Dear Parents,

I am a father of 2year old & 7months old. My elder daughter is okay with my wife during my work hours. When I reach home she will change her behaviour to me and my wife as she is very stubborn in her demands and requests. Whe I am away she will cope with my wife and younger one.

I like to bring up them in strict decipline, but in my presence she is very demanding and troublesome.

We are well educated, but don' t know how to face this situation.

Pls help. Minka replied. Hi ,

I think you need to spend some time alone with your child (without your wife around ) doing something that she enjoys doing ( it may not necesarrily be something you agree or enjoy doing ). Like playing with water or painiting with water making a little bit of a mess . Which you should not mind. Let her see your fun side of nature too.

She may think of you as merely someone who' s discilpining her all the time.Let her have fun with you too.

Also, I think it helps if you don' t use the word \" no\" too often with kids. I learnt the hard way. My son used to bang his head to get his way everytime I said \" no\" . Now I say \" no\" only when he' s doing something truly dangerous and firmly physically remove him from places he' s doing things I don' t like ( like fiddling with music system ). I appreciate and clap everytime he does something positive like keep his bib and towel on table instead of floor and now his head banging has reduced a lot.

You need to reinforce good behaviour and ignore bad behaviour ( unless it' s something dangerous ). Let her see that she gets much better attention from you when she does positive thigs rather than negative attention when she' s being rude and demanding.

Hide behind the paper and ignore her when she' s being annoying or leave the room.


Best of luck
Minka