Mumsnet Talk

Please will someone tell me that their stubborn, argumentative, attention seeking, messy 7yr dd turned into a lovely, pleasing, organised and compliant teenager/adult.
I love my dd but SHE DRIVES ME MAD!!!!

Sounds like my 8 yo. I have started having to be FIRM/MEAN. She is good really but oh so scatty. MEAN is working to at the mo.

welcome to the club! Ours is nearly 11 and no sign of becoming organised, compliant or pleasing.

Having said that, she is thoughtful, loving, caring, loves to laugh, hates bathing, and is grown up in body but not in mind!

Have a , take a deep breath, and say all things shall pass

She can be so RUDE sometimes! Oh course she's incredibly lovely really, but today at school she lost her school dress!!!!! How can anyone do that??? I collected her still in her PE kit. She had it on when I dropped her off this morning! Of course it's "not my fault".

For example I have repeated ad infinitum " do not lose your gloves/put your home work in the folder provided/notes from school ditto/ write you name/date on work (as directed by school) etc etc. Then we had 3 day of no gloves, no dates etc, bits of paper screwed up in bag.

A couple of days of NO TV sorted that. Insert suitable punishment of your choice. Today dd came home with 3 pairs of gloves, 10/10 on spellings, the folder and name/date done etc etc.

Mine hates bathing too. She is very strong willed and actually I don.t WANT her to be compliant per se. I want her to have opinions and be able to argue them. Within firm boundaries.....

She has lost her beloved Christmas present at the moment.
I'm not sure she cares though.

Well yes, later on in life being strong willed will be a good thing. Aint no-one going to mess with her when she's the boss of her own company!

And HA at the excuses! It is never "their" fault. I tell myself, after wine, that girls like this will go far! They will take no shit, will be masters of their destiny. I LIKE that. Tis bloody annoying though.

And she probably DOES care that she lost her present - but won't let on about it. As then blame could be attributed......I think it does them good to learn that not caring for your stuff has consequences....

Found DDs homework outside the front door. She stopped to say goodbye to the cat on the way to school, and put her book down.....then went without it!
And before Christmas she lost her school shoes.

Portofino you SO understand!

Well, if wine is what is recommended..........

Definitely wine! And like I said, you need to do/stop something to focus their attention. CONSEQUENCES.

For real effect I take sweets out of her sweetie bag. That hurts.

I can tell you what I was like:

Stubborn - I was and have remained so, I just learned to channel it more appropriately.
Argumentative - I still love a good debate/discussion but in time I also figured out where the line between debate and argument was (I was about 12 when that happened).
Attention seeking - This I have never been, the only time I felt like going down that route I knew it was futile.
Messy - I was shocking until I went to secondary school.

I was never deliberately rude though.

Do you have a dd, Andro?

Andro - and have you turned out ok? Not in prison I presume!!!

Mine is an eyeroller (she may get it from me ), she also is very scatty (from her Father). She is very tidy, she likes to have all her CDs in a nice pile so she can learn all the words and sing them all the time!

She is also the oldest of my 3 daughters (7,5 and 23 months) - who has the wine?

My DD was all of those things at 7 stopsayingmum. And 8...and 9. In fact she was about 17 1/2 before she suddenly turned into this thoughtful, wise kind girl.

She still loses everything though and its never her fault

Ha! Hang on to your hat, I've got news for you and you aren't going to like it....
It gets WORSE! Teenage girls are fairly horrid! Sorry!

But are the teenage girls who are a nightmare the same ones who are willful when younger, or is it the turn of their more docile counterparts, that's what I need to know. You've all described my DD exactly, and I keep wondering when it's going to get better.

I think the willful ones remain ...um... willful, and some of the docile ones probably become willful too.

Mine was like that - eye rolling, attention seeking, stubborn, opinionated, always right, willful etc but five minutes later she would be the most loving, funny, kind child you could ever meet.

Sometimes she was such hard work. She got worse in her teenage years and we had many a spat. She is now 23 and can still be a mare at times but she mellowed out and we now have a fantastic relationship.

Apparently I was the same and my mother often told me that she hoped I got a daughter just like me and I found myself repeating it to my daughter.

Ooohhhh the singing - yes the constant singing!

I am dreading the hormone changes.

I have the wine.

My dd has always been a little sod! I love her to pieces, but she has been trouble since the day she was born. As a little one, she used to sleep for hours, but when she was awake, boy did you know it! She was always into mischief, always in A&E and always where she shouldn't be. And she's an opinionated little rat!

stopsayingmum * Portofino*

I have post grad qualifications from 3 top clas universities, an executive jo, a wonderful DH and 2 amazing adopted children (DS ans DD). I've been very fortunate! I have also (eventually) managed to have a really good relationship with my Mother (my relationship with my father was never in question, I was the ultimate 'daddy's girl').

*job

Ugh, I've also had no sleep and my typing is showing that!

Well done Andro. I live in hope dd turns out like you. Good to hear.

I have 3 pre-teen dds. The feistiest by far as a small child, dd2, was really very hard work as a baby, toddler, and small child. At 7 we got comments like "Well, at least she won't be needing assertiveness training", and "She gets worse every day!". Or from my mother after looking after the dds for a day, she offered to have "1 or two of them to visit in the holidays, not including dd2".

But now at 11 she really is massively more compliant and agreeable. The occasional strop or yelling fit, but much much rarer, and followed by apologies. She's delightful now. So some of them certainly do get calmer with age.

And meanwhile my dd3, who was an easygoing baby, is a stubborn, argumentative, attention seeking 8yo....

But dd1 has been easy from birth, she's nearly 13 now. Laid back and calm.

None of them are tidy though and none is too hot on washing or grooming.

There is hope then. Grandad calls dd ASBO. I think he is only half joking.