5 y.o. DD bored and resentful - Page 2

[littlest birds]

I have a ds soon-to-be 5yo who loves opening the fridge (and climbing in the fridge) and does it at other people's houses too... He used to get up earlier than everyone else and just start digging around the kitchen for goodies he would help himself to. Then he started letting the dog out the front door to run around the neighborhood (which is definitely not okay) before anyone else got up, since he knew how to work the lock. No matter how many times we talked and explained, our solution had to be getting a lock that uses a key on the inside.

He also climbs everything, hangs on doorknobs and broke the mirror off our van by hanging on it too. He once threw a gallon can of paint off our high deck to the sidewalk... (He was horrified at the results, though) He often decides to mop the bathroom (any time he sees the mop) which results in several gallons of water on the floor and running down into the heat ducts. He can't wait to get his hands on anything that intrigues him. He manipulates everything to see how it works and wants to use every tool and accomplish every task himself. He will leave us in a crowd... he would wander off the sidewalk onto the street etc.

It can be sort of scary. He's just extremely impulsive and definitely pre-logical.

He is also extremely intelligent, curious, musical, courageous, ready-to-help, earnest, charming, and sweet.

We have to set the same limits over and over and over and over and over and he learns to control himself very very slowly.

[luv my 2 sweeties]

I think I just had a revelation. When she is doing the begging thing, I think what she's really saying is: "I need to know that you love me, I need to know that you love me, I need to know that you love me."

Interesting that you thought that, because as soon as I read that you rarely buy your kids toys, I was thinking the same thing. Does she like to give gifts to others? (Could be just things she found or things she made, presented like a gift to someone.) There's book called "The Five Love Languages" and another by the same author called "The Five Love Languages of Children" which outlines 5 ways that people (young or old) express and experience love: Physical Touch, Quality Time, Acts of Service, Gifts, and Words of Encouragement or Praise (something like that.) We tend to express love in a way that we like to experience it, but that can be almost meaningless if the person we are loving has a different "love language". So if you are a "physical touch" person and you hug your dd many times a day, she may not be getting the message you are sending! In the Children book, the author claims that you can't really determine a child's language before about age 8. (You should be doing them all up to that point.) But perhaps if a child has a very strong preference for one language, it could show up earlier.

Of course this only addresses a possible cause for the begging, and it may be off-base, but I thought I'd share, especially since you were thinking along those lines yourself.

[ShannonCC]

I have a girl with a case of the gimme's too It did help a lot to get rid of commercial tv (we are now tv free, but just going non-commercial helps and I see you already did that). But I also have to get to the mail first and hide the toy catalogs :LOL Especially this time of year. Today we got two of them in the mail. I hid them under a coat until she was out of the room and now they are tucked away where she can't find them. If she gets ahold of one, she will go through it and I'll hear "can I get this for my birthday/Christmas?" every 20 seconds

Originally Posted by meowee

Instead of, "I want a horse," it is:

"I really like horses. Mama, I really like horses. Isn't it sad that we can't have a horse? It's sad isn't it? Other people have horses, and we don't have horses. I think you would like a horse."

This I don't see as being so bad. Can't you just talk back?

She says "I really like horses"

You say "yeah, me too, they're so pretty"

she says "isn't it sad we can't have a horse?"

you say "yeah, I guess it is. It would be fun, wouldn't it? It's too bad we can't afford one/don't have the room"

she says "other people have horses and we don't have horses"

you say "maybe we could go see a horse at a farm this weekend, what do you think?"

I've had these kinds of conversations with my dd (not about horses :LOL). They don't bother me. It's the "can I get . . ." that bothers me.