[starlein26]

Middle dd is clearly very, very intelligent. She asks me interesting, thoughtful questions all.day.long. I'm not even kidding- all.day.long. She NEEDS interaction with me almost all the time. Youngest dd is a baby but man she's intense too. My oldest son is also very intelligent but keeps more to himself (he's more inwardly drawn...self-stimulated). He learned to read recently and wants to practice with me...but middle dd always finds a way to get attention back on her?!?!
My question is, I homeschool them, so we're together, like, all day long. Ummm, how does one get a break from the questions? She's SO smart but she's 3, so she doesn't get that I'm tired and need a break, she'll just come ask me another question or demand my attention some other way.

Maybe I just need commiseration, I feel worn out. Tired. Done. She's so awesome, but also so freakin hard to parent.

 

[Romana]

Aw, that sounds just like my 3, almost 4 year old. There are a few activities she can do for a while without needing quite as much attention, but FTMP she really requires constant attention. For example, if playing her Dora or Diego video game for the Wii, I can usually get about 20 min. She also has a neat thing called "Cool Computer School" for the computer and will play with that, but it doesn't slow down the dialogue. She still wants me to look at everything, interpret everything, discuss it with her, etc.

I don't have a lot of suggestions, mostly just commiseration! Make sure you get a break at the end of the day. When her dad comes home, does her attention shift? My husband is a SAHD and when I get home, it's like he no longer exists. So he always gets a real break in the evenings, and we make sure he gets time on the weekends as well. I know how exhausting a kid like that can be.

Also, we have had some limited success with boundaries so that she comes to understand she cannot always have my attention (or daddy's attention). For example, if he's on the phone, she's expected to not interrupt. If she's interrupting, he asks her nicely to stop and reminds her that he will only be a few minutes and then it'll be her turn. Occasionally we will explain that we want or need to do X for X amount of time and suggest a couple activities for her. On good days, she'll pick one of the activities and while the time span is short, introducing the concept of "Ok, now it's time for you to go to your room and do X while mama/daddy does Y" has been helpful and getting more effective. Of course none of these things are punishments, and it wouldn't work if she saw them that way - just introducing and emphasizing the concept that sometimes mama/daddy needs some time and that she can have independent time, too. Questions can be answered and other issues addressed after that time is over. I don't know about your daughter, but with my daughter, explaining why we are doing things as fully as possible is usually helpful.

The other thing that helps me sometimes is to introduce a topic that *I* want to talk about. That way, at least we're discussing something that I'm interested in, too.

 

[starlein26]

My husband doesn't have patience with her questions, not that he gets angry, he just sort of tunes her out (which she knows) so she'll come ask me for the most part (unless I'm so tapped out and I tell dh to field some questions.)

She questions behaviors/intentions of others a.lot (sometimes when we're right next to them

). She questions things we've talked about/learned a.lot. (obvious one) And she learns things quickly and wants to learn all things quickly. She's frustrated that she can't jump up with her scooter like she sees older kids doing. She's also totally obssessed with tracing (something she discovered on her own) and is VERY good at it for a 3 year old but says she "messed up"?!?! Perfection has never been uttered in our house. Poor kid. Things are much harder for her than I notice in other kids her age. And as much as I feel for her pain/struggles...it's hard for me to give her immediate/complete attention for all of this when I have two other kids that need me too. Ugh. I just feel guilty I guess. And tired. My only genuine break are some off days where she naps (like today, woohoo) or after 8:30pm, sometimes 9pm depending on her persistence. And those few hours FLY by.
I guess I'm just unloading...and she's awake...

 

[no5no5]

Does she have someone she can call? My DD calls a grandparent several times a week, and sometimes she even calls a friend.

 

[starlein26]

She LOVES the idea of skype and talks to my husband on the phone BUT our parents are foreign and they don't understand her very well... She stopped asking to talk to them recently.
I should add that we're tv/dvd free so, yeah, I don't get much break.

We JUST introduced video games today...and she LOVES them. But I don't want her doing that all day so...

Anyway, thanks for listening guys. It's just tough some days. She's just so much. To read it in books or online is so different than living with it, yk.

 

[jilly]

Yeah, my ds1 is like this. Even if he's doing an activity "by himself" I must constantly come over and look at and discuss every detail of what he has done since I last checked what he was doing (1 min. ago). He is 5 now and a bit more able to understand that I need some space, and that, in fact, he needs some space, too.

When he was about 3 1/2 I finally just started having a "quiet time" every day. I would put stories on cd on the stero and give him a drink and a snack and tell him that he was not allowed to ask any questions until the cd was done. This helped ease him into playing by himself, and now he has learned to play independently quite well, although he still likes to be in the same space as us for most of the day, and still shows me what he is building / drawing / telling a story about about every 5 min. and still informs me every time he has to go to the bathroom . . . but its better.

Just in time for ds2 to decide that he wants to do EVERYTHING with mommy all the time.