My 3 yr old is giving me a hard time.

[MonkeyPrincess]

And by my 3 yr old, i mean my own daughter. She has been misbehaving and i don't know why. Nothing has changed lately. NO new kids into daycare, no life changes, homelife is good. She is hitting her brother and the other DCkids. Today she pushed my 18 month old dcb right over on his bum. She got a timeout. She hit the 3 yrs old dcg, who is supposed to be her 'best friend' (so she says). she Got a timeout and I told her she would go to her room for 5 min if she hits/pushes again. she was ok after that.
She has been saying 'no' when i tell her to do something, like tidy up, finish eating, sit down at the table, etc. She'll get up from her time out, repeatedly. sometimes i have to stand beside her for a minute to show her i am serious and she will stay. She has also started saying 'stupid' too. words like stupid, shut up, idiot, etc are not allowed so she gets in trouble for that too. She will NOT act like this around her father. My kids tend to test me more than my hubby, my son can really be testy too. My hubby sometimes thinks i can be a pushover. I think it's because i am home with the kids all day, and he works long hours outside the home. My dckids are a good bunch, no one has any issues.

Its obviously affecting the kids in daycare. I don't want them to pick this behaviour up. What can i do? Help a girl out here

[ttremble88]

I really wish I could help you out. But it sounds like your describing my 2 year old. I honestly do not get it. I give him the time outs, take things away, separate him...but his behaviour is horrendous. He just does not listen. He is honestly the complete opposite of my oldest (4) in terms of personally.

I wish I could help, but we are in the same boat.

[Crayola kiddies]

I had the same problem and what I did was A) started counting the days till he went to full day jk and B) I let him go upstairs to play with his own toys, and if he was good he got to watch a 30 min cartoon on tvo kids before his nap. my daycare is in my basement and the kids are down there and only 3 of them come up stairs for napping other then that they never are permitted upstairs and so therefore the toys that I have up here are for my kids only .....that was a privelage I allowed my son ....he was able to just play quietly without getting into things and it worked well.

[Fun&care]

Yep you just described my daughter. I am at my wits end too...one thing I find that works is putting her in another room with the lights off for a time out. She HATES it. I countdown to give her a chance to stop the behavior and when she doesn't she gets put in the dark room, I close the door and wait like .30 secs. That's really all it takes because she hates it so much. if she is on an especially naughty streak it seems to do the trick. I know it sounds harsh, not something I would do with a daycare child ( nor would I need to because they are all well behaved).

[AmandaKDT]

What about rewarding good behaviour, focusing on "catching her being good". Think of something you know she would really enjoy, like going somewhere special, and have her earn it with good behaviour. I have a 3 year old dcb that I am doing this for right now. I made up a small poster with pictures that depict the expected behaviours (for him it is listening the first time and behaving properly when his mom drops him off and picks him up) and then a sticker chart. Every time he earns 10 stickers he gets a reward, so far it has been going sledding with his mom and playing my x-box kinect. He also gets lots of praise too. The long term plan is that his good behaviour will become internalized and the sticker chart will be phased out.

It has been working really well so far, having the reward chart as a reminder of how to behave has really curbed his behaviour so far.

[Crayola kiddies]

For my daughter (age 6) I gave her 8 quarters and every time she misbehaved she had to give me a quarter at the end of the week if there was enough left she could go to the dollar store and choose something.