How to stop DD embarrassing me?

Did this actually work? Do you drop everything on your schedule (friends birthdays, family staying etc) and just police them being in their room ? Genuinely asking as my daughter is like the OP’s, same age, but under Early Help who are looking into ND assessment. I was hit today but if I enact this it’s everybody’s week ruined - but is that what it needs?

@HEllo114 Strict consequences for poor behaviour.

Stick to them, don't give in.

Your Daughter clearly CAN behave, just chooses not to with you.

She will instinctively know you afraid of her ''kicking off''

Next time she kicks off, be firm, don't give in, and it will probably be a shock to her to see mum standing firm for once.

It doesn't matter if she makes a scene in Tesco or Waitrose, or in a Café- don't be phased by it.

No one will care, they will just be glad it's not their child creating a scene.

Almost all children can do this at some stage.

Your relatives say she is ''spoiled''...They probably can see the behaviours playing out in front of them - {it's much easier to see from a distance}-

She acts up in front of people as she thinks you won't feel comfortable disciplining her.

Your son- she could well be jealous of him, too. {The ''good'' boy who everyone likes. }

Perhaps she is nd, its hard to know.
Kids can have issues leaving fun times too eg an adopted child i knew was awful for that.
Asd can mean not reacting to the normal hierarchy of parents/adults/teachers etc

how are her friendships, does she get invited out to peoples houses or at weekends etc?

My dd1 did struggle with hierarchy, not much with transition or change, trouble at school but it was almost all with other kids in playground. Shes autistic. She stopped all but 1 party invite in y3. Similarly only invites to friends house very rarely. Sleep issues birth to 1. Then slept about 12 hours except was awful for years teething. But now sleeps a few hours a night.
Dd2 has sensory issues with socks, trousers, can be impulsive, is starting to show that shes not making very close firendships. Very very few invites to houses. 1 in a year. none at weekends. But still getting maybe 10 parties a year.
Explosive after school. But good behaviour observed by teachers.
Has never slept more than 10h. And that was from about 3.5yo. Basically often exhausted but wont sleep.

Actually, it's a terrible lesson. Hitting a child is never the answer, no matter how challenging the child's behaviour may be.

I didn't report your previous post, but I'm glad that MNHQ deleted it.

So much of what you've said sounds just like my AuDHD 11yo DS, right down to being a model pupil in class. I'd put money on her being ND.

I agree with all the others who are eyerolling about the immediate shouts of 'ND'. There's no reason to suspect this child is anything other than a badly behaved child who behaves badly because her mum is afraid and lets her get away with it. No WAY would a kid of mine push a trolley if I didn't want them to because I didn't want a scene. OP you need a lot of very firm boundaries with her, and when she does something she shouldn't, she gets into trouble immediately no matter how much of a 'scene' she makes. She won't learn the first or second or even tenth time but she'll get there if you keep your boundaries firm. Like 'No, I'm pushing the trolley, let go'. 'Do NOT shout at me. If you shout at me again, I'm going to put back the nice yoghurts you chose/take away the ipad' etc. No 8 year old should have an ipad anyway tbh.

Pointing out ND as a possibility from the ops own words and examples of certain situations is entirely reasonable.

People don't mention it for shits and giggles, we do so mainly because the fight for help with ND children takes an extortionate amount of time and energy, we know from experince early intervention is the key to good outcomes.

It is not being used as an EXCUSE either but rather as a possible EXPLANATION because IF ops DD is ND then it would serve her and everyone involved best to learn how to parent her DDs Neurotype and create a more harmonious household.

The ultimate goal is to parent effectively as efficiently as possible without resorting to abuse.

I'm really disappointed to see many outdated and abusive behaviour recommended, ( congratulations on parenting through fear ) especially to what could be a very confused little girl that needs more patience than most.

This made me feel so sad, just reads to me like a girl whose struggling and doesn’t have any family members who understand her 😢

I'm sorry you had a mum that scared you that much.

My mum scared me to death.
I don’t ever remember acting out, because she had “the grip.” My sister and I laugh about it now, but mum would get our upper arm between her thumb and two middle fingers and squeeze and lean down and whisper, ”do we need to go to the car?”
We never once had to go the car. I don’t even know what we thought would happen in the car.
I’ve got no practical advice for you, OP, I’m sorry.
I hope you and your daughter arrive on the same page and on the same path.
If it helps, my mum and sister and I were extremely close all our lives until mum died at 96.

You might be completely right about your daughter not being ND. However, it also possible that she IS masking and that's why everything is off at home. At school the kids do a group task. For her to achieve the same level as the others of respecting others needs, being thoughtful of what others are thinking, sharing and taking turns nicely etc, she puts twice as much effort as they do, because all those things are twice as hard for her, but she doesn't want to not do those, because that would hurt her classmates and make them shun her. When she comes home having worked twice as hard as everyone else all day, she has no reserves left. When you say to her and her brother that they must share their stuff, her brother still has those reserves and thinks "oh yes I must share with my sister" and puts some effort into doing so. She just has no energy to create any effort, so she just says "no".

@Createausername1970 aunties and uncles who know her well are not necessarily knowledgeable about neurodiversity. People generally aren't, as this thread clearly demonstrates.

No, I don't.

What I know is that the behaviour she is showing points that way. That includes the perfect behaviour at school. Schools, by the way, are generally clueless about neurodiversity. It is worth exploring, because if she is ND then no amount of harsh discipline will improve things - whereas there are many strategies that will.

I struggle to believe you are unable to understand this.

Yes they can.

But the OP has mentioned some specific behaviours which have made a few of us think "I recognise that".

We can give our opinions/suggestions and the OP can do with them what she wants.

It was another forum years ago that opened my eyes to that fact that my DS might be ND and it transpired he was. I would have been right out of my depth and making things worse if it hadn't been for the fantastic forum on Adoption UK.

Dear god you really don’t understand ND. I despair and give up.

Then, when she has no devices, can't watch tv (so during her waking hours, nor can anyone else)... and you've left the supermarket without any food so there's nothing for dinner for anyone...

And there is nothing left to stop her doing or take away from her...

Then what do you do?

By that point, she has nothing further to lose, why even bother trying to mask emotions or 'be good' etc?

You may say 'well she will learn and it won't get to that point' but actually if she is ND she almost certainly will if the parent is bloody minded enough.

Aversive consequences like this, particularly if ramped up really quickly with no attempt to address why the behaviour is occurring, rapidly leave you with nowhere else to go.

And on top, damage the relationship between parent and child, further increasing the frequency of unwanted behaviour.

Here we go, the experts of mumsnet claiming yet another child is ND.

Just because a child is being a brat, doesn't necessarily follow that the child is ND.

IF she is, it's not like you grow up and laws/rules don't apply to you. I can't go round hitting people and then say I 'can't help it' because I am ND (I am). If she can behave herself at school, whether you want to call it masking or not, then she is able to exercise control over herself. No excuses should be made for punching her mother, of course she can 'help it', and OP, I think your punishments need rethinking. I'd be inclined to refuse playdates for a period of time as a natural consequence, as well as a more immediate screen time ban or whatever.

Btw, my stepdaughter is ND and had form for misbehaving like this at the end of birthday parties. The behaviour has stopped since she was forced to sit a couple of parties out, went to one and was told if there was any trouble at the end, she would not attend another. Being ND is not an open excuse for violence.

Because the reason someone would post a particular behavioural problem on mumsnet is because there is something wrong.

If other people say she's spoilt then I'd listen. People don't usually say this lightly.

Start by saying 'no' more often or giving 2 choices and sticking to it. For example- Chicken or sausages for dinner? That's it (as long as you know that she's ate these before).

Before an outing like the park, I'd set firm expectations then role play it out at home. For example- poppy this is your 10 minute warning? Model her saying 'ok mummy'. You might need to give her a 5 and 2 minute warning. Encourage her to think about her friends responses.

With hitting her brother- again 2 choices - polly this is your warning, you either stop hitting and apologise or you can go to your room/ have no iPad/ not to swimming etc.

Another one saying there are some definite ND traits here, and I speak as a parent of a child with very similar behaviours, I was categorically told by school he was not ND, finally diagnosed when he was 21.

Even if you don't think she is ND, parenting as if she is wouldn't do any harm. Read up about ADHD and parenting techniques and tips.

With regards to how she is behaving in the park, that is sooo familiar. My way around this would have been to let everyone else leave first and then give a time warning - say 10 mins, but if we go now you can have a extra stars on your star chart (or whatever). Transitions can be hard but if you identify the triggers you can work round them. Once everyone else had left, it took away the anxiety that he would be missing out. Once he had left nicely and been rewarded for it a few times, it got easier to leave. But we never really cracked leaving first!

But at the same time, I made it clear that although I was trying to help DS, I wasn't going to accept poor behaviour, so if he persisted in making things difficult, then we wouldn't be going to the park.

Immediate punishment for violence. Take away all devices and no more play dates til she can behave. Your punishments aren't enough. I would have been terrified to punch my parents. My parents would have punched me back (which obviously I'm not advocating) but I think your punishment should be much firmer.

Call it what you like but I've four children between 3 and 15 years old and none of them behave like that! Not a bad lesson to teach them that when you hit someone, they may hit you back.

At the end of the day, I can control my kids, they're well-adjusted, happy and they don't act like spoilt brats. The OP has said herself that she can't control one 7 year old who talks to her like dirt and punches her when she tries to assert a boundary.

Nope. Like fuck would I be having that. Ton of bricks the first time and there wouldn't have been a second.

Couldn't agree more. Your child is struggling. Have you had a calm conversation about how she feels in these situations and what frustrates her?

My son is 5 and suspected Adhd and with practice he is getting better at being able to articulate the emotion and then can say yes or no to suggestions of why that emotion came about. His big feelings have been more manageable since doing this.

If this was my son at the park with friends I give him a 10minute, 5 minute and then a 'last go' on something like a slide. We then all leave together. If he starts I explain he has two options, either come with me because we are all leaving, or stay crying but I'm walking to the car now and I would like him to come with me. I start walking with e eryone else. He then usually now asks for a hug as we have talked about different ways to support him when he has big feelings. He likes hugs, could be other things like squeezing a stressball, pushing hard against a wall, bluetac. Then once he is calm and we have had a hug we talk it through.
He does get a consequence, but it depends what has happened. Any violence receives a consequence. However if I can see him attempting to use the tactics we have discussed, attempting to communicate, etc, then I praise him for what he did right, talk about what behaviours aren't right and we move on.

I also apologise when I get angry, I'm modelling what he needs.

I suspect I have adhd but as a girl masked it through school. I would have a look at the symptoms. Could be she is simply struggling with emotions and needs coaching and guidance to communicate them.

I'm coming of because people are grassing me up to mumsnet because they don't like I have a different opinion to them and I don't want to get banned. Op your dd needs discipline and consequences for her actions.

Maybe the child in the OP is ND, maybe she isn't, but we can't diagnose her on the Internet.

I think it's fair enough, however, for those of us with children with similar behaviours who are diagnosed to mention that as a possibility.

Most such behaviour comes from anxiety and/or lack of skills/and or sensory stuff, so authoritarian parenting isn't going to cure that.

I seriously doubt the waiting lists are caused by parents seeking unnecessary diagnosis. They're caused by the same factors all the other post-Covid waiting lists are.