Up until July 5th, when Florence turned 4, I was actually excited for the Summer holidays. I had visions of us going for picnics, long walks and playing in the garden until the sun goes down.
However, since turning 4, Florence has developed this attitude that can only be described as vile. From the moment she wakes up she’s argumentative, more stubborn than usual and has an opinion about everything. Her favourite phrase is currently “yeh, but..”. She’s always ready with an excuse and has taken to telling little lies; nothing too serious but it’s not acceptable! Small lies turn into big lies!
Yesterday was a prime example of her current Jekyll and Hyde state of mind. Around 6:30am she woke up, came downstairs in to the kitchen and gave me a nice hug and smile. Lovely. But then the attitude starts, I’d been telling her we were going to head to the park after breakfast before it got too hot. Florence had decided she wanted to go to the small park which is walking distance from our house whereas I’d planned to take her bike down to the larger park in the town so she could cycle around the lake and we could feed the ducks. Besides, our local park is really aimed at 2-3 year olds and is far too babyish for Florence. Florence continued on about the small park and how she really wanted to go and I just told her no, we are going to the big park on town. So, she curled up in a ball on the floor and moaned and whined whilst I fed Elsie.
After a few minutes Florence tried to protest again and it escalated to the point where I told her to go to her room because she just wasn’t listening. I tried to explain why I didn’t want to take her to the local park and I just got “yeh, but I want to go there.” After 30 minutes of crying in her room I was ready to leave and I shouted “bye Flo” and she came running down the stairs and said through tears that she wanted to come too.
As soon as we arrived at the large park in town it was as if she was a different person; smiling, posing for photos and generally being the delightful girl I remember.
In her defence she did have a mega busy weekend so perhaps it was all just catching up with her and exacerbated the situation but even without the tiredness she has the worst attitude at the moment.
I really don’t want to spend the whole Summer telling her off so I hope she snaps out of it soon. I’m pretty sure it’s not just her either as I’ve had friends tell me their little girls are exactly the same. I wonder if boys are any better? I can’t remember Logan being quite this argumentative!
If your little ones went through this phase when they turned four please let me know so I don’t feel like I’ve raised a monster!
