3 year olds..Wow..will I survive?? Advice.

Megan will be 3 in August but I wanted to direct this towards moms of kids around her age rather than younger 2 year olds.

I am having a BIG problem with Megan that I just cannot seem to discipline. She needs to be the center of attention ALL THE TIME. She is the only child in the family. The problem is, that whenever we are trying to have an adult conversation, she has to interrupt and be heard. She will sing loudly, scream I wanna talk, or just start talking about ANYTHING just so that she can be heard. I have explained to her that its rude, tried to tell her to be quiet when other people are talking, teach her to say excuse me (which backfired on me because she thinks if she says excuse me at the top her lungs, we will stop talking.)

In the car is the worst. If my mom and I trying to talk, she will do ANYTHING to get us to stop so she can steal the show. She will be quiet as long as we are but once someone starts talking, it has to be all about her. I dont know what to do anymore. I dont want to give her timeouts for that because all I have tried to do is encourage her to speak so its a fine line that I dont think she will understand.

It may sound like a little problem but day after day, it gets to you. Plus I want her to learn that adults should be able to talk also. Anyone else have this problem? How do you or would you handle it?

Re: 3 year olds..Wow..will I survive?? Advice.

Megan = Lauren = twins.

That's all I can say

Re: 3 year olds..Wow..will I survive?? Advice.

We have the same problem over here and it drives DH nuts! We tried telling her that we take turns at speaking as she doesnt put this act all the time but when I say that she lets me get one word out and then says "its my turn to speak now"........

I dont have any solution only to let you know what our 3 year old does the same thing and I hope this too shall pass

Re: 3 year olds..Wow..will I survive?? Advice.

DD will be 4 in August & she is the same way. She's the worst when I'm on the phone & she has to make sure whoever I'm speaking to is aware that she's with me. We've had the talk about waiting her turn to speak & about not being rude & interrupting. Unfortunately, this seems to be normal 3 year old behavior & the talks aren't working so much. If she doesn't stop after I ask her nicely to be polite & wait her turn, I will usually ask her to go to her room until she can get her manners back. I don't really know what else to do. I'm interested to see the responses here.

I hate discipline

Re: 3 year olds..Wow..will I survive?? Advice.

Jordana is the SAME WAY!! She's getting EI services so I asked one of her providers about how to handle this. She told me to tell Jordana "No" and then walk away. If you give her attention for bad antics, she'll keep doing it.

Another suggestion was to engage the child in an activty. If I'm cooking, I have DD help. If I am going to talk on the phone, I set up DD with an art project, etc...

Re: 3 year olds..Wow..will I survive?? Advice.

Some might think this is extreme, but it works for me. If I get interrupted rudely while on the phone or when speaking to another adult and they don't listen to my request to be quiet and wait their turn, they get removed from the room. I usually put them in my sunroom where I can still see them, and lock the door. They learned quickly that if they can't be respectful around adults, they don't get to stay in the room. I acutally read this approach in the book "Have a New Kid by Friday".

Another thing that I find works for us is to give them a challenge like "do you think you can build a tower with your blocks before I finish on the phone. Ready Set Go! "

Re: 3 year olds..Wow..will I survive?? Advice.

DS is the same way but it is soooo bad in the car. I actually posted about it right after easter. My only solution now is that I turn the music up pretty loud and when I hear him being quiet for the mili-second I turn it out and praise him on doing a good job not yelling. I think it is working (I only started it this week). I will let you know what happens this weekend since we are going to queens Saturday night.

At home, I try REALLY hard to ignore him, if I can't because he is yelling I remind him he has to say excuse me. Sometimes he says excuse me right away other times I have to remind him.

Re: 3 year olds..Wow..will I survive?? Advice.

Unfortunately I don't have any advice , because I too am in the same boat !!!! DS is 3.5 and its a very egocentrical age - ME ME ME !!! Hoping it passes soon for the both of us !

Re: 3 year olds..Wow..will I survive?? Advice.

We are going through the SAME thing. Timeouts have worked. Making Bella STOP talking until I finish my last thought and then explain that she should not interrupt because that is NOT the way people act.

It's grating. 75% of our conversations are interrupted and I swear she has GPS on my phone to start whining when I get on it.

I am assuming this is a phase...ETA: I am praying that this is a phase.

Message edited 5/6/2009 4:48:49 PM.