Parents of Preschoolers  Discussion Forum

My three and half year old only daughter has a habit of negative answering/ responding. eg. \";will you come for bath? No\"; or \";Please don't take the key. - i will take the key\"; Now we have started using a trick that just tell her opposite of what we expect from her and get the expected result. For example, please don't go to toilet, just ignore your dress, please don't wear nightsuit - and with all such suggestions, our cute daughter does all those things which we want her to do.

I don't know if this kind of behaviour will shape her attitude in general - i feel very much worried about it. salma replied. my two year old boy is behaving rather strangely from the past few months. everytime we sit to eat he always wants to chuck his food and have a food fight, and then when I try to make him sleep he pretends to sleep and then comes into my room and throw a toy at me and my husband or usually he jumps on top of us and. We give him all the love he needs but I dont know whats wrong with him. manju replied. dear nilu
i have a two and half yr old daughter and i know that these r stages whic h will pass. but then u have taken the wrong route. dont encourage such habits of saying opposite things. u should firmly tell her to do wht is asked and tell her u will could 3 after which u wont talk to her. when she does as told give her a hug and a kiss saying u love her. similarly in front of her tell her dad wht a good girl she was. i guarantee it will work like a charm. whenver my daughter messes her room with toys i tell her to help mamma in putting it back and she does. now even if i dont tell her she does it and says main mamma ko help kiya. ofcourse she gets a kiss and a thankyou Nehal Koradia replied. nilu,
i have done my post graduation in counselling. i feel that the road that u have taken might prove harmful later on where your daughter might understand that it's a trick or a manipulation.
you require to set some firm rules. like explain it to her that u wud repeat any instruction for only 3 times and after that she wud have to pay if she does not listen likewise 1/2 hour cut on television or computer games or no chocolate for the day etc. see to it that word punnishment is not used and the pay off should be appropriate to the kind of instruction you want her to follow.
also make a star chart for har where every time she follows your instruction at once she gets two stars, if she follows after you have said it twice she gets 1 star and on third time she gets a 1/2 star. and with a certain amount of stars(lets say 20) she can earn a previlege- like a small gift or 15min more of cartoon or games etc. also appreciate her when she does follow your instructions like good or we really liked it or mommy is really happy that u listened etc. also see to it that the previleges are preferably intangible and not gifts.
i hope this would require some effort from your side but it would bring good results.
All the best mohini replied. according to me, at this age...its very common for children to behave like that.
but this can also be the result of over pampering your child.

i dont agree with your trick of telling her opposite things, so that she acts in an opposite manner.

instead be a little strict to her.
whenever she does opposite of what you tell her, just shout at her or give her some small punishment so that she does not repeat it again.

kiran replied. i think you are on the right track, but there is a limit beyond which this trick ill be harmful. right now the child is taking it as honest statements from you, so she does the opposite, as is OK at her age. but soon she will know its a trick, sort of a sarcastic thing, and then its not healthy for her anymore. so I suggest you do it for a while..2 weeks orso, then start reinforcing her good behaviour more, and stress less on the trick...start setting rules, e.g. when she wears her nite dress, immediately \";sing\";, \";we always wear nite dress to sleep \"; and so on. Soon she will start following the rules and you will not need the trick at all. then , you can still use the trick purely as a fun & masti thing....