Need Advice I'm Lost With 3.5 Year Old

I've been caring for DCG for almost a year...and I really haven't had any progress. I am hoping to get some advice on maybe a few things I could do to try to communicate with her and maybe get through to her, and be able to help her.

Here are some things that I'm having problems with.

Mom wants me to potty train but DCG shows no signs of readiness. She runs, hides, and screams when its time for changing. It's not something that happens occasionally. It is constant, and has been going on for 10 months.

She always says NO if I ask her if she has poopy in her diaper, even after I have explained to her that she did in fact poopy. We talk about potty everyday.

She will not listen. When she does, it is a very cool moment and I praise her like crazy.

She grabs for everything, even though she's not allowed and has been told over and over again since she's been here. Example: trying to play in the sink, toilet, and trying to grab things off the counter while I'm preparing a meal, or opening the refrigerator. When I tell her no, the harder she tries to do what she's not suppose to, and I will have to remove her to another room of course. Time outs do not work... she will not stay in time out.

She doesn't seem to understand certain things, of course she's only three, but certain things seem peculiar with her ways and I want to help. An example of this is I was changing her diaper and we were talking about school. She really wants to go to school so I told her we would have to start going to the potty like a big girl so we could go to school, and we couldn't have anymore diapers. She burst into tears stating that they are her diapers, and she can wear diapers to school because mommy gives her diapers.

Friday She pinched and hit my son so I had her sit down with me so we could talk . We sat down on the floor and after I told her that hitting was bad I told her I knew she was a nice
young lady and at that point I could not finish my sentence. She scurried quickly across the floor and started crying that she wasn't a nice young lady, and that she was "her name"

Most of the time she will ignore me if I ask her a question, and I cannot have small conversations with her, as I think I should be able. If I do get a response it is totally off subject, like say if I ask her if she would like to color, she'll ask me, "Go to park" ?

We've been working on pulling pants up and down, and this has been a struggle. She'll scream at me saying she can't do it.

She knows her abc's, can count to 11 in english and spanish. She's very intelligent.

She's a little aggressive and pushing the smaller children.

She's very rough a tumble..always jumping, spinning, and crashing into things, and falling on purpose.

Meal time is a struggle..she wants to gargle her milk and spit it back out into her cup.,..yuck.. or put her hand in her cup and smear it on the table, so I always take it away. Food is actually staying on her plate now which is a good thing.

I know I didn't touch everything. If anyone has advice on this it would be appreciated. I just wish I knew how to get through to her.

I'm worried maybe something else is going on, but at the same time I also think she's just being stubborn. I don't know. I feel defeated.

[Nellie]

My almost 3 year old son is alot like that. He is a constant struggle. He finally in the last couple of months has started listening better, but he still will climb up the back of the couch until you tell him not to. I am still using time outs, but I really don't think that they work very well. When he was younger we put him on a high chair in the kitchen and strapped him in during a time out. Now he know that he has to stay and doesn't get down any more. He is a tall boy and is taller than most 5 and 6 year olds also he is heavier than the average 2 to 3 year old because of the hieght. He use to want to push his brother, but constant time outs and shadowing worked. When I shadowed him I'd give him a time out for just looking like he was going to push him. I was lucky because he never tried to do it to any of the daycare kids. We were able to potty train and he hated it. I knew he knew when he needed to go, but he didn't want to. We just left it alone for 5 months and tried again and he still didn't want to do it. Finally we made him just sit their on it after a nap when his diaper was dry. Once he finally went in the toilet it wasn't so bad. But even today if you ask him if he has to go to the bathroom he will say no. If you make him try normally he will pee.
Other than those differences they sound alot alike and am looking for advice on this too. I just think he is stubborn and this girl probable is too. Hang in there and hopefully some one will have some advice.

Thank you Nellie. I'm hoping things will turn around. I have a biter in my care too, so my week is very hectic, and I really want to try to get things running smoothly.

[graham.shellbell]

Some of the things you mentioned sound like my daughter who is 4.5...she has pdd-nos...possible aspergers. There are things that she *should* be able to do/understand but doesn't..we JUST got her potty trained about a month ago..she is also very book smart knowing sight words, numbers, etc. Might mention to the mom about milestones and delays and see if she will look into getting her evaluated. We are finally getting help through our school district with our daughter and hoping to get her into a program.