How young is my 8yr DD?

[Hopefulfor3rd]

Hey,
So I’m not sure if I baby my daughter! As you can see from my username I’d hoped for a third but it never happened. That’s all fine and in the past. But I wonder if I baby my 8yr ( sept bday) old as a result.
She can be quick to moan, complain and have a hissy fit. If she feels wronged she can have quite the fit and can’t see the wood for the trees. For example, she’s was upset about something the other day as she waiting for the bath to fill. Moany and whingy, I asked her several times about the bath wether she’d like to have a bomb in it but she ignored me to only speak of what she felt wronged by, it was not being allowed to watch something. I said if she didn’t decide, I would decide and that it would be no bath and straight to bed. Again she didn’t answer me with her choice so I said right, off to bed with no bath. Then she screams the place down as I have to physically get her up to bed. I dot react and stay calm, she eventually calms realises her wrong and apologises. But should I even be getting that behaviour from her?
She’s very caring and mindful of peoples feelings. She’s very in tune with her own feelings and often talks about family members who are n9 longer with us, 99% of time with tears rather than smiles. ( no recent losses) She’s doing amazingly well at school and progressing brilliantly. Some friend issues recently ( she was being bullied) but has been dealt with and is much happier there. She’s confident but will often stay quiet and not answer me if I ask her a question - this really bugs me.
I feel she often is the boy who cried wolf, she will tell me of an infliction/poorly ness at bedtime at lights out never before. I feel she embellishes at times for attention.

She still has to have company in the bathroom at bedtime to make sure she’s washing and brushing, if it’s me I tend to do her teeth to make sure it’s a good clean. When she’s in the bath I wash her. She still likes her bedtime stories, the big paperback type mostly. Though I’ve introduced chapter books for when I put her to bed. She has a lullaby sung as the parent goes down the stairs after lights out.
She does help out around the house, makes her bed etc, sometimes tidies her room but i mostly do it. She does half the dishwasher with her older sister when asked or hoover or polish. Happy enough to do her homework but will take some cajoling!
Long story short, does that sound like an average 8yr old!?

I think with the bath/bath bomb scenario I wouldn't have made the decision to not let her have a bath at all and force her up to bed! If she wasn't listening or answering I would just have assumed no bath bomb and left it at that.

Big balls - I’d hoped for a shock to make her think! She just will not listen and look outside of whatever it is once she gets like that. When she calmed she did understand, and without prompt apologised. It was a good few months ago and hasn’t done it since to be fair.

Thanks again HP, we’ve read to the kids since they were babes and they do love it. My eldest preferred to read to herself from around 9/10. I think I’ll do a 50/50 being read to and then on her own. That’ll give her something grown up but still have the time with us.

i agree with BigSandy re the bath incident.
i think you are expecting too much of her in terms of attention.
just leave it. why even bother with fun extras during the week.
maybe limit such a question to the weekend, or just cut them out unless she asks, they're not really good for the skin anyway, too drying.
why must she answer you instantly. she's entitled to her own thoughts. that is where i think you are being a bit dictatorial.
and instruct her how to brush her teeth properly, supervise.
she can and ought to wash herself. try to build independence.

My dd is 10 and she still gets stories and snuggles. She's been sorting herself out in the bath for a couple of years now, but I think she still needed help washing her hair at 8.

Sounds normal to me.

I still do a final brush of my almost 8 year olds teeth. Mainly because I would feel simply terrible if she had a dental issue and I’d not been! I should trust her more. I wash her hair as well or she comes out with it full of shampoo.

She also loves a story before bed and doesn’t like to be on her own when it’s dark outside, DH or I always have to walk her up to bed and tuck her in. She reads for while once we’ve gone though, she’s a big reader.

She’s also super sensitive and stroppy at the moment which I think is the result of a crappy year and the start of hormonal stuff.

My dd is 9, 10 in February and in year 5.

I was determined she would be a lot more independent than her older brother ( age 17 ) as I definitely mollycoddled him and it has definitely affected him. He has Aspergers and I used to do everything for him.

Dd has been running her own baths and showers since she was 8. She also washes and conditions her own hair which is mid length but tight corkscrew curls. She’s meticulous about her routine.

I have to prompt for her sometimes of a
morning to have a wash and brush her teeth ( she has a shower every night ) and she does her own hairstyle unless it’s complicated.

At 8 my dd preferred to read herself in bed and still does but we read to her from birth and she’s a total bookworm.

Dd can have major tantrums too. She’s well into puberty and also I have concerns about ADD which I also have.
She’s happiest naked which is becoming increasingly inappropriate and never shuts up!

Some of her friends are very young for their age. Her best friend still believes in Santa so dd is mindful to not spoil this for her. Another friend cries most mornings at drop off. The children in her class are all very different.

She is in a class of mainly high achievers and loves school. She has impeccable behaviour there according to teacher but seems to let off steam when she gets home.

8 is a funny age. They grow up a hell of a lot in the juniors and your dd sounds lovely!! I think too that is nice to savour them being little as once puberty hits they change so much, physically and mentally.

Have you noticed how her friends differ in any way?

DD went on her first school residential when she was 8 and coped just fine. One thing she’s still struggling with is tying laces and we need to get that sorted.

Well, I’m not expecting an instant “ yes mum, no mum” answer Alex! There’s several moments of pause whilst I wait and she just doesn’t answer me. Not every time but enough.
Last night I hung outside the bathroom whilst she did her wash and teeth, she did ask for me to do her teeth but I said no need. We then looked at her magazine for a while. We put the idea of a grown up girls bedtime to her, that she could read to herself for an agreed time/page after stories with her dad. She liked the idea but she def read longer than agreed! She was going to read 4 stories from her magazine but when we checked half hr later she was still reading but no worries reminded her to turn off her light and she went off to sleep. Asked for her lullaby.
We will try again with that tonight. I’ll also help her learn to do her own hair wash from now on.
Idon’t really know What her friends do, I don’t see the mums and don’t know them super well to ring and ask!
Thanks to all again.

Expecting a 7 year old to turn off their own light on time is a big ask. You either need an alarm or clock so she knows what time to do it. Children are always likely to read more than agrees. Plenty of adults do the same "just one more page/chapter". My Dd hated getting up to turn off her light articular ly as she's in a high sleeper so I stuck one of those battery operated push lights on the headboard so she didn't need to get out of bed and then we moved on to a Gooseneck light from Habitat via argos that clips on to the bed frame.

You could buy her a kindle or kindle fire for Christmas, you can set the timer so it turns off at a set time. Ebooks are cheap enough, you could also look and see if your local library is set up to the Libby app. It's an online library where you can borrow books, audiobooks and magazines and they automatically get returned when your two weeks is up.