Terrible Threes???

There are times when I feel completely unprepared to be a mother. The past two days have been good examples - days when my otherwise beautiful, lovely, sweet daughter turns into a demon child. It is at times like this that I feel so unprepared to handle her - or teach her how to behave.

We have some house rules - #1 - listen to mommy and daddy - #2 - obey mommy and daddy - #3 - be respectful - and when all else fails - refer back to rule number one. Said rules apply to school and teachers and all other adults in charge.

I know A can be a difficult child - I know she's got a horrible stubborn streak and is completely independent. I know she has a hard time learning her limits - and I know (as my good friend N pointed out) she will not be three forever.

But when I pick her up at school to find out that she's been hitting her friends (for no apparent reason), screaming at her teachers, bossing the student teachers around - I feel like a complete failure as a mother.

When we sat A down to ask her why she hit her friend (who was in timeout himself, by the way, and sitting at the table doing NOTHING to provoke this) A simply says - because G isn't my friend anymore. EG is my friend.

How do I explain to a three year old that she can have MORE THAN ONE FRIEND.

How do I explain to her that she needs to LISTEN. Not later, not when she feels like it, but NOW. It infuriates me - makes me see red - we tell her she needs not just to listen, but to obey - she says 'okay Mommy - I want to be a good girl.' How do I explain to her that WANTING and DOING are two different things?

Putting her in time out doesn't seem to work, taking away her privileges (like movies or TV or after dinner treats) doesn't seem to work, not letting her participate in fun extra curricular activities (like swimming lessons - that we paid a fortune for I might add) don't seem to work- I don't want to resort to spanking her (although D had to do that last night).

I feel like a complete failure - and all I could do last night (while not sleeping because I was so upset about all of this) was quietly cry and try to analyze the reasoning capabilities of my otherwise smart child.