7yo DD atrocious behaviour

[overthehill74]

My 7yo DD is driving me nuts. She taunts her brother, speaks back to me, slams doors, tells me she hates me, wishes she had never been born, wishes she was dead, hits her brother and mocks him (he's only 3). Everything is a battle. She is an extremely bright and clever girl and doing so well at school. Lovely manners there too. It seems she saves all the bad behaviour for me .

I try my best for her, I ignore what I can, I take things away, I put her in her room, reward charts but none of this works. Some of the things she says are so vicious and hurtful.

I am already on anti d's as have suffered depression on and off for 14 years. I'm feeling low enough at the minute and this is just making me feel worse.

My DH works long hours and isn't really around much, I'm a SAHM and everything DC and house relates is left to me.

My DDs behaviour is really getting me down though. I just don't know what to do with her next. Does she really hate me that much? Why can she be a lovely pleasant girl to her teachers/others but not to me? Any advice at all would be appreciated, thanks everyone.

[Misfitless]

Have you talked to her when she's calm, overthehill74 and asked her whe is behaving like this? Is she able to express it to you?

Are there triggers to her behaviour?

[hattytheherald]

Are you sure you don't have my daughter? She's just like yours, 7, although brother is 9 and again she's very bright. The words that come out of her mouth are horrendous. The wishing she was dead, we were dead, her brother was dead is an almost daily thing. We've just started a massive strop because the loom band utube is too hard for her and she has slammed the door and screaming and shouting. She continually winds her brother up. She doesn't really play with anything for long and creates havoc wherever she goes.

My thoughts are that she is bored, a bright child whose mind needs stimulating.

Sorry not much help but I know just how you feel. Lets hope they miraculously become lovely teenagers.....

[calzone]

When she is quiet and calm, I would sit her down and calmly explain the type of behaviour you expect from her.

Get her to write the list

Eg I will speak nicely to Mummy

I will not be mean to my brother etc

Then make a reward chart for her.....and explain the consequences of bad behaviour. No screens or (something she likes)

Reward good behaviour.

Make sure she gets out of the house whatever the weather and tire her out. Good routines at bedtimes.

Tell her how much you love her.

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Just marking my place as I seem to have her twin

[TheMasterNotMargarita]

In which case I have the triplet.
She is currently upstairs crying after yet another screaming match and I am sat on the couch in tears.
Mine thinks she is the boss and can do as she pleases despite that it is evidently not the case.

[overthehill74]

Thanks everyone, it's so nice to know I'm not alone. I just love her so much and it breaks my heart to see her behave like this.

I will have a chat to her this afternoon and get her to write a list. She's been ok since this morning thank goodness.

These massive strops just wear me out. She is now doing loom bands as well. All fine until she makes a mistake and it goes flying!

[TheMasterNotMargarita]

Definitely not alone.
We have had a pretty awful day. Im hoping she is asleep. It makes me really sad as she is a wonderful wee thing.

Failing drastically at the parenting malarkey just now.

[notnowbernard]

My nearly 8 yr old has been a delight the last couple of days as well...

There is an acronym used in Recovery circles (AA/NA):
HALT
Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired.
It is considered that these could be potential triggers for relapse, those in Recovery are encouraged to be mindful of this - and to work at preventing them occurring.

I feel it can be applied to small folk also. (Maybe the Lonely bit can translate to needing some 1:1 time from parent ?)

Anyway my 7yr old ticked all 4 boxes today, unsurprisingly...

[bberry]

Not now.... That HALT is great...it makes you consider the cause of behaviour and how to treat the cause not the effect (affect?)

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Right with HALT in mind I shall endeavour to cease MNing and stop the DC play fighting and feed them. Wish me luck

[OptimisticKate]

I've found it very reassuring to read this thread as I have just joined mumsnet to seek advice about exactly the same problem. My younger DD is also 3 and the older DD coming up 7, and hugely challenging with me - while being brilliant with teachers and anyone else who looks after her!
Makes me feel like I'm going mad or must be a terrible parent when she's so great with everyone else! (not helped by friend's kids of the same age all seeming so bloody angelic...)
I'm finding bedtimes a particular problem right now. She has amazing night owl evening energy - was still going at 10.45 last night in spite of me starting calming bedtime routine at 6pm! I find if I go to bed with her at 9.30pm or so, she will be calm and fall asleep alongside me. (I try to do this at least once a week for the sake of my sanity). But if I attempt to have a normal evening and she knows I'm still up, she will be calling me with an endless list of problems to solve for hours. Offering rewards for staying calm in bed helps, if I'm creative enough to make them something she cares about. But often I'm too knackered and just get cross with her, which works in the end but only after I've got myself really stressed out. And yet when she stayed at my mum's on Sat she was asleep by 8.30pm... grrrr.
Has anyone got any tips for getting determined and clever 7 YO girls to be calm and reasonable at bedtime?

In general, a couple of thoughts to add to this brilliant thread:-
Mine has been much better with me when she's had plenty of mum one to one attention. I think she's at her worst when she's competing with her sister for my attention.
She's also much better when she's eaten less sugar and exercised more (just like me ;).
And no-one else has mentioned fun - when I take the time to engage with mine at whatever it is she wants to play that day, she tends to be more reasonable. Trying really hard to build in more of that time, or at least to find ways to make all the mundane bits of the day more fun.

[doodleloo]

Optimistic kate. The super nanny technique for getting them to bed at all ages is to just wordlessly lead them back into their bed as many times as it takes. Keep the light off. I guess this would still work at your dd's age. I'm glad I found this thread, my dd can be so awful and say horrendous things. She told me to just die the other day.

[AlsoAvailableSober]

I also have a stroppy 7 (nearly 8) year old. She lost ALL tv all weekend as a result of her behaviour on Fri/Sat. Today she has been a bloody delight. I'm thinking of a permanent ban on tv if I'm honest.

I do like the HALT acronym - definitely applies to DD2 (6) as she is atrocious when hungry/tired. I think DD1 is more on the angry/lonely so will work on that.

[Scraggy3]

So glad I am not alone although do feel for you all and wish we weren't in this boat! I have actually just joined this site as so desperately trying to find some advice on how to deal with my 7 year old and am so pleased to have found this thread. My dd is exactly as others described - perfectly well behaved at school etc very clever and sporty - top in all her subjects and sports, lots of friends friendly etc etc but can be a total nightmare at home with the family. Just tonight she told me she wants to die and then went and made a poster saying "please adopt me I hate my family" and wanted to go out in the street with it!! I know she doesn't really mean it (I hope!) but I just don't understand why she does this. None of my friends understand as they only see the 'good' side of her and are always telling me how lovely she is with them and well behaved... Tonight was awful I was so tired that when she started screaming and yelling at me - for just suggesting we share a book with her brother- I lost it and told her I didn't want her in this family because she has upset me so much and so she should take her poster and find another family. Of course after felt terrible and when had calmed down went back and hugged her and said I love her etc and apologised for saying something bad that I didn't mean and she hugged me back and apologised for her behaviour. We seem to go round in circles - she gets mean, i get angry we all apologise everyone happy until the next time. Don't know how to stop it all....