Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. In this episode, I'm going to be responding

to a question I received via email about a spirited child who is hitting, screaming, calling

her parent names, and other behavior that seems out of control, obviously not at her best.

And I'm going to be talking about how this parent can help calm her child's behavior.

Here's the note I received. Hi Janet, I've read your book and follow you on Facebook. I'm so impressed

by the style of parenting would really love to be able to apply it in my own home.

A little background, I have two daughters, Bella who is three, and Sarah who is one.

Bella has always been our emotional child who can go from hot to cold in two seconds.

When she's happy, she's the sweetest, funny as little spirit.

But when she gets upset or triggered by something, it's immediate, no, and screaming.

And we struggle to get it to stop. Our recent struggle is hitting, screaming, saying stupid and shut up mom.

Before I really started to try to follow your guidelines, we tried timeout, spanking, ignoring, taking things away, etc.

But obviously they don't seem to work and they seem to just escalate the tantrum and issue.

A lot of the time these tantrums will start when she thinks she's in trouble for something.

For instance, if she's playing too rough with Sarah, I will tell her, be soft, don't push.

They'll wrestle and it sometimes leads to hitting and pushing.

She then responds, no, and will hit again.

So I'll grab her arms and tell her, I won't let you hit hitting hurts.

And she'll then proceed to spit, hit, say stupid and shut up mom.

I then usually say, you're still hitting, your blanket has taken away from five minutes now.

But she continues to scream and name call.

This is when I really start to struggle.

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