"i thought the wall was paper"

[GoBecGo]

My DD has been acting out a little since we moved house (end of Jan).

There's been a lot going on, it was our third (and thank goodness last, we finally bought a place) house move in 13 months. Plus we had a loss she was aware of back in August, and of course there's the baby, due in June. She'll be 4 in 2 weeks.

Anyway she'd been drawing on the walls. With pens, then a few weeks later a lipstick (which she took from my make-up bag, which she knows not to touch and has never touched before), then with crayons, then with a pen.

I would yell. I'm not proud of that, but there it is. I would yell at her, and ask why, and she would say "i thought the wall was paper!" in a funny-silly voice, as if trying to cajole me to laugh (something my XP, her father, does when SHE is upset about something which drives me crazy). I yelled some more, because that made me much madder and she insisted "but i thought the wall was paper, so it was an accident, so YOU must clean it up". I know she knows the wall is not paper.

On every occasion SHE helped clean it up, but under duress and with complaint. After the last time we mutually agreed to put all of the drawing implements away and only take them out together so she doesn't have free access to them (she agreed to this and said "it is a GOOD idea").

The last time she drew on the walls she hid the marks behind a cushion and then lied to me when i asked if she'd done it. I realised then that my shouting was only making her afraid to tell me what had happened and not at all helping her control her impulses or recognise why she shouldn't draw on the walls (FWIW she gets a LOT of craft and art time, daily and on at least one of the times she did it after being on a 7-hour outing which was start-to-end entertainment for her, so i don't think it's lack of creative outlet time or boredom). So we also agreed that i was not going to shout any more, and that if she DID make a mistake and draw on something or break something or similar she should come tell me and i would help her fix it.

Since then things have been much better, emotionally, between us, but now she seems to be doing slightly "naughty" things (i.e. things which i know she knows she shouldn't do, like spraying a can of air freshener on all the mirrors and some of the walls) and then saying "it was an accident" as if to dismiss it completely. I am sticking to my not yelling and just helping her to rectify whatever it is as best i can, but i admit, it is starting to erode my patience that every naughty thing she does is "an accident" with no explanation or remorse.

I'm not sure what to do. We are well connected and attached and get on great 99% of the time, and i know part of the problem is that i'm getting big and round now and finding it hard to chase about after her, thus i actually do quite resent an extra 40mins of cleaning for her 3minute "accident" with a crayon or whatever. But before we moved she hadn't drawn on a wall, despite having free access 24/7 to her drawing things, for over a year.

For the main part i am happy to wait a while on this, since i know that by yelling when she made mistakes in the past i have eroded some of the trust she had in me (and i need to show her i can trust her to do the right thing too, and not have her think i will always assume the worst of her!) but equally i thought i'd put this out here and see if anyone had any suggestions/thoughts?

[Annie Mac]

This might be reaching, but maybe it's some sort of territorial thing. Given the fact that you've moved 3 times over the last year, and that there's a new baby coming, she may feel displaced, and feel the need to assert her space in the world. I actually remember doing something similar when I was 5 -- I entered the neighbour's feed shed and wrote my name on *everything* in there, and I believe I even had the gall to try and deny it! At the time, my mom was expecting my sister, and there were a few other family dynamic things going on that would have served to unbalance my world.

Anyway, if that's the case, you could try giving her a section of the wall to draw on. Not directly on the wall, obviously, but perhaps you both could go down and get a roll of newsprint and together find a place on the wall and together tack the paper up. Then she can draw to her heart's content and even change the "wallpaper" on a regular basis if she desires, as well as addressing the need to mark "her" space, while at the same time saving your sanity.

[One_Girl]

I think you should put everything you don't want on the walls, windows, or couch up in a cupboard, especially the chemical things like air freshener that aren't really good toys for young kids. A lot of families have to toddler proof their house because their kids start doing science experiments with everything in site. My brother went through a phase like this and it got so bad he got the privelage to be in the bathroom alone suspended because he flooded it one too many times with his toilet paper experiments.

[hakeber]

Originally Posted by One_Girl

I think you should put everything you don't want on the walls, windows, or couch up in a cupboard, especially the chemical things like air freshener that aren't really good toys for young kids. A lot of families have to toddler proof their house because their kids start doing science experiments with everything in site.

My brother went through a phase like this and it got so bad he got the privelage to be in the bathroom alone suspended because he flooded it one too many times with his toilet paper experiments.

My ds was like this, long before his sister came along. In fairness to him his room had mural painted on all four walls, and we always let him draw on the tiled wals in the kicthen and the bathroom, so it was a bit of a shock when we panicked about the living room walls and made him wash it off.

The last time she drew on the walls she hid the marks behind a cushion and then lied to me when i asked if she'd done it.

Why did you ask her IF she had done it? Is there someone else in the house who would have done it? Of course she is going deny it, and then that will make you madder...better next time to say "I see you drew on the wall. Here's a sponge, lets go clean it up."

That way she can't lie and it won't escalate into screaming and shouting and your feelings being stepped on because you feel like this little person is treating you like a moron.

DS also went through the phase of "It was an accident!" So we had a talk (okay several talks) about what constitutes an accident and what constitutes a bad choice. Mistakes and accidents are NOT the same thing, but sometimes they can LOOK like the same thing to the young scientist mind...in his mind he envisioned taking mommy's glass christmas bobble and watching it roll fast across the table and causing no harm. In reality it rolled off the table and shattered, breaking a valuable keepsake that mommy had asked him to ever ever touch. Accident or Bad choice? I say bad choice, he says accident...if it hadn't broken I would never have been the wiser.

I definitely agree that you need to just stow stuff away. I kept all of ds's crayons and markers on a high shelf he couldn't reach between art projects, and did the same thing with all sort of other stuff. Only recently has he been allowed to be alone in the bathroom again with the door closed. There's just too much to experiment with and so many fun things to explore.

[GoBecGo]

Thanks for your thoughts.

I DEFINITELY think some of it is territorial - moving house so often was because we moved in with DH (move #1 - she'd been having regular (twice a week minimum) contact with him and knew him really well and has LOVED living with him, no issues at all with any of this sort of thing in our first rental) and had to move as neither of us had space for the three of us where we were. Move #2 was because that rental, which we LOVED and wouldn't have rented had we known it was for sale, got sold. Move #3 was to our own newly bought house. It has been tough on all of us, and i am definitely guilty of comforting her statements of discontent about living where we don't like/having to move soon again with "soon we will be in OUR OWN house and we'll not have to move again for a long, long time". I definitely think the drawing specifically is territorial, to see if it IS our house, to see if it's REALLY hers, to see what i will do. And i think she is very keen to "make her mark" - we've been talking about painting a rainforest mural on her bedroom wall and she is REALLY keen about it, she wants this house to look like HERS.

Everything we don't want on walls has now been put away, to be fair to DD (and to us all) the air freshener was not in its usual place when she got ahold of it, i assume a house guest we'd had that morning had taken it down and not put it back up, it usually lives well out of reach. I think i'm in shock/denial because i had to toddler-proof everything when she was about 11months old (and could stand and reach many hundreds of things i didn't want her to touch) but for about 18 months before all this she seemed to have "got" the things she shouldn't touch and could be trusted with them somewhat - part of the issue with DD is that she is verbally brilliant and SEEMS more mature than she is and sometimes when i've just had my kid ask me not to be belligerent when i yelled at her it's hard to remember she's not 4 yet. It's something i'm consciously working on.

I just had to clean a good slick of pump soap off the sink because DD had had a little "accident" (i'm going to talk to her about wrong-choices next time an opportunity comes up, thanks!) but we did manage to talk about it, and the best thing, in terms of what i was hoping would happen, is that she came and TOLD me she'd used some of the soap and needed help to clean it up (it jellfies rather quickly). So she's obviously trusting that i won't freak and yell at her since i said i wouldn't.

[Shakti77]

Could you do a whole wall of chalkboard and tell her that it's her wall and she can draw whatever she wants on it..

Another thought would be... well, get a huge roll of drawing paper from IKEA or similar and tack it on the wall in two layers (as high as she could reach) and let her paint to her heart's glory.

You could even put a big note 'DD's wall'!!

She's had too many moves and she must be feeling sort of displaced. Right now, I would let her enjoy it.... Mine will be 4 in September and I think if she had done this, I would have most probably have reacted in the same way as you did. But now that I see it from an un-emotional point of view (as an outsider), that makes me react differently.

[Minxie]

Originally Posted by Annie Mac

This might be reaching, but maybe it's some sort of territorial thing. Given the fact that you've moved 3 times over the last year, and that there's a new baby coming, she may feel displaced, and feel the need to assert her space in the world. I actually remember doing something similar when I was 5 -- I entered the neighbour's feed shed and wrote my name on *everything* in there, and I believe I even had the gall to try and deny it! At the time, my mom was expecting my sister, and there were a few other family dynamic things going on that would have served to unbalance my world.

Anyway, if that's the case, you could try giving her a section of the wall to draw on. Not directly on the wall, obviously, but perhaps you both could go down and get a roll of newsprint and together find a place on the wall and together tack the paper up. Then she can draw to her heart's content and even change the "wallpaper" on a regular basis if she desires, as well as addressing the need to mark "her" space, while at the same time saving your sanity.

I kind of agree with this. The first part, DEFINITELY. After moving three times in under two years, I bought a house and we moved for the last time. My DS, who has NEVER written on ANY wall in ANY house, used my brick-red lipstick to draw on the cream-colored living room walls and on his bedroom's light yellow walls. After scrubbing the walls (and being completely peeved), I explained to him that he may draw on HIS walls but NOT on Mama's walls. He knows he is allowed to draw on the walls in his bedroom and hasn't drawn on a wall since.

Hmmm, that's not QUITE correct. After I told him it was okay, he used a pencil and drew ALL over one wall in his room; I shrugged my shoulders, reminded him that it was his wall, and let it go. I didn't get upset or erase his drawing; since that time, he has never drawn on another wall in our house.

The part about putting paper on the wall, not so much. If the reason for drawing on the walls is to establish her "ownership" of the house, drawing on something removable may just exacerbate the situation. Why not designate one wall for drawing so that she has an ownership stake in the house also? Paint will cover it in a few years, it will keep her off your walls in the meantime, she'll feel like you hear her concerns, and you'll have a secure, happy daughter.

Just my $0.02.

ETA: I never did put away his markers, paints, crayons, or my lipstick. They are all relatively accessible. Paints and chalks are on the easel; crayons and colored pencils are on the bottom shelf of the bookshelf. He just never drew on the wall again after feeling confident it was okay.

[mamazee]

I agree about putting the markers and whatever else up until she can handle them again. I wouldn't make it a punishment, I mean get them down everytime she wants to use them (on paper! LOL), but just keep them up when she isn't using them so you're always up on just what is happening with them.

I agree that it sounds territorial. My dd, who was 7 at the time, did this when our younger dd was born. She was 7! She would put her name up, mainly, which is what triggered my thought that it was probably territorial. She wanted to mark her space. It was frustrating but she did get over it. I let her redecorate her room a bit, which gave her an outlet for that territorial marking. I didn't take her art supplies away because it resolved itself pretty quickly. But she was 7 and hadn't had all the moving on top of the new baby issue, so yeah I think I'd just keep them out of reach in your case. But maybe do try to find a productive outlet as well.