What are your Hot Button issues?

[Heffernhyphen]

Another thread in this forum got me to thinking about this idea: Hot Buttons. What are the specific things your kids can do, or not do, to make you feel like leaping right off the GD wagon? For me, it's getting hurt. If ds hurts me, even accidentally, I have to work to keep my cool. There's nothing like catching a foot in the throat to make me need a little Mommy time out.

How about you?

[Storm Bride]

Hurting me does it, but the one that really makes me work to keep calm is when dd hurts ds2 and/or wakes him up when he's just going to sleep and has been cranky. I know she just wants a reaction from him, and really doesn't understand, but it drives me mental! The first time she hurt him, I actually hit her hand before I could pull it - it just took me by surprise SO badly. Now that I know she does it, I'm a little better prepared mentally...

[JamesMama]

Hurting does it for me too, but also when James (15 months) keeps doing something after I remove him/distract him/redirect him for the 1000th time in half an hour...frustrates me SO much. We live in a trailer, 2 bedroom. So the computer HAS to be in the living room and he's always messing with it. *grrrr*

[MotherWhimsey]

my hot button is when she's tired and I'm trying to put her to sleep (sleeping with her, we cosleep and I'm pregnant, so I always want to sleep) and she's on the verge of sleep but to keep herself awake, she will start laughing and it totally pisses me off. Then she'll start hitting me or kicking me. If I tell her to stop it, she just laughs hard. It makes me have this overwhelming urge to bite her. I don't, but man, I just want to bite her sometimes. is the urge to bite your child normal, ever? It just seems more normal to want to hit a child, haven't heard much about wanting to bite. It's something I feel a lot of guilt and shame over even thinking.

[Llyra]

Throwing food. Drives me nuts. I spent a lot of time every week trying to buy enough good, organic food for us and still stay within a very small budget, and then spend even more time cooking from scratch, and it BURNS me up to see good food thrown around. Takes everything I have to keep from blowing up and yelling at her.

[OakBerry]

Mine is when ds smacks his head into me. When I lay next to him in bed he tries to keep himself awake by thrashing around, acting ridiculous, which makes me mad. And always manages to smack me in the nose or face with his head. Hurts like a SOB and it makes me furious!

[loraxc]

Yeah--getting hurt (especially being kicked, for some reason), and also when she gets wild and irrational and wail-y/scream-y in resisting sleep. Sleep is a major hot button for me, because I tend to be a monster when sleep-deprived and so does she!

[Collin'sMama]

Mine is when he fights sleep before his nap in the morning. I am NOT a morning person, I literally am in a fog until noon and when I am rocking him to sleep I am usually already halfway asleep. When he's just about asleep, he usually gives a big fight which startles me back to reality and ughhhhhh! drives me nuts!
The morning nap has been getting harder and harder lately and I'm afraid he's ready to drop it........I don't know how I'M going to handle this! Eek

[thismama]

I have a lot of them.

Hurting or bothering pets.

Difficulty getting out the door, refusal to get dressed, calamities that happen as we are leaving, running down the street or going limp instead of getting in the car - basically anything that delays getting out of the house as I'm usually already late.

Spills on purpose.

Running off in stores, down the street - anything that requires me to chase after her. Drives me nuts. I'm lazy, man.

Taking off shoes in the car.

Pouring water out of the bathtub.

Wrecking my school papers.

Screaming to get my attention while I'm talking to someone else.

Etc etc etc.

Some things that you'd think would be a big deal are not, like my dd loving staying up late, accidentally peeing on the sofa, dumping toys everywhere, throwing food (the dog eats it) etc.

[Brigianna]

Noises. Specifically, sudden loud noises. Y'all do not know what those thngs do to my sanity. It's not pretty.

And sneaking up behind me. Don't ever do that. I may attack you.

Oddly enough, I don't really mind being hurt. Just as long as you come from where I can see you. Then we're cool.

[TeaBag]

Hitting/biting/pulling hair/shoving/basically any type of angry physical contact with any sibling. I can handle most things, but the physical attacks on each other send me THROUGH THE ROOF.

[Piglet68]

Hitting/hurting me.

Hitting/hurting DS is a big one.

When I'm angry and DD starts laughing as I'm being angry. It's all I can do to not "make her cry".

And food. Food issues drive me crazy. I know why this one gets me so much. I had the exact same issues. I hated how my mother dealt with it (she forced me to eat all my dinner or else not leave the table. I'd be there for hours, gagging on my food. i remember how much i hated the taste of veggies, the texture of things....) and yet I find myself getting unreasonably frustrated and insulted when she won't eat the healthy, yummy meal I've put in front of her.

[UnschoolnMa]

Suddenly pain inflicted on me is a tough one for sure, so I hear you all on that one. Screaming. Not yelling or calling out or raising a voice, but all out screaming occasionally found me locked in a bathroom for a minute or two lol.

[lilylove]

Hitting/hurting siblings
My almost 4yr's defiance. Like laughing and yelling "NO!" when I remind her not to do something she knows is not ok. Like locking the cat in the bathroom.

[shanesmama]

My son is only 19 months old, so these things are to be expected, but.....

I hate when he trows his food on the floor, or feeds it to the dog. How many times must I clean up the floor.

And also when he hits me. And even more when he laughs at me after he hits me.

[newmommy]

Whining and Tantrums. I can't STAND Whining and Tantrums. They put me right over the edge.

Deliberately keeping himself awake when he is OBVIOUSLY sleepy.

[sevenkids]

Whining. I can't stand whining. I can deal with just about anything else, but whining dances on my last nerve. Even when other people's kids whine, I get irritated beyond ration. Nagging comes in a close second, I can say no up to three times, but by the thrid time I have to say no, I'm about to lose it.

[ayme371]

Hurting, does not really hurt others just me . Sometimes he is playing and others trying to get attention if I am talking to someone else.We're working on it though.

First time I took a matchbox car in the mouth I seriously had to walk away and breath deep before I could deal with the situation.

[The4OfUs]

Sleep issues, and whining (which in DS is more like a wail/scream combo). Both send me off the deep end, for some reason.

I tried to micromanage DS' sleep recently, and it nearly sent me over the edge, so I finally just let go and feel so much better about it.

The whine/scream, it triggers some kind of visceral reaction in me....it takes every ounce of my will power to not grab him by the scruff of his neck and talk to him, nose to nose, from between clenched teeth. Good think I have a fairly decent reserve of will power.

Those are the only two things I've found that I started going someplace I didn't like.

[mom2evan]

Hitting or biting the animals or pulling their fur, especially if I have gently redirected DS multiple times and he races back and LAUGHS while he does it again. :

Trying to climb in my lap or on the table or otherwise interfere with the short amount of time I have to eat dinner. We eat dinner together, and he is allowed to get down from the table and play after a few minutes. Lately, though, he insists on trying to climb in DS's lap or in mine and mess around with everything on the table. It makes me crazy.

Nights when he seems to be sound asleep, but wakes and complains any time I move so much as a millimeter away from him. After it happens three or four times in a row, I feel myself losing it.

Sticking his fingers up my nose and in my armpit, pulling my hair, and driving his feet into my belly or back because he wants to nurse for the umpteenth time at night and I'm not waking up fast enough to suit him.

Originally Posted by MotherWhimsey

is the urge to bite your child normal, ever? It just seems more normal to want to hit a child, haven't heard much about wanting to bite. It's something I feel a lot of guilt and shame over even thinking.

It may be weird, but I've had the same urge. I think it has something to do with the fact that I know I don't want to hit or spank, but the impulse to somehow "get back" at him when I'm feeling crazed by a particular behavior is so strong it kind of slips out in other ways. (This is not to say that I HAVE bitten him, but it has crossed my mind in a way that spanking/hitting doesn't).