continued testing?

[Unregistered]

I do not do daycare so much as I watch two siblings from one family 12 hours every weekday. I have been doing this for 8 weeks now. I have a 2- and 3-year old, and the daycare kids are 3 and just turned 5. The 5yo is openly disobedient/defiant. She is bossy and sometimes slightly aggressive. The main problem is that she will look at me straight in the eyes and do whatever I just told her not to do. Or she'll stare at me until I turn my back and break a rule. This staring has lasted upwards of 20 minutes, she's just waiting for a moment to do something wrong. She also encourages the younger children to break rules and usually blames them for everything. This is a constant problem for the entire day, every day. In a twelve hour day, she can be in time-out for hours (in 5 minute increments) because she repeats the behavior within minutes of returning to play. She does not refuse to go to the time-outs, they just make no difference in her behavior. I am unable to focus on any of the other children without having to stop and deal with her disruptive or negative behavior every few minutes. She is smart and able to understand the rules and consequences, she just refuses to follow them and the consequences are meaningless to her. I have tried time-out, taking away privileges, reasoning (I know, pointless), bribing, praise, positive reinforcement, behavior charts, earning money, and everything else I can think of. I thought this was a phase of testing, but I feel like it will never end! Her behavior has not improved over the 8 weeks and it is negatively affecting her sister and my own children. I'm at a complete loss as to what to do. I must be doing something wrong because I don't believe she is unreachable. Help!

[jh007386]

This is my post, guess I wasn't logged in so it says unregistered.

[Unregistered]

I would tell her 'I think your tired since you cannot play nice or follow the rules, time for a nap'. She will hate it, hopefully detur her.

[Jujube835]

I would tell her 'I think your tired since you cannot play nice or follow the rules, time for a nap'. She will hate it, hopefully detur her.

I agree with this. Find something that she hates (for a lot of kids time-out qualifies) and that's what she does when she's disrespectful.

[daycarediva]

Small up her space.

" you aren't making good choices. You will play HERE with (boring toy) until you can play nicely."

IMHO- she's probably bored, no kids her age. 5 year olds need to be going going going all day long.