Parenting frustration thread

My 2yo has discovered that screaming like a banshee is fun. I thought I had seen it all with his two sisters before but in retrospect theyre a walk in the park. AHHHHHHHHH

My four-year old daughter doesn't like the color of our dining room table, so she's using markers to make it red.

Buy ear plugs and don't react to him. It does wonders for peace of mind.

Learn selective hearing like all good parents!

My husband whines like a bitchy teenager and expects me to treat him like his mother does.

My 12 year old is in full blown puberty (yes, early) but with the maturity of a 12 year old dealing with a 14 year old's body in a class full of pre-pubescent 10 to 12 year old kids.

And his mood swings make my puberty look like a sea of tranquility. On the up side, he gets to take it all out on my mother when he goes to visit in August.

Boys will be boys. I hope your neighbors don't complain! My 4 y.o. son was like that, and he still shrieks with joy [we just found an enormous snake outside!].

Yesterday, I listened to the entire family next door screaming outside at one kid. Parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts... they are from Mexico. Oh, the drama! They are tied with another as my favorite neighbors, even with all the yelling. It's good to be back in Calif.

My daughter refuses to go poo in the potty. She's almost 4!

My. Older kids wait until I'm feeding the baby to poop, go deep toilet fishing, destroy the house and leave the house for a stroll around the block!

And I hear ya with the selective hearing. I can tune anything out now...

ewww, PezMom. My son can't properly wipe his butt yet... normally he will call for me, but today he was stealth and just got off the toilet and started walking around with dingleberries hanging off his butt. I had to go on a "poop search" of the floor.

It must have been about 15 years ago - my daughter[sup]*[/sup] discovered a big pot of Nivea and used the entire contents to cover herself (she did remove clothes first). I have an incriminating photo of the evidence plus my wife who had just discovered her...

*[sub]Daughter is now 17...[/sub]

Spank him with a hairbrush and send him to bed without his supper then. That'll teach him.


Uh, the average age is 11. When he gets the crotch itch, tell him not to scratch during square dancing in gym class. It is a horrible thing to get caught by the girls and then have them not want to take your hand when you dosey doe.

My son is 3 and I refuse to allow him to wipe himself yet. i m not a fan of skidmarked undies! We are going start training my daughter soon...wish me luck!

selective hearing doesn't work in this case because the sound reverberates in the body.

At 4, my son went shopping without us. Seriously, he walked to Tenglemann and "bought" (he didn't pay for it) some yogurt dessert and then came home with it. He was so proud that he went shopping all by himself. He is now 7 and this past weekend decided to cut his own hair. He actually did a decent job. He is very "cool" conscious these days and that is a bit worrying.

We have a No Screaming rule in our house. That means nobody can scream, for any reason.

I used to be an opera singer, and my daughter once called me out on that rule when (I thought) I was singing a little tune from the old days.

This is what I did: told Jr that he could only yell outside. Use the "inside voice" for inside. It worked. Some boys are just banshees... and sometimes you have to make a compromise. e.g. pick your battles.

Maybe you/ his sisters are pissing him off, and he needs to yell? I still yell on occasion, and I am far from toddlerhood.

One of my brothers was so totally wild that he was given a watch at about age 5, thrown outside, and told not to come home before 6 pm. He loves telling that story... just told it again at my Dad's recent funeral!

YES! That is the one piece of advice every parent needs to know and trust in. Now, picking them wisely is another story. Sometimes it is better to pick a battle you know you are going to lose in order to win during the compromise. Sort of a "bait and switch" flanking action.

It’s the terrible two’s im afraid…try ignoring him, or distracting him or make eye contact and tell him to be quiet….I used to knell in front of my kids and in a calm voice tell them how naughty he/she was behaving…if all failed I bribed them…or let them watch TV…I know its too early for cartoons but after a hard’s days work I had no choice… Is he eating a lot of candy or sweetened fruit juice…it does have that effect on some kids they literally crawl up the walls….

Mine are now18 and 19 and great kids….Good luck

Believe me, he is physically beyond all his classmates. He started showing real signs of puberty at 10. Makes life a bit tricky for the first one in the class going down the puberty road.

What can be quite effective is if when he does this (or anything else that drives you crazy) you say "right, now I am going to EAT you up". And you stalk him on all fours, together with Jaws type humming, and "eat up" his middle and blow raspberries on his tum until he is crying with laughter. Better than screaming/swearing/whatever he has decided is his latest attention seeking behaviour. It got to the point with my kids that I just had to start humming, and they would collapse in giggles - no chance of them screaming.

My 3 yr old screams because his sister screams. Hell he's "scared" of everything so the boy is constantly screaming! He just wants attention and since my daughter screams to communicate (she's 1) and gets a response, he feels he needs to, too. So frustrating. But that's the world of more than one kid!

And almost every time we go to the park my daughter gets loads of sand in her hair but hates getting her hair washed. I'm soaked by the end of the bath. She also spits food out of her mouth when offered something else or when I put something new on her plate.

Maybe I shouldn't post this stuff since I am currently looking for a nanny..

definitely a case for selective posting

Pezmom, you could be writing about my boys - only their 4 and 2. Loads of screaming - like a competition to see who can do it loudest/longest/highest etc.

Fighting over toys or just pplain fighting - which always results in one crying...and always when you're trying to cook dinner / do laundry etc...

Procrastination extraordinaire ... how many ways can we think of not doing something we need to or are asked to... bedtime being a favourite and going to the loo running a close second.

Then of course the buggers just spoil it all by doing something really sweet or that makes you really proud... boy do they know how to play us!

My daughter is the queen of this!!! She is hilarious. Its hard for me to keep a straight-face with her sometimes.

With my son, EVERYTHING is a negotiation. He's 7, but it's been this way since he was 3 or so. I probably shouldn't have given into it, but we have the ritual now.

I always start lower than I intend to settle on, and then we meet in the middle, exactly where I intended. He wants to stay up late, I want him to go to bed at 9:00, so I start with 8:40 and after some back and forth, we settle on 9:00. Occasionally he gives in sooner than I expect. He wants 5 little candies, I say 2, we settle on 3, when I intended 4. I have the game down enough that I rarely "lose" and he almost always gets to feel like he "wins".

I get the potty training thing. We had issues to begin with but now our daughter is 99% done with the very occasional accident. She just turned 2.

Bedtime is the big problem we currently have although she is now staying in her new big bed at least. It is getting her in there in the first place that is the problem.

My son is nearly two, and I swear I'm the luckiest mother in the world. He really is a little angel. When it's time for bed, all I have to do is start singing "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," and he goes running for his bed. He lays there playing quietly with his crib toys and falls asleep with no fuss within 15 minutes or so. He sleeps 12 hours at night, sleeps in on weekends and still takes a 3 hour nap every day (sometimes 4 hours if I let him). Only just lately he's started to get a bit whiny when he's frustrated at not having the words to communicate what he wants. I've also been giving him a bit of slack lately, because he's got four molars coming in at once. In general, though, he's got a great demeanor, entertains himself, does what he's told and is an all around easy kid. Trust me, I KNOW this will change, but I'm enjoying it for now!

All that said, I'm scared to death of this next one. Every little aspect of my pregnancy has been completely different from the last one, and I swear this bub never sleeps. I'm really afraid this trend will continue after the birth.

Lucky so and so. Daughter goes to bed at 9pm, is up at 7am and only sleeps for 90 minutes a day, if at all. If she sleeps longer then she goes to bed later...

Monster #2 just sleeps the whole time and only wakes up to be a pain in the arse.

you got cats maybe?

My son goes to bed at 8pm. The only negotiation is about Friday and Saturday nights. If he does well during the week, then he gets to stay up. If not, then its 8pm.


You are in for a rude awakening my friend. I give you about a year before the little one has you swearing something else.

Oh, it will. bwaa hahahaaa! You can't be on Easy Street forever.

(and I can't believe your 2 year old stays in a crib! Mine was jumping out right after he turned 1.)

He doesn't even try to climb out! When he wakes up, he just sits there and talks to himself while he plays, waiting patiently for me to come and get him. We'll be buying him a big boy bed soon so the baby can have his crib. We're not in a hurry though, since she'll be in a cosleeper next to our bed for at least a little while. He's not quite 2 yet, btw. He's just over 20 months.

Trust me, eurovol, I'm not making any assumptions about the future! I know this honeymoon has to end sometime.

You might be lucky ipj. I remember a train journey, sharing a carriage with a woman who had three children - the first two were "angels" she said, no problems with sleeping, etc etc, but No 3 was driving her ragged. She couldn't understand how that one could be so different!

At the time I had two small monsters, one who wouldn't settle in bed, and the other one who tried to come to our bed every night, so I never ever was able to sleep through the night, or even go to bed early. I felt like the walking dead, so I did feel some schadenfreude that she wasn't having it too easy all the time.

Ipj, my husband said his nephew was a a very good boy from infancy. He's 7 now and still an angel. His niece on the other hand isn't a wild child, but isn't as well-behaved.

I just hope my daughter is potty-trained soon. It's diffcult starting with an infant, but by the time the baby is 4 months old we will start with her. My son was potty-trained by the age 2, so I'm hoping the same for her. Of course she's a diva and do things her way, but she also thinks she's 12 years old and hates dirty diapers.

The girl also loves designer purses! Forget the toy section, we have to sneak past the make-up and purse section (at the px). She's a trip.

Mine's still not out.

I'm most annoyed about this.

There will be days/ nights when you wish you could put them back in! :-)

Maybe that's just me...

And on those days and nights the irony will not be lost on me.

For now I'm crampy, tired, in pain and still pregnant.

That's the kind that turn into mad axe murderers in high school I was a holy terror, my mother had to call me Sweetness and Light to stay sane.

It's so nice to read something like this and then crash out on the couch with my 19-year-old daughter and have some girlie talk or discuss some historical point of law or explain the etymology of this or that word.

Enjoy the peace and quiet, and there just being the two of you while you can!

My son won't leave me alone in peace. Can't wait until he discovers girls and drugs and stuff, and wants to stay out all night.

Wait till he brings home girls that even turn you on.

I have 3 teenage girls. I have nothing else to say except I must have been really bad in a previous life!

Hang in there llees. You are beautifully pregnant. The work begins when the baby is out. Wishing you an BD an uneventful delivery!

It won't be long now.

Excited for you guys,
Fruity

Tonight all three are tossing and turning because the evening air is still so warm.

I almost had a few close calls with other cars and trees seeing the teenagers in there hot skirts and heels that are not meant to walk on. sort of shocking to think my youngens will be walking around like that in 12 years time. must find a way to fend off the guys with a bat. so many dorks and not enough time to smack them all.

you guys don't know what you are doing. raising kids is easy!

You need to learn how to be a scary Dad. ALL my friends were afraid of my Dad (and brothers). I had to move to the other end of California, just so I could get an unchaperoned date!

Tor, that was funny! I wish!

I'm right there with you! I'm still curious to see who'll go first. Even though I'm 36 weeks, so technically still have four weeks to go, it's still a week later than when my son was born!

36 weeks today. But my family always, always goes early. This is the longest gestation anyone can remember, so it already feels like overtime.

Oh, and I'm the size of a fucking barn, and yesterday the nurse at the doctor's office told me my ass has got much larger. Yeah, thanks for telling me. I've not seen it in months but that makes me feel so much better.

And the wife of a friend of mine gave birth at 36 weeks yesterday morning. It wasn't her turn. Hmph.