[Melmo]

I have 2 kids, 5 years old and 6 months and I babysit my 1 year old neice. I occasionally lose my temper with the younger ones and yell but my 5 year old always drives me crazy. I know her behavior is just noral kid behavior and I try to take deep breaths but I find myself yelling all the time. Even while I am yelling, I am thinking to just calm down but it feels impossible. after awhile I feel calmed and then boom, I see her doing something she shouldn't and I explode again.
Why am I so angry? I feel like a monster and a horrible mother. On really bad days after I put her to bed I just cry.

[Skeezyks]

Hello Melmo: I don't know why you are so angry. Perhaps it has to do with how you were raised, or something that happened to you in the past. I have, & pretty-much have always had, the same kind of over-the-top anger. I know some of the things that I believe may have contributed to it. But I also wonder sometimes if maybe to some extent it's just genetic... just how I was built. I think in order to have any hope of figuring out why you're as angry as you are, you'd have to delve into this at length with a skilled therapist. Perhaps you are... The more pressing question here though would seem to be what can you do about it? Therapy may be of some help there too. But I also wonder if there might be some educational services available that would help you to learn alternative ways of handling your children's behavior. This may be worth looking into. Also, if you find that you are isolated, joining a moms support group might be a great option. There you could talk with other moms who have similar struggles, get some suggestions as to how to handle problem behaviors, & just generally share with other moms who are having similar experiences. I'm quite certain you are far from the only mom who is having similar difficulties. My best wishes to you...

[Melmo]

My dad raised me and my sister, he is a very calm person. But my mom who we visited every second weekend has a very short temper too and I feel like I am becoming her and I REALLY don't want to.

[CopperStar]

I think it's important to make sure you are perceiving a child and not another adult. I think maybe that can help if you are able to lower your expectations from the outset, so that you will not be so freaked out when higher expectations are not met.

My mother was similar based on our old home videos that I have seen. She always seemed to regard me as an adult, even when I was barely walking. Her words and actions in the videos made it clear that she always thought I was doing things just to make her mad or to be bad, when in reality I was just developing and exploring and testing the world.

As a result both she and my father (who was even worse) would often have explosive anger and bitterness towards me.

Thing is I don't even remember that phase of my life, from 0 to about age 7. I wasn't even developed enough I guess to form any solid memories of it. I really was just a little developing creature.

So best advice I can give is to try to remember when you were five years old. Can you even remember it? And if you can, were you actively plotting to do bad things, or did you sometimes just test things and explore, only to suddenly be met with a very scary reaction from your mother?

Try to see your own 5-year-old self in your child, to help you in the moment to consciously realize that she is a child, and not an adult who is just screwing with you. Instead she is learning and developing, and some parts are going to be slow, and some parts of her learning boundaries and rules will involve testing the waters. Try to remember that it is always about learning and not a personal attack against you.

I am sure this all much, much easier said than done, but that is the only advice I can give just based on my own experiences and observations with my own situation as a child. I think we get programmed on how to respond to behaviors from adults, and it can be hard to adjust our settings for perceiving and interacting with children.

I'm not sure what is triggering your emotions, but it is inappropriate.

What is more appropriate is to be prepared to say "No" to this child.

If he is not doing what you want him to do, get in the habit of offering him TWO choices (objects or things to do).

It is also important that you reinforce behaviour you do deserve (tho be careful the reward isn't food).

Finally, ensure you are taking the time to spend some quality time and attention with the child one on one. Reading is the best thing you can do. He is old enough to colour with you, to make a craft with you, or crawl around on the floor with you playing with toys.

I just want to say IN MY OPINION the worse thing you can do is give the child something like a phone or tablet to play with. You are just reinforcing the child's expectation for immediate gratification and attention while at the same time reinforcing a failure to communicate.

[vital]

Originally Posted by Melmo

I have 2 kids, 5 years old and 6 months and I babysit my 1 year old neice. I occasionally lose my temper with the younger ones and yell but my 5 year old always drives me crazy. I know her behavior is just noral kid behavior and I try to take deep breaths but I find myself yelling all the time. Even while I am yelling, I am thinking to just calm down but it feels impossible. after awhile I feel calmed and then boom, I see her doing something she shouldn't and I explode again.
Why am I so angry? I feel like a monster and a horrible mother. On really bad days after I put her to bed I just cry.

I think that a lot of people don't realize it, but I believe that being angry all the time is often a way of being depressed. You might find these notes helpful

http://egg.bu.edu/~youssef/SNAP_CLUB/BA.pdf

PM me any time. Please find a way to calm yourself somehow. Young children are very easily hurt deeply.

- vital

[DBTDiva]

Originally Posted by CopperStar

I think it's important to make sure you are perceiving a child and not another adult. I think maybe that can help if you are able to lower your expectations from the outset, so that you will not be so freaked out when higher expectations are not met.
...

I observe this happening often. People get very angry about children not acting the way they "should" but often times no one has taught the child what to do or not to do in some of these situations. Everything a child knows is either taught to them outright or covertly. We are not born knowing right and wrong, we are not born knowing the "right" way to behave. I think we also expect young children to associate behaviors in ways they aren't capable of - for example if you told the five year old not to jump on the bed it is not going to be obvious to a five year old that is a blanket statement that means "don't jump on any furniture." So the adult reacts when the kid jumps on the couch thinking he or she is breaking a known rule when really they just don't have the ability to think and reason in the same way adults do. The problem with blaming children for not knowing how to act is that we don't remember learning these things so we forget they were taught to us.

I think that not taking it personally is important! My mom took/takes everything personally. Her world revolves around her, she thinks everyone else's does too. Everything is always about her. My mom thought I was evil practically! At 5, whatever she is doing is about being a kid, learning, curiosity, etc and never, I'm guessing, just to give you a hard time.

[Melmo]

I have sleep apnea and depression so I have noticed since this post that when I dont get enough sleep I am really irritable. I am working on my temper and it has gotten a lot better.I also don't babysit anymore so it helps with the stress.