outrage or judgment, but profound relief that I'm not the only one who feels that way sometimes.
2 comments:
I have been struggling with a whole lot of bossiness here, if that makes you feel any better. :) Evan feels he can tell me, and to my embarassment, perfect strangers what we can and can't do. He informs me regularly that I am not allowed to sing out loud, which is one of my great joys. I want to childishly respond, "Oh yeah? Watch me!" I am also not allowed to sit where he was sitting but got up, cut up his sandwiches after he asked me to cut them, skip with him into school, or seeminlgly any other thing I'd like to. I understand that he is trying to control his world, and I am okay with letting him have some control. It's good for him. BUT, I am finding it very difficult to deal with a small tyrant. I find myself starting lots of sentences, "Listen, bossy boots . . ." It will get better.
Oh, Jill. Thanks for sharing this. My sister-in-law was here yesterday, and she's raising her 3-year-old granddaughter, and we were swapping some good stories on our beloved preschoolers. The common thread seemed to be, as you said, a need to be in control.
I've been laughingly remembering reading "Your Three Year Old: Friend or Enemy" at about this time with Bridger, and one of the things the authors repeated over and over was not to feel bad if you had to put your child in some sort of child care situation at this stage if you just couldn't take it!
It's reassuring to hear about your struggles, too. And of course there are joys aplenty, I know. But whew. I'm finding three, once again, to be a very demanding age.
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