Up until now family friends and teachers have always commented on how exemplary her behaviour has been. She has always been quite sensitive and eager to please. She would hate the thought of getting in trouble and it would cause her real angst if she thought she was in trouble.
As a result I never really needed to be too strict, although if I get cross I get very cross and definitely would consider myself to have quite high expectations of behaviour.
I want her to grown up knowing she can stand up for herself but also be respectful. I want her to be more carefree now as I'm worried about having this 'perfect' child who feels pressure to be 'good' all the time (and I know she does) and then suddenly will resent me as a teenager. But I also just want her to do as she's told, just because I said so. Are the two really incompatible?
Recently I can see she has matured and is having some sort of inner battle about always being good. I think part of her just wants to be a bit naughty (sometimes even I would like her to be more carefree!)
I don't mind cheekiness and mischeviousness but the following are what concern me.
1)no regard for personal property or other people's. Will happily help herself to things lying around (my gloves, scarf, bits and bobs, but not things she knows are delicate like ornaments and stuff). She will use these things for games and just leave them lying around.
Same with cushions, sofa covers. It drives me nuts having to straighten up all this stuff as well as the toys every day.
Actually she barely touches her toys anymore, think she's grown out of some and we haven't worked out what to move on to next. She has a 3yr old sister so we still have the younger toys around.
2)Giving me attitude, 'I don't want to' 'I don't have to'.
The usual thing will be refusing to wear tights and long sleeve tops. I've had to argue twice with her today so that she would cover her legs to go out. She had choice of tights, trousers or skirt and leggins. She even tried to hit me which really shocked me.
The other day I asked her to find her jumper that she had left lying around and she said 'you find it' in a bossy tone of voice.
Sometimes when she is overtired she will just randomly overturn a box of jigsaw pieces, leave it half done, move to some other toy, leave it out, and so on, wrecking the whole living room in a matter of minutes with no real nice game going on.
I don't know what has happened to my little girl!
My plan of action would be this, but I am worried I am being too strict so would welcome opinions. My dad was very strict, unreasonably so in hindsight, as a result I really felt his shadow over me for a lot of my grown up life, not what I want for dd.
So, aibu about the following:
1)To put things away once she has finished playing with them, before taking other stuff out. Sometimes her games are VERY complicated so if she is playing nicely with everything she still has to put it all back but I will help her a bit. She hates this and I've been battling with her. Now I don't know if I'm expecting too much for her age.
2)Playing with cushions, sofa covers, my clothes and her clothes out of drawers will no longer be allowed, full stop. (They get left strewn around all over the place)
3)I will empty her drawers down to the bare essentials, so there will hardly be any choice of what to wear. Arguing about not wearing weather appropriate clothes will result in offending items (ie summer dress) being removed until more reasonable behaviour is displayed.
btw we live in a small flat so I already have kept toys and clothes to a minimum. Eg all her clothes are kept in three drawers in her bedroom, that's it. Plus some dresses hanging in another cupboard with other stuff.
Not sure what to do about the teenage attitude. Today she tried to hit me in front of her (lovely) friend. I told her off but then she gets all upset and I think feels humiliated being told off in front of her friend.
DH says that she's just been too indulged by family over the holidays and she'll go back to herself once back at school. She has recently made a friend at school that hits her mum and talks back quite a lot, so I think she has now seen that it is possible to answer back. The mum is nice and I get on with her
Sorry, this is soooooo long, well done for making it so far!
So AIBU in implemeting the above action points?
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aibu in my expectations of 5.5 yr old dd?
63 replies
solittletime · 04/01/2013 14:57
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HilaryClinton ·
04/01/2013 15:29
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LunaticFringe ·
04/01/2013 19:38
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