Hellobee Boards

What about showing her pictures of her from the day? Or starting off with what your favorite part was? My 4yo can be like this sometimes m and it's super annoying! I try to give very little attention to the negative stories and more attention to the positives.

If you acknowledged the negative would that free her up to move on to the positive? Ours isn't negative in that exact same way, but he does get really emotional and torn up about little things (no more juice, time to leave park, different cereal than usual, etc.). Typically we try to acknowledge the sadness, then move on. It seems ridiculous that my kid would focus so much on the negative, but he really does lack perspective due to age and so small disappointment really bother him. Usually I do something like, "yeah, I know how sad it is that it is raining and we can't go to the park. You really wanted to go, didn't you? But maybe we can go tomorrow when it is sunny again." Or "I know you like yogurt better than oatmeal. Is yogurt your favorite? Yeah, well today all we have is oatmeal." That tends to diffuse his negativity. I try to think how when I am bothered by little things, that I do appreciate someone acknowledging them. For example, my husband just told me he stepped in a puddle of water in socks and how gross that feeling is. And I was like yeah, that is gross. So it is funny how we do it to each other as adults but it really takes patience for me to do it with my toddler (3.5 yo).

My niece sounds a lot like your daughter - my sister bought her the book "In my Heart" which is kind of like Inside Out but more targeted at toddlers/preschoolers, and she said although she didn't improve overnight the book gave her an outlet to talk about feelings, both happy and sad, and she's gradually become more positive. I've got it for my son and he's too young to really get it but I will keep reading it to him so its always part of the discussion!

What about recounting her day through photos? Maybe taking pictures of her having fun and then telling her what you see in the photo will help her link her memories to the positive things that happened. Over time move towards asking her to tell you what she sees.

I also wonder if it would help to ask her what the worst part of the day was and to acknowledge the feelings-even the fake ones. Maybe offer her suggestions on what to do when she feels that way? Just listening and acknowledging might help though.

I just went along with it in a silly way. Like if they said her friend from our old city did something id say 'oh my, so they got their daddy to drive them all the way here and then went into you class just to hit you!' And she'd be going along with it. So I'd say 'that's terrible! What'd your teacher say?' And LO would say something like 'teacher said don't hit and gave her a time out' then I'd wrap it up somehow kinda smiling like 'well that's a long way to drive just to hit someone, should we drive down there tomorrow?' so she knew that I knew we were just telling stories. Usually she'd be smiling too and say I'm just joking or teasing you mama. Or if she didn't I'd ask her later if she was teasing me and she'd usually fess up.
If she says she didn't have a good time I might say 'oh no! Then we shouldn't go back!' But say it with kinda a smile so she knows I'm going to tease back. Or I amp it up, like if she says she just sat in a corner the whole time when she never did, I'd say ' yeah and then a giraffe came over and started chewing her hair off and then a rooster came over and tried to eat the shoes off her feet' and it doesn't usually take long before she laughs and says 'no they didn't mama!'
It must be some kind of phase bc LO hasn't done it for awhile now but she did do it at 3.

I used to nanny for a really Eeyorish kid and at age 3 he was just this Debbie Downer all the time. I would let him tell me whatever thing sucked or bothered him, validate his emotions, and then say "well thank you for sharing your feelings - can I share mine?" And then I would tell him what I thought was really fun about the thing we just did and then find a compliment that could draw him into a conversation - "I was really proud of how well you could jump on that trampoline! You are so good at that - you looked like a bird - does it feel good to fly so high? How do you jump so high?" And then he might grudgingly explain you have to stomp or something and I'd ask him if he could teach me next time. I just tried to END the conversation on a non-negative note even if it wasn't necessarily positive. Then when his mom asked about his day he might say well I went on the trampoline and Miss G asked me to teach her how to jump really high instead of how miserable he was.