I’ve accidentally raised a brat and I don’t know how to deal with it

[Babayaggatheboneylegged]

I’m at a loss over how to deal with my six-year-old daughter.

She’s been a ‘tricky’ character all her life. As in, not very amenable and not one for just getting on with things. If she’s unhappy about a situation, she makes it VERY clear. She can be really sweet and caring, but she is very stroppy, sometimes with a self-destructive streak. She’s usually prepared to cut off her nose to spite her face.

This year, we agreed with my husband’s siblings (most of whom also have kids) that we’d chip in and get one present for the dc from the collective aunties and uncles, to reduce the sheer amount of STUFF the kids get. I’m particularly in favour of this as we live in a small house, and I just don’t think my kids really need anything. I hate that Christmas ‘thing’ of getting stuff for the sake of it.

So my kids have got tickets to a show this weekend as their ‘aunties and uncles’ pressie. I mentioned it to DD this morning on the way to school, and she sighed loudly and moaned. Like it was this massive chore to her.

I was thinking, WTF? I said she needed to remember how lucky she is, how that was no way to behave when we’re talking about a gift someone has given her etc.

She turned to me and said, ‘well, I don’t believe in Christmas!’

As is often the case with dd, I didn’t actually know what to say in response to this.

As she was going into school, I asked her again, nicely, to remember how lucky she was and she replied with the ‘I don’t even believe in Christmas,’ thing again. I said it didn’t matter what she believed in, she was very lucky and shouldn’t be spoilt and ungrateful. And then she went into school.

I think she is spoilt. We take her lots of nice places, we have a big extended family who are all really generous to her and she wants for nothing. We’ve never been the kind of parents who give her everything she asks for. We do say ‘no’ to a lot of stuff.

But it’s clearly not enough. I’m just so disappointed.

And I don’t know how to address it.

Part of me is SERIOUSLY tempted to say, well if you don’t believe in Christmas, we won’t do it then. And give her presents away. But I know I’d never actually go through with it.

But is there anything I can do without resorting to this sort of nuclear option? I so don’t want to raise an entitled and ungrateful child. And yet here we are…

Has anyone out there successfully tackled an attitude problem like this? Is she likely to grow out of this kind of thing?

I also recommend the book "how to talk so kids will listen and [more importantly imo] listen so kids will talk."

I think ignoring and jollying along could go a long way for both of you. I’ve had to learn that not everything is a teachable moment.

I would say I am sorry you do not believe in Xmas dd. Will you still want to be hanging up a stocking? If she want to I would be tempted to put a lot less in her stocking so she might think again but hold back many of her gifts and give her through the year when she is behaving.

BTW great idea to give just one gift from Aunties and Uncles and even better it is a show not more stuff.

Apparently they fuck you up, your mum and dad...

Nah, you're doing fine OP. You adore her and want her to grow into a kind, thoughtful, lovely person who has a happy life. A big part of that is learning what we have to grateful for and that's what you're working on.

She's not a brat! She sounds like a perfectly normal 6 year old! If the stroppiness continues just say ' come or don't come but don't stop about it', if she chooses to strop then take away a toy/ time out/ whatever else you do. Go without her if necessary but let it be her decision ( even if she's 'choosing' not to come by being so stroppy that's the punishment). Let her learn consequences but make it clear she's in charge of the outcome so this isn't coming up in therapy sessions in 10 years, the day my mother took everyone to the show but me 😭

I'm fairly certain I was like this when I was 6. I grew up into a caring and kind child, teenager and adult (and modest ). She's 6. Her emotions and her hormones are all over the place and she doesn't yet know how to deal with them. She's learning who she is. Yes she needs to be told when she's being rude and ungrateful, but try to understand why she's being like this (in adults eyes it might not be understandable!) and don't worry I'm certain she'll grow out of it

She's only six. She still needs teaching and raising the "right" way. At this age she will still not have fully learned how toexactly and perfectly behave, the "correct" response to things, etc. Moaning about raisins in her bowl isn't that bad. Just tell how she should respond next time. "It's rude to say that when someone has given you treats. Next time, just say "mum, please can you take the raisins out", or, "I'm sorry mum, but I don't like raisins", etc. They also don't (usually) learn first time - you have to keep at it, over and over like a long playing record sometimes, but as long as you keep telling the correct response, modelling the correct behaviour, don't let up, and don't let them get away with behaving rudely etc, they get it eventually.

Christmas is endlessly bumped at them from 1 Dec - christmas fayre, christmas class show, school photos for christmas, christmas raffle, christmas jumper day, christmas end of term school show, visits to Santa.

Shes 6 - I'd merely tell her that you expect her to be polite at the show, and there will be a consequence if she's unkind and hurts anybody's feelings and leave it there.

I was in a parenting course and they said 'there are no difficult children, only difficult relationships' - my experience with DD sounds like yours, i find ignoring the bad behaviour and carrying on works best. If she doesn't want to go, not taking her is rewarding her surely?

I should add my mum never taught me how to speak or behave, and just let me get away with saying and doing things. I was a clueless little brat. I had to teach myself the correct way of speaking to people etc when I got to college, and I still made mistakes for years after. Don't let up on your teaching her how to properly respond, behave, say etc, or she WILL end up a brat.

Your daughter sounds perfectly normal for a six year old. Maybe she doesn't fancy the show, who knows? Don't force her to go but I bet she does go and enjoys it in the end.

You can't expect little kids to think like adults. I wonder what she means by not believing in Christmas - I felt like that when I got past ten, it all seemed quite boring and OTT, but not at six. It was still fun at that age. She has probably heard grown ups say that and is trying to be sophisticated.

Storm in a teacup.

She is 6. She has only been in the world such a short time. As each 5/6 years pass you will see big changes in her attitudes. At 6 even the word ‘believe’ will be a bit fuzzy. Unicorns? Stranger Danger? Tooth Fairy? Tripping on the stairs?
All you can do is love and reassure her while insisting that any gift or treat deserves sincere thanks. If she doesn’t want to go she stays away but if she does go she expresses gratitude.
Good Luck OP

also i have that same 'everything in my kids' lives is nice, they are so lucky' thing (and we hear it from less well off family too), but they didn't choose that, and they have less time at home than I did. My children are materially spoiled, but they aren't spoiled for attention from people that care about them, and I've been guilty of overindulging on stuff to make up for guilt about after school clubs, holiday clubs, nursery etc. Maybe there are a few too many activities?

It’s nearly the end of term and it sounds like she was asked in the busy rush to school. Yes she needs to be grateful and thankful to the aunties and uncles but if in that moment she really didn’t feel like going to a show, then that’s what she expressed.

I’d be wary of labelling her a “tricky character” and consider some parenting tactics that may make things easier eg diversion, laughing it off.

Really good posts from Spaghettijumper.

OP, you seem, for want of a much better word, quite triggered by her having what you call 'strops', which really sound quite minor to me. You seem to struggle with her not liking anything you do/arrange for her or displaying any 'ingratitude' whatsoever. Please be really careful about your expectations of her. Could you perhaps (unconsciously) be wanting her to be a people pleaser like you? Does a 'tricky' personality, in your view - perhaps particularly in a girl? - consist in not going along with stuff, or responding in expected/desired ways?

She will be picking up on, and struggling with, the emotion behind your responses to her behaviour. She'll know that those responses are 'on trial'.

She isn't a brat just a pretty normal little girl who is focused on themselves primarily, this isn't unusual at this age.
Keep on teaching her to be polite, it can developmentally take some dc longer to not just be totally honest.
One year we ended up with, "thank you for this gift auntie, I don't like it but thank you"
A few years on both of my dc are polite and grateful dc.
It's the end of term and she is tired. If she goes out a lot it maybe isn't the treat it would have been for you as a dc, but that isn't down to her. You can't give dc lots of good life experiences and expect the same gratitude from them as a dc that has almost none for example.
Ignore stuff just said to get a rise. Maybe cut down on activities for a while.
Don't worry too much.

I really think you need to lower your expectations OP! She's six! That's so little.. I have four children, my littlest boy is now 7 and has always had a tendency to be a bit.. shall we say, blunt? Most of the time it's to do with an emotional reaction he's having and he expresses it verbally but not necessarily directly. As the adult it is up to me to connect the dots and see what's driving his reaction so that it can be resolved.

You are putting adult concepts and attributes on to a very young child. You also seem baffled by her having her own opinions..? Our children are not robots to be programmed accordingly. Maybe she doesn't like shows, or Dr Seuss. Maybe she's exhausted and is finding the Christmas hype too much.

Be kinder to her OP, and drop the assumption that she's a 'brat' too

You say you understand her feelings but you didn't even ask her what she meant. Does she mean she doesn;t believe in Santa or in children getting treated? She probably does have mixed messages from non-Crhistian friends who may also pass on their parents' beliefs, not all of which will be complimentary. She may have heard that it's over indulgence. It's hard at that age to negotiate your loyalties - to friends or parents? And having both can be a stress that shows in rudeness.

That said, she could also just be being a stroppy brat. DS1 in particular was like that at around that age (the raisin comment you DD made reminded me of him complaining about the novelty shapes I cut his toast into. I had very stern words that I wasn't a servant and that from now on toast was toast, I realised I'd been spoiling them because we were fairly neglected as kids, so I overcompensated by doing all the things I was jealous of friends having done for them when I was their age. But it was turning DS1 into a brat.

Since she likes giving toys away, I'd say she doesn't sound a brat but maybe genuinely doesn't want so much stuff and so many treats that she becomes blase about them. You could sort out some foodbank and toy donations for others with her.

And you could share a bit about where Christmas traditions come from, from Celtic paganism to Christianity, so she understands that a lot of what we do is actually just to keep ourselves preoccupied during the dark season of long nights, short days and bitter cold.

Kids that age repeat a lot of stuff that they hear, whether they know the meaning or not.

I'd take saying she doesn't believe in Christmas with a very large pinch of salt and just say 'oh really'. No need to make a bigger thing of it than it is.

Being huffy about the show, I wouldn't like, I don't expect my daughter to be grateful for everything but I would probably just bring it up again, say that if she doesn't want to go, I'll bring someone else and that would be it.

She sounds pretty normal to me tbh. I think we bring a lot of young girls up to be people pleasers and that does a lot of harm. No need to be a brat, but voicing an honest opinion isn't a hanging offence either.

Last Saturday night, we had a friend’s daughter staying over, so I gave the kids a bowl of treats to eat while they were watching telly before bed. She turned to me and said, in a stroppy voice, ‘Muuummm, why did you put RAISINS in my bowl?!’

That's called being 6.

Babayaggatheboneylegged this is about you and your feelings. You want to have a lovely family day out. You want a child who does you credit.

Which is fine.

But what you want is legitimate, and what she wants is "feeeeingggs" and her bring difficult.

Why?

My mother used to make Christmas into a heavily structured, tightly scheduled, picture perfect, incredibly worthy plate spinning performance - she found it incredibly stressful but needed it all to be just so. I dread to think what her Instagram would have looked like if she'd been 50 years younger and doing it today... But for her it was worse as her performance was "live" not Instagram edited so every second had to be perfect - the imaginary audience of judgemental absent or departed relatives and acquaintances in her head must have been watching every moment for cracks in gratitude, appreciation, catering, decoration, religious observance and good deeds.

We walked on eggshells trying to avoid my mother's inevitable fateful lament of "I just want everyone to be happy!" Followed by her crying or yelling (yelling when we were younger, she found emotional blackmail through crying more effective once older) if anyone let the happy and grateful mask slip and dared to have a grumble or want to opt out of anything or once it was induced early and particularly dramatically when we mentioned wanting to stay in the pub for the lock in instead of midnight mass when we were in our late teens

"My mother used to make Christmas into a heavily structured, tightly scheduled, picture perfect, incredibly worthy plate spinning performance - she found it incredibly stressful but needed it all to be just so." "We walked on eggshells trying to avoid my mother's inevitable fateful lament of "I just want everyone to be happy!" Followed by her crying or yelling (yelling when we were younger, she found emotional blackmail through crying more effective once older) "

OMG your mum is my mum. Everything must be perfect. Anyone not willing to adhere to perfection is yelled or cried at. Therefore, no one is actually happy, but if she just let us get on with things, they would be....

I get it to some extent, if it was left to my dad we'd have no Christmas at all but there's a limit fgs.

bloody christmas - the main thing I remember about childhood christmas times is my mum moaning constantly about the workload, and my dad getting legless as he couldn't stand my mum's parents. I'm hoping my DDs have better memories than that!

She sounds like a great, intelligent girl to me. Christmas is too much, she is right! Everywhere she goes she is probably having to ‘do’ CHRistmas, school, home, extra curricular stuff. ITs on the TV, car radio......
Not going to the theatre is not an option because it is her present from Aunts/uncles, who have paid for it. That doesn’t mean that she won’t enjoy it when she gets there, but she should be allowed to espress that at that moment she is a bit ‘ur, do I have to?’
We are very good at making our girls into people pleasers, I know I did it with mine, and really wish I had given her more agency to be herself and validate her feelings. With hindsight I would suggest working on giving her the skills to express that in a better way than eye rolling, because I really understand that’s annoying.

Believe me, the LAST thing I ever strive for (at xmas or any other time) is perfection! All I want for xmas is basically us all to be together, to eat some good food, drink some fizz (obvs not the kids), have a laugh and enjoy each others’ company. I don’t put selected snippets of my life on social media in the hope that others will admire me.

I have long learned to manage my expectations in regards to, ‘this will be a wonderful family moment/day out/event’, because I know the more invested I am in that outcome, the less likely it is to happen.

I just thought that moaning about a prospective ‘treat’ wasn’t ideal behaviour. If her three-year-old brother had had that reaction, I’d have thought, ‘ach well, he’s three.’ But at six I’d have thought that she’d have learned that’s not really an acceptable way to react to something ‘nice.’ But it had been a slightly fraught morning and I will cut her some slack because of that.

And I thought maybe she did the ‘I don’t believe in xmas’ thing to try to get a reaction out of me, because we’ve always celebrated xmas in as much as we get together with family, do presents and eat turkey.

But after reading all the comments, I will try to revise/relax my expectations and not project so much onto her.