Help! My 5Yo Won't Listen or Follow Directions

my daughter has those kinds of problems sometimes she also has a little brother all though hes 2 yrs old not stil a newborn. but what helped with my daughter is sitting her down and tellign her that what she does her little brother sees and will do the same thing that she does , so if she does the wrong thing then shes teaching her little brother to do the wrong thing and will get him in trouble.

also we have this floor dance game that plugs into the TV, its disney has differant disney songs , if your famular with Dance Dance Revolution for the playstation 2 its like that but for kids, she never does really well at steping on the right arrows but she has a lot of fun jumping up and down and dancing on it that might help her burn off that energy shes useing on the sofa.

I hope I can offer some help. I am a special education teacher. If your daughter has sensory integration issues then her behaviors may be stemming from that. I know that having a set "sensory" time during the day may help - swing time, time on a trampoline, deep pressure massages, whatever she enjoys. Make it a schedule and let her know what her day will be like so she can expect it. A lot of kids act out, I think, because they don't know what is coming next or what to expect so they freak out. You can use pictures to make a schedule of her day so she can see it too. I think having some set times throughout the day for sensory things and a set routine/schedule may help. I hope so anyway! The occupational therapist should be able to give you ideas too. Don't panic - put yourself in her shoes and try to think how she is feeling. When you do that, it helps you not lose your patience quite as much!

Talk about these behaviors with her occupational therapist. My son has sensory integration issues, and some of the behavior your describe (jumping, dancing, kicking) could just be her body seeking sensory input. Her therapist should be able to help you sort out which behaviors are sensory related, and which are just good old fashioned misbehavior. OT made a great difference with my son, wishing you the same success!

L.,

Listen to the response from jackelyn the special ed teacher and get advise from the ot and trust your gut feelings on ot's I had one that wanted to put my son in timeout for 30 minutes of his 40 minute therapy let's say I'm not paying for or having an insurance co pay for someone to put my son in timeout. My son had sensory issues after 2 years he's doing great he had developmental delay and now he is considered adhd with the new daytrana patch he's doing great. We tried special food diets to help him none of that worked for him. We also tried a light wack on the bottom it made every situation worse after knowning what issues he has and ideas to deal with them everyone is doing much better. Stick with just being a caring mom and being her advocate your the best one.

There are many good books and parenting classes that can help. I had a similar family life years ago, when my now 24 year old soon was young. My husband and I did parenting workshops (based on Faber/Mazlisch How to Talk so Kids will listen...) and our household changed in a matter of weeks. there are lots of options these days. It's worth the time and effort to find peace for your child and yourself. Feel free to email me for more info, if you like. I wish you all the best.
P.

Check out 1,2,3 Magic. It worked for me. Just make sure you read the whole book and follow the no lecturing/no emotion rule. (That was really hard for me!) I've used this with success with my own 3 year old, and in a Pre-K classroom. Hope this helps:)

I had the same kind of problems with my now-21-year old daughter. She never listened to what we told her to do, she had the tantrums, and she disobeyed constantly even when she had been in trouble for the same thing the day before. My daughter actually hoarded food under her bed, even raw meat. Finally, as a last resort, we began ignoring her if she was doing something that was not allowed, if it would not hurt her. She responded within a month or so by stopping the undesired behavior. The whole monster daughter thing stopped and instead, I had a sweet, loving child. And for discipline, if she was doing something that would hurt her, she had to stand in the living room and jump. She could not stop jumping until we told her to stop, and she had to jump in place. After two or three occurences of this, she began to think seriously about her actions, and her behavior dramatically improved. Her jump time was related to the degree of danger of the disobedience, but was never longer than 15 minutes. She thought when we first gave her this discipline that it would be fun, but after about 7 minutes, she realized this was not as fun as she thought it would be. I highly recommend this discipline. It doesn't hurt the child, and it is not like time-out where they just sit and dream up other things they can do to get attention.