Ann Marie - posted on 03/06/2011 ( 7 moms have responded )
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I was wondering if anyone has been through something like this. My 3-year-old daughter has always been a "mommy's girl", very attached to me, and very needy and clingy. That's just her personality. I work full-time, but whenever I'm in the house she doesn't want anything to do with anyone else. Sure, that sounds cute on the surface, but she's completely rude to the nanny, babysitter, and her father when I'm around. She says things like "no, no, you can't come in here!" "I don't want you, I want mommy." "Go away, daddy." "You can't hold me, mommy can hold me." "You can't go to the playground with us." She sometimes kicks or slaps them when they try to come over and be nice.
It's really hard on my husband. Of course he loves his little girls like crazy, and he's basically getting emotional abuse from my older daughter on a daily basis. There have been so many times when he came into the room to try to hang out with her and ended up leaving in frustration a minute or two later. It makes me cry sometimes to see it.
I make a conscious effort to say nice things about her father... to make sure she knows when he did something nice for her... to encourage them to do fun things together... to do more of the discipline... and still we get this every day. We've tried punishing her for being rude (like no story time when she kicks her dad out of the room at night), and also explaining what she *should* be doing ("when Daddy comes in the room, you should say "hi" to him and give him a hug").
Does anyone know what else we can do to make this better? Or what we might be doing to cause this without realizing it?
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