Help with a 7 year old's behaviour?

[Zingylemontart]

First post in this board, although I hang out a bit on Chat and AIBU.

My daughter is 7, almost 8, and is driving me to tears sometimes. She just will not do as she's asked until I get angry with her. Then it ends with both of us being upset. Both DH and I have tried explaining to her and she makes the right noises, but it usually goes back to this.

Does anyone have any suggestions to tackle this please? Even my "How to talk so kids will listen..." book seems to be failing me at this point. :-(

I'd thought about a reward chart, but I don't know whether to make it a "if you get X number of smiley faces, you get X treat" or a "if you get X number of frowny faces, you don't get to do X".

[Zingylemontart]

Anyone? Please? I'll hand out for any good suggestions.

[BertieBotts]

If you like the how to talk book, have a look at or try posting on the unconditional parenting thread to see if you can find anything helpful on there. (It's not really reward charts, but just another option :))

I think you need to give a bit more information in your post, maybe. Does she refuse to do everything she's asked? Or just some things/sometimes? How are you asking, how is she refusing? Can you give any examples? Is she the same at school? How would they deal with it if she was?

If you go with the reward chart I think it should be positives so that you can focus on that rather than having the negatives on the wall for her to see constantly. Or you could do the pasta jar method? One piece of pasta in the jar for good behaviour, one piece out for bad. When it's full she gets a treat. So the bad behaviour does string out the time until the treat, but she doesn't have to look at it constantly.

[BertieBotts]

[http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/parenting/1098194-Unconditional-Parenting-Support-thread?pg=1 Unconditional Parenting Thread]]

[Zingylemontart]

Thanks, Bertie. I don't think she refuses to do EVERYTHING she's asked, maybe I need to keep a check on exactly what she's being difficult on. Will also have a look on the other board.

Here's your . I'm not impressed with your earwax flavour beans, though!

[betterwhenthesunshines]

Sympathy for you - it's not easy. I've also read the "How to listen.." book ( which my DH thinks is completely impractical although I have scientifically tested it (!) at home and it definitely helps . I'm now reading the Unconditional Parenting book, I haven't finished it yet, but it is an eye opener and helps you focus on the longer picture which for me helps to take (some) of the stress out when days just don't seem to be going so well.

[BertieBotts]

Oh the earwax one was a one-off. The factory worker had been using his wand to clean out his ear (a dangerous pastime, I'm sure you'll agree). He was sacked immediately and we have much more stringent hygiene procedures now.

[Zingylemontart]

I dread to think how the bogey & vomit flavours came about!

Better - I really have to think about using the techniques in the "how to talk" book, but they do work. Just have to do lots of deep breaths and pauses to think!

[BertieBotts]