Progress!

I'm so proud. I babysit my neighbor. She's 4 and a half.

She has a bad temper. She throws several tantrums a day. Falling to the floor, screaming, throwing things, trying to trip her baby sister, even forcing herself to hyperventilate.

She does this because her father will give her whatever she wants to get her to stop acting like this. And he undermines her mother for enforcing consequences (example: she put her in timeout for throwing a toy at her sister, the kid 'hyperventilated' and the father says "I know, Mommy's being mean" and gave her chocolate WHILE SHE WAS IN TIMEOUT to cheer her up).

He's getting better about enforcing consequences and not undermining.

When she's at my house, she gets sent to timeout after a tantrum and we have a talk about how "it's ok to have these feelings of anger, but it's not ok to act like that" and then I make sure to label the feeling ("you seemed mad" or "I know you felt sad") and then say what she could do instead to cope with the feeling (take a deep breath, count to 10, take a walk, etc.)

She was at my house the other night while her parents went on a date. She's sitting on the couch winding down from the day, and playing with her new stuffed animal from the zoo.

She huffs, and I knew instantly that it was her "I'm pissed and about to make you miserable" huff.

But then she stops. And closes her eyes. And takes a really long breath. And then she looks at me and says "I'm really mad right now"

Her toy had a hole in it and stuffing was falling out.

Normally she would have screamed and thrown the toy.

I re-stuffed the toy, sewed it back up, and she said 'thank you' and that was the end of it!

I was so happy. This is a huge step