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sorry to post this im new lol just really need some advice,
im tthe single mom of 21month old son and 2 daughters 3 and 7, the 7yr old and 21 month old are golden but ever since i had my 3 yr old daughter we have never bonded, i had severe post natal depression and never seemed to even like her i know it sounds wrong but it just feels weird, it is now to the extent that she punches me, spits at me, kicks me and her siblings, is cruel to the family pet, wont sleep, trashes the house and is just really really naughty.
she even tells me she hates me, as wrong as it sounds im starting to hate her back just feeling like i can no longer cope with her or want her here! i love her but hate her sorry if i seem evil shes just so much to cope with luckily they go to their dads at a weekend but now she says she loves daddys girlfriend more than me,i had sure start involved who were useless and just feel at a lost end as to were to turn for advice and support, i have tried everything, please does anyone have any advice with how to cope with her
thank you for listening and im sorry if it sounds wrong of me i just need some help
jenna x x
Hi jenna. Welcome to One Space. I don't really understand postnatal depression to be honest, as I never had it, but from what i do know, it can be pretty horrendous. You say that you haven't bonded with the 3 year old, and as young as she is, obviously she is picking up on things. Her outbursts are, I guess, her way of showing you this. It isn't however acceptable for her to hit, spit, and kick though. You have got to put a stop to this somehow. Have you tried the naughty spot, a reward chart, or anything like this? Is it possible for you to spend some time on your own with her at all? Perhaps also, you could get the heath visitor involved, and see what she can suggest.
I know others will be along later, who can maybe point you in the right direction. Keep posting for all the support that you need jenna.
Take lots of care
x
When I was doing the Incredible years there was one woman having difficulty with her kids and she was explained the 'time out' spot, sorry alisoncoma but your not allowed to call it the naughty spot any more it's just not P.C. negative implications and all that blah de blah de blah.. anyway, she was explained the 'time out spot' and then next week she came back and said how well it was going, she had chosen a chair that was in the hallway as her designated spot, then she went on to explain that the only problem had been that she couldn't get her child to stay in the chair, that she kept refusing to stay there and kept just getting up and walking off and ignoring here and so she told us all, completely matter of factly, that she had gotten round this problem by tying her child to the chair with some rope.
!
There was silence and everyone was glancing at each other waiting to see what would be said next by our teachers who were quickly thinking of how to explain in the best possible way without sounding judgemental or upsetting the woman that no you cant do that.
You probably had to be there, it was surreal.
Oh Bubblegum, speakling as someone who is also a parenting group leader, well I haven't had that one yet but yes! sometimes group members will say something and it takes me all my command of the English language to think of words that will help that parent and not be judgemental. One example is the parent who had a non-sleeping child and when I got to the bottom of it, she constantly told the child that if she didn't go to sleep the bogeyman would get her. In fact I was able to help this family a lot as there were lots of other issues and in the end things improved a lot 
One extra thing I wanted to say to you, jenna, was that I am really glad you have shared your feelings about your difficult situation and that many other parents will be coping with similar and perhaps not be able to express themselves as well as you do, and by posting this, you will help them too (you know like that thing in magazines when luckily someone writes in with the same problem you have got yourself?) Do let us know how you get on, I have lots more tricks up my sleeve....
thank you all for your supportive comments, woke up to these and i feel slightly more positive it is certainly a vicious circle the more she plays up the less i want to sit and be nice with her with rsults in her being naughy again. i have just recently joined homestart and hav a volunteer but need to change her as mine doesnt com out any more she is supposed to for 1hour per week. i have tried a sticker chart but it didnt work although that was a awhile ago i may try it again now, anything is worth a try, the books i will get my hands on maybe they will also help.
there is so much you mentioned that i have thought about its just when i think about doing stuff with her i just feel like i dont want to because of how she is, if you see what i mean, i going to do it all tho maybe if i can push my own feelings to one side for now and just smile through it instead of getting stressed it will help her which in return will actually make me happier!
i know the feelings i have for her make our relationship difficult and maybe the idea of counselling wouldnt be so bad as i do feel its due to the pnd i had that have made me feel different towards her triggering this bad behaviuor maybe?? as an example last week my mum has taken the other two out for the day so i could spend some quality time with my 3 yr old and we had made some cakes and biscuits, now the next morning i came down to find her in the middle of the kitchen with all the flour, water, milk ect mixing it in a bowl and putting them in the oven (which is always switched off at the wall) now instead of me thinking as i would with the other two oh look hey trying to bake like i had shown them as soon as i saw it was her i just went mad and sent her to her room which causd a massive tantrum all day!! looking back i can see where i went wrong its just been a struggle for so long its hard to see anything positive.
im defo going to try tho thank you all for taking time to rad this and reply and for the offer of support its much appreciated xxx
and also i am going to do the incredible years in september i think xx
Hi Bubblegum, whoops, made a boo boo with the naughty spot then, hehe.
Hi jenna, you said you can see where you went wrong last week, over the cake business, and that is good. It sounded like you and your 3 year old had great fun the day before though, so perhaps something similar again???? I hope you all have a good day today. Is the sun shining where you are? One minute it is cloudy and looks like rain, then the sun is out. Am needing to go food shopping, which isn't making my 7 year old very happy. Like I told him, we can shop and eat, or we can stay put, and starve. I'm wicked, hehe.
x
hehe, yeah its raining here well was horrible weather, im defo gonna do some more fun things with her its just learning to control the 'i know your gonna be naughty so why bother' temper lol xx
Alisoncam.. now I just say 'stairs' in a tone that implies no uncertain terms and my son shuffles his way to them and sits down, usually right at the top as he knows I mean near the bottom all the while mumbling about the injustice of it all and it wasn't him and he didn't do anything etc, etc, etc..
He sits there with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, pouting, sometimes I just have to go into another room and chuckle.
:)
Jenna, the incredible years is amazing, I got so much from that : ) lots that has proved invaluable in dealing with my two.
I have a more tense relationship with my son than my daughter, I shout at him more, in fact I rarely if at all raise my voice to my daughter, but with my son we are at a place where he pushes for attention and quite often in an inappropriate way, he'll be spiteful or nasty in some way to his sister to make her react and so he gets my attention despite the fact that it's negative attention, all something I learnt about on incredible years and so I'm constantly assessing my self and my relationship with him, I'm pretty sure I over compensate as he gets more cuddles and affection from me and really that's probably the wrong thing I know as what I'm basically teaching him is that his inappropriate behaviour, where as it gets him told off, or something taken from him, made to sit on the stairs, what ever, it does ultimately lead to more affection.
But what can you do : )
Relationships of all kinds are complex dynamic things, you just have to try your best and be happy : )
My third child was incredibly difficult (he was diagnosed by educational psychologis at having autism/aspurter's when he was in Year 1 at school - which possibly explained a lot).
I got to the point where I figured so long as he was clean and fed and I could function with hugs and kisses so it looked good to his siblings that it was ok not to love him...
The love did come eventually.
I think it is a hard thing to admit to as it isn't what people "expect" to hear.
The Incredible Years course is good. Not only for the course, but for the people you meet as you realise that you're not alone. I also made a really good friend through it too.
Loads of hugs (if you're into virtual hugs!) and my very best wishes.
Looking forward to getting to know you.
Perhaps I should say that I am having a crisis with my oldest son.
He's 18... 
I'm jealous of all those parents who are so proud of their children today.
Imperfection is an integral part of perfection.
: )
Talking with my brother the other morning at about three after much wine and beer he confided in me his feelings for his son who is a bit of a hand full, he has just returned from a week in one of those holiday places like Butlins or what ever and towards the end had to say to his partner that he didn't realise just what she went through in the day. He is filled with feelings of guilt for how he feels about his son, he gets angry and doesn't like him and then feels guilty.
People who don't have full time care of their children don't understand how full on it can be, there is no break and resentment can be quite natural with all its follow up feelings of guilt. If you just have them on weekends and there is someone else there anyway that's not the same, they can walk away, take a break, go to the shop or something as simple as that, when you are on your own you cant.
I'm sure everything everyone here feels is all perfectly natural.
Sparklinglime.. I got that from the incredible years too, the fact that it wasn't just me there was a whole lot of other people dealing with similar feelings, situations and stuff.
Despite his results Sparkling, you're still very proud of him I'm sure He did so well in the art exam, so focus on that maybe, not the other stuff.
That was a good post Bubblegum.
Hi Jenna
Thanks for sharing your feelings so openly, you have obviously come to a point where you recognise that things need to change. I too found it hard to bond with my daughter, but after doing a parenting course, our life changed dramatically.
Have a read of the following articles:
Special Time for tips and ideas for how to spend quality time with your children
Each child is unique to remind us how to recognise the qualities our child has
Praise when and how to praise our children, to get the best from them
Temperament to recognise how similarities or differences to our children can affect how we parent them.
I think there are always times when we love/hate our children, but in your situation you know that there is more going on. Have you found any further support? When does the parenting programme start?
Hello Jenna
Firstly a big welcome to One Space.
You must be at your wits’ end knowing how to cope. You say that you had PND after her birth, that sounds as if you are blaming yourself for how things have turned out. That is something you need to address so go and see your GP and get them to refer you for some free counselling. The guilt that you feel, mixed in with the love-hate thing makes things really difficult for you. I expect it is really hard to make an objective judgement on how to parent your daughter on a day to day basis when you have all these emotions going on.
Sometimes in a family there is a child who is “naughtier” than the others and then the poor parent is pulling their hair out and becomes very harassed and so the child has to “live down” to its reputation and gets even naughtier and the parent becomes more stressed and it is a vicious spiral.
I am sorry to hear that Sure Start were not helpful as they are usually great. What did they suggest/do? Have a look at Home Start as well, by clicking here. They offer a volunteer, often a person who is a bit older, to give help and support to families with a child under five.
However, there is much you can do for yourself, with our support. It might feel like a steep mountain at the moment but if we tackle it with baby steps, you can start the climb. Firstly, there is the age-old technique of “ignore bad behaviour” By that I do not mean that she can be allowed to be violent to the other children, but things like saying she loves daddy’s new girlfriend better than you should be ignored.
Secondly, behaviour that has to be responded to (such as the spitting and kicking ) should be dealt with extremely calmly. This is a massive challenge as understandably you will feel angry at these times. Remove her from the situation and if she is still flailing and kicking, try to hold her very tight and say reassuring things like “it’s Ok, it will be fine” until she is calmer. Once she is calm, tell her that when she feels cross it is Ok to hit a cushion but never Ok to hit a person. Introduce a star chart to reinforce this behaviour. A whole day is a long time for a three year old to sustain a behaviour, so have sections for morning, afternoon and evening so she has the potential to win three stars per day. After winning a certain number of stars, she gets a little reward. If it helps you can have a chart for the other two as well.
Next you need to set aside some Special Time for her, she is only three and maybe she gets a bit lost between the capable eldest and the baby youngest. This could be story time in the evening or even mean getting the bigger one to supervise the little one watching a DVD in the living room while you are in the kitchen, doing baking or water play or colouring. Make sure that you tell her that you love her often and watch out for evidence of any good behaviour, however small, and praise it massively. This will feel really false to you, but not to her.
The not sleeping thing is perhaps the worst of all for you to cope with. She is clearly agitated and I do think this will improve when you introduce these measures above, but if it doesn’t then still carry on with these things and we can suggest some more help. I will recommend a couple of books for you to read with her which talk about families who live apart. They are called “Two homes” by Claire Masurel and Kady MacDonald (click here) and “It’s not your fault, koko Bear” by Vicki Lansky and Jane Prince (click here). If you need someone to let off steam to,phone Parentline Plus on 0808 800 2222.
So, come on jenna, take those first few steps up the mountain and things will start to get better, we will support you on the way