Okay, just wanting to know if I am the only one who's failing and stuffing up my childs life? My child is 4, recently diagnosed with ADHD/ODD. I feel no matter what I do or try I am always met with a battle that I end up yelling, I see my child gets upset and frightened when I yell but no other bargaining, soft talking, bribery works. This morning was about brushing teeth, flat out didnt want to do it. No matter how many times I stated I understood, it ended up in 2 meltdowns, my childs and mine.
All the written advice by doctors is no yelling, remain calm, look at the way you're talking to them, give them the option, let them make the decisions, etc. None of this works for us! My child use to be such a happy child, we could make everything into a game and he would do anything (not anymore). I feel like I am losing my connection with my child. I am curious how others manage not to yell and what has worked for them? Everyone else I see or know seems to have all their sh☆t together, calm talking connections and I would like to be able to do the same.
My child is at preschool now and all I can think about is how I am loosing my child to negativity when I want is for my child to be the happy positive child they once were.
Please don't suggest medication as that is not an option for us at this stage. Thank you.
Any successful stories on how to reconnect and stop yelling would be great.
Failing Mummy.
Failing Mummy.
Posted in:
Parenthood Guilt
3 Replies
I've raised my multiple lettered, behaviour challenged boy into now adulthood. Yes sometimes you want to yell and scream, but we have to bite our tongues. Some days it's easy, some days it's bloody hard. But yelling although an emotional release for me, made things worse. So I just stopped. I walked away, I took a breath. It took a lot of effort.
I found other outlets for me, punching a punching bag, running, whatever but not yelling.
It takes some practice but you can do it.
I also learnt to let go of things like brushing teeth for that day. We could do it at night, and I'm the short term it just was t worth the fight. In the long term it led to a lot more brushing teeth!
Parenthood, it feels like a lot of one step forward and two steps back. I used to lose my shit all of the time, PPP at the hospital helped a lot. I found with a bit more knowledge, I felt a little more in control and therefore managed to hold my shit a bit longer while I continued to negotiate.
With these diagnoses should come assistance like OT and counseling for both of you. You need to seek out some help for you both to find strategies that work for you.