Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Does your toddler boss you around?

I'm on the bossy side of things, in my old age, but my DD 27 mos. takes the cake.

If I bend to her ways, she does seem to get through the day quite well. (My brother calls this the martial arts method of parenting, letting her energy flow by like a river, rather than trying to dam it up head on. )

YES!! I completely relate to this ... DD3 is always trying to boss me around. Drives me nuts! I try not to give in because I feel like she'll think she can talk to me like that ("Mom, get my toys. Mom, stop. Mom, come here. Mom, mom mom. . . ) But on the other hand, it's such a battle all day to struggle against it.

Mix the bossiness with an overly-sensitive personality anyway and it's like playing with dynamite. I never know when she's going to go off, which is often. I can say the most benign comment, like "Let's go wash our hands" and it turns into an instant battle. If it's not DD's idea, it's a bad idea in her head and she will fight against it.

I'm desperately hoping DD10mo will not be this volatile when she's 3yo!

Yes! It's crazy, the whole strong will thing, especially lately.

She's been pretty sick this last week, dd2y11months had a touch of pneumonia and the bossing just got way worse, also the obsessive side got really bad too: really needs to have certain things when she wants them "NOW!", if she decides her shirt is wet it has to come off "NOW!" and so forth.
I feel really bad about this, but when she flat out refused to take her medicine (kicking/screaming) - I had to discuss the fact that she would get really really sick and might even die. She stared at me for a couple of minutes and then finally drank it up. Since then she's been taking it ok. (I am still waiting for that one to backfire on me...)

Now on antibiotics it is such a relief to see her returning to her 'normal' level of bossing us around, often with a smile, at least.

I finally put my foot down around 3 1/2 and told my son I wouldn't do anything for him unless he turns his commands into questions. Whenever he starts in with "I want X" or "Give me X," I make him turn it into "Could you please..." or "Would you please...?" After many months of this, it's finally becoming more automatic for him, and it's amazing how much this one little change in phrasing has changed the power dynamic in our house, for the better.

LOL, my DD is only 21 months and she is already bossy. DS wasn't really like that too much though. When we listen to her music in the car, randomly she will not want me to sing and will yell "no" or just scream when I sing. She also will go back and forth requesting different CD's, then as soon as I put one in and start it...she cries and requests the other one. Of course I don't change it. I just ask her "do you want the music on or off" and she says "on" and huffs and puffs. She does this with movies too. She is quite opinionated.

Similar to MSFriz, my repeating mantra is:
"I want" doesn't get.
Then I hold out until the request is rephrased to something like "may I please have..." or "would you please"

shellymos, my DD3 does the same thing -- sometimes when I sing in the car, she just flat out tells me not to. (C'mon, it's not THAT bad!!) Or she'll just tell me to turn the music off altogether sometimes if I turn it up for a song I like. I tell her calmly that she is not speaking to me nicely and then I demonstrate how she should phrase it ("Please turn the music down.") I will not give in to her commands until she can talk to me in a respectful way, however it's exhausting. And if she doesn't speak to me nicely, I ignore her request. Not sure if it's working, but I'll be damned if I'm going to jump through hoops for a bossy 3-yr-old!

I may have to try that technique of phrasing her request in the form of a question, kind of Jeopardy-style. Or maybe I should teach her how to play Mother May I?

What frustrates me the most is that I will ask her something VERY NICELY to avoid an angry reaction out of her, and she STILL gets mad and stomps off! For the dumbest things, too. Argghh! Please tell me this temperamental behavior gets better as they get older. Otherwise one of us is going to end up in a straight jacket!

LOL.

All they want to hear is:

"I hear and will obey."

My entire life I heard how bossy I was/am, but the ones that made that statement has quickly said... wow you were never that bossy when referring to my DD 2 1/2. She is one incredible bossy toddler. But I have to say for the most part I don't let her get away with it. As bossy as she is she does have manners and has had them for a long time. She knows to ask with please and to say thank you and your welcome. She might get into a major bossy moment and forget it but she doesn't get her way until she asks properly.

So very bossy but controllable.

dd 4.5 and dd 3 BOTH refuse to let me sing along in the car. Or anywhere else for that matter. They'll say, "MOM! Just the KIDS." And I have a professionally trained singing voice. I love to turn to them and say, "You girls don't know what you're missing. People used to pay to hear Mommy sing."

They also refuse to let me repeat any dialogue I may hear in a video ... or answer when Dora asks her very important questions and leaves a pregnant pause. I guess that ranks me somewhere below Boots and the Map in the pecking order of life.