DD is 6 and already has strong reactions towards any kind of criticism towards her actions. She has difficulties accepting any negative words from us and what scares me most is the way she behaves when it happens. I can’t correct her writing exercises without long discussions about ‘it’s ok to do mistakes, we need to practise more, well done for now etc etc, and even so, she is not fully happy. I can’t explain that it’s not nice to go and poor shampoo into the soup that I just finished cooking because then we can all get sick if we eat it, without having her go into her room and making angry sounds…. Most of the times she pretends to accept it in front of us, but then she goes back to her room and I can hear her talking to herself, either blaming us or calling herself a bad girl and threatening to hit herself …. No real tantrums, which I would understand and accept, after all, but instead grudging feelings, silent anger, blaming others, and trying to get revenge in whatever way she can despite the fact that we try to talk calmly to her, trying to explain things …. I’m terrified!!! Is this normal for such a young child?

On the other hand, I have heard from her school, already a year ago when she was only 5, about her keeping an angry mood FOR HOURS, sometimes for the whole day! Even remembering it the next day and trying to ‘punish’ the teachers for her being put on time out.

On top of that, I everyday have to listen to her telling negative stories about the kids in school …. I mean EVERY DAY! Not one positive story about her colleagues! I started to dread the moments when she is coming home and when we are supposed to talk about her day. I tried over and over again to direct her towards more positive stories but then it’s always HER who is the nice girl and in a minute she is back to that girl refusing to play with her, that boy calling her names, etc…. She shows frustration when I try to tell her that there must be nice things that her ‘friends’ are doing! She promptly changes the subject. The teachers are telling me she has friends in the class and many times they play very nicely together, share things, help each others, but she never seems to remember or be happy about those moments…. They are ALWAYS bad and she is ALWAYS good.

I can only assume this is all about her low self-esteem. But is it really? …. If so, what can I do to improve her self-esteem, but in the same time make her understand that children have to accept the consequences as their own fault? She seems so keen on blaming others that it scares me while she is not able to accept any faults of herself (she even goes against the adults. She tried to accuse her teachers of stealing her food, she comes to me telling about her father was trying to teach her STUPID things against what I have told her, she goes to my husband telling him I talk bad things about her and so on … ). She seems a happy, exuberant child and very loving (a bit too loving to everybody ) until the minute she has to listen about her own mistakes.

The reward charts don’t seem to work in the sense where she feels rewarded, but she would rather take it for granted that the star MUST be there every day, otherwise she gets angry …. I really don’t know what do anymore …. Shall I just try to ignore her naughty behaviours for a while and just praise her for whatever she does right? Shall I just try to ignore her mean stories? because, frankly speaking I’m tired of commenting on all those silly, naughty kids/adults/facts she is always talking about …. Is this just a phase???? Do we do something wrong?

Sorry about this long post but I just had to take it off my chest …. DD is coming from school soon and I’m gonna have to drown myself again into her world that is so mean and full of negative stories, It’s just hard to bear and listen to.