Frustrating Fours?

You know, after 4+ years of this parenting thing, you would think I’d be a little better at it. A little more confident, at the very least. I’m not.

A certain 4-year old has me completely baffled lately. I had it in my head that four was an easier age. There’s the Terrible Twos and the Trying Threes and then…nothing. You don’t hear anything about four. I figured I was in for a little bit of a break by the time she turned four.

Wrong.

Let me see if I can explain. It’s a little bit harder to put a finger on than tantrums, say, or whining. Lately, she’s been very…defiant. Testing the boundaries is an understatement. It’s more like she’s suddenly become aware of what pushes my buttons and makes me mad and then she does it. Willingly. But then when I inevitably get mad at her, she dissolves into dramatics the likes of which you’d never believe.

And then there’s the lying. She does all these things she knows is wrong, tries to hide it from me, and when I find the evidence of the crime, she immediately lies about it.

For example? A couple of weeks ago, she cut her hair. Let’s set aside the fact that the cutting was a travesty in itself. Her hair is beautiful and long and we all, including herself, love it how it is. But the thing that gets me is she knew it was the wrong thing to do. How do I know that? She didn’t do it out somewhere where I could find her. She went in Ellie’s room, hid behind the rocking chair, and snipped away. Luckily she was quite artistic about it. For the most part, the cuts blend in and where they don’t, it kind of looks like we put layers there on purpose. When I discovered what she had done and asked her if she cut her hair, she told me “no” three times before I showed her the evidence and she finally admitted to it – reluctantly. There have been several other similar experiences (including cutting Ellie’s hair….grrr!).

I’ve thought about it a lot and I know there are probably reasons. I think attention is a big one. It’s tough being the big sister (I know, I’ve been there!) and I think she’s at an age where she’s aware that Ellie gets away with a lot of the things that she doesn’t. I think she’s also just testing her limits, seeing what she can get away with.

But although I sound very rational here, I’m not so much in the moment when I realize the lengths she’s gone to do something wrong and then lie to me about it. I’m afraid I have a bit of a temper and I don’t always handle it so well. I recently read a blog post about what to do if your kids lie, and it made me feel absolutely awful. There was all this stuff about staying calm, not making a big deal out of it, and keeping the punishments to a minimum so they don’t feel completely shut off from you. Umm…yeah. It’s not been that way at our house. There’s usually lots of tears (not always Sadie’s), carrying on, and consequences. One day, I threw all of her Valentine candy from preschool away because she snuck some out after I specifically told her not to and then lied about it.

Both Kevin and I have had lots of talks with her about this. (Out of the moment, when everyone is in control of their emotions.) Luckily, the theme in Primary this year is “Choose the Right” so we’ve been discussing choices and consequences a lot and she seems to understand the concept. She knows there are consequences to every choice she makes, which I think is why she tries so hard to hide what she’s done. (See? Deceptive. Where does she learn that?!) It’s just putting it into practice that she seems to be missing.

I’m sure we’ll look back on this “stage” and just laugh and shake our heads. We do that with all of our kids’ stages, right? But for now, I have to figure out a way to get both me and her through this without any serious emotional scars.

You’d never know she can be such a stinker looking at this cute face, would you?

 

p.s. I very obviously bombed on the photo challenge thing, in case anyone was wondering what happened to THAT idea. But I’m okay with admitting defeat. I might try it another time, but for now, it just wasn’t happening!