DD1 (8) being constantly naughty

[Communionmom]

It’s been little incident after little incident and in themselves none of them were huge but it’s been roughly 3 a week for about 2 months now.

Going into the press and spilling sugar on the floor and leaving it. Doing the exact same again the next evening. Pumping the hand soap all over the counter. Cutting off a chunk of her hair. Smushing up lip balm and play dough all over her shelves. Slime all over things. Puddles of water spilled randomly on the floor. Absolutely NO effort to tidy up or even hide what she’s doing. Telling off and punishments make no difference.
Tonight it was water spilled all over her shelf and duvet, she’s not allowed her water bottle in her room after previous incidents so not sure how she sneaked it in there.

it’s just the sheer persistence of it. After the last incident (less than a week ago) I told her if she really wanted earrings for her birthday (which she’s wanted for ages) it had to stop and tonight she goes and does this.

There’s never any remorse or “I’m sorry”. If I ask if she’s done it she tries to lie her way out of it but it’s obvious it’s her. There’s just defiance and sulking.

Apart from constantly watching her, including in the bathroom, I’m at a loss on what to do.

Is she attention seeking in some way?
Keep her constantly with you, if she complains tell her that it's because you need to know what she's doing but I suspect she may not complain as it's what she's after.

My DD is 9 and she did this a lot at 8 - I felt like it was constant! Even now there’s the occasional “why the FUCK did you do that?!?” incident of hair cutting/trolling:deliberate mess. I think it’s partly boundary pushing and a bit of attention seeking, but nothing worked completely with DD until she just seemed to start growing out of it a bit. Her friends also seemed similar at that age, in varying degrees!!

Ok, so my experience is different as it is my 8 year old son who does this and he is autistic. He does all these things and more and he's seeking sensory input. The pouring and spilling water especialltly drives me mad, but he doesn't want set up water play, he wants to do it secretly and on his terms. Swimming does help! I totally understand your frustration and hope you can figure it out.

I don’t even know if it’s attention seeking as some of that mess I didn’t find for a while. Like when she mashed up lip balm on her shelf, I didn’t find that immediately because she’s on a bunk bed and I don’t clean her shelves. I get her to tidy them. It was just chance I found that mess changing her sheets.

we’ve just come back from a week away, we were at Center Parcs, and because DD2 is 5 they were doing some separate activities so DD1 had plenty of 1on1 time (mostly with DH as that was what she wanted).

She had a brilliant sense of humour and is a total performer with a great imagination.

Does she have siblings? Just wondering if it's an attention thing..

Thanks for the reassurance that this is hopefully just a stage. It just seemed to start from nowhere and keep going.

She has a younger sister - but nothing has changed with her and this behaviour is new.

Sounds similar to my DD. I think at that age they get caught up in their imagination and inventiveness and it runs away with them, and before they know it they’re cutting all the dolls’ hair off / giving the cat a bath / putting temporary tattoos on their cheeks the day before school / making slime out of the shaving foam. But unlike a smaller child, you then get the cheekiness, lying, arguing and boundary pushing when they get found out. Mummy is then the one who has terribly rudely interrupted the fantasy of whatever imaginary game or pretend independence that was going on, and gets the backchat and defiance as a result. It does seem to be rife at that age!