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Hello everyone. New to the forum here.
I am a full time single father of a 4 year old daughter. She is normally pretty good. But lately her defiance has gotten worse.
Here are some examples; She gets up early in the morning and goes potty. I'll wake up as she is opening the door. I will ask her to return directly back to the room when she is done. 15 minutes go by, I hear the T.V on. I get up, she is watching t.v in the living room.
I'll tell her it is bedtime. Go in to check in on her later, instead she is chasing the cat around the room. I remove the cat, come back a hour later, she is watching my tablet. I tell her I am upset and she needs to go to sleep. She responds with many okays, yes sirs, and the like, I return later, she is up and playing with toys.
Breakfast/lunch/dinner time. Sit down and eat. Instead she plays with her food. Shoves it across the table and says she is sleepy. Ok, go to bed, she instead goes to play.
Stop running in the house. Ok, yes sir, Still runs in the house.
This is driving me mad! She responds to everything I say with okay. She acknowledges what I want her to do and what I don't want her to do. But then gives no [censored] when it comes to doing or not doing it. I punish with light spanking sometimes, time out, or just sitting and talking with her. She shows remorse or cries and soemtimes says she is sorry it was an accident. But she goes right back to not listening to me.
So, tl/dr- How do I get my child to actually want to listen to me? I don't ask for hard things. I don't understand why she won't do the things I ask.
Hi
I wouldn't advocate smacking your child, obviously I can't tell you what to do but I just don't think it works and is abusive to the child.
Perhaps use a carrot and stick approach? Have you considered using a star chart for example with a bigger reward at the end once so many stars have been achieved?
Usually combining incentives with something like time out can work wonders.
It's very normal for young children to constantly push their boundaries as exhausting and frustrating as it is for us as parents!
Is she due to start school this month? The routine of school can sometimes work, or wear them out π
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