NC because I'm ashamed of how I'm feeling

[MigraineLevel9000]

Please if you have 5 minutes to read and reply, I ask you to do so. I really need help.

Where to start 😩

I have the most clever, funny, interesting, soon to be 6 year old little girl.

She is also making me want to throw myself off a bridge.

I feel like I spend all of my time asking her over and over again to do the same basic, easy to do tasks. I ask her nicely, she won't do it. I repeat the request firmly, she won't do it. I make it very clear this is the last time I'll ask, she usually begrudgingly does what is asked if her. Something that should take 30 seconds turns into 15 minutes of nonsense.

She talks back to me, but she is erudite and has fantastic vocabulary, she would almost make you doubt that what you're asking her is reasonable. She has an answer to everything.

She is incredibly energetic and sporty, this isn't a laziness issue it is pure stubbornness.

She's sharp as a tack, very witty and likeable. She had good friends, is happy at school and achieves well. But her poor teacher 😩 the entire first year of school was constant messages home, being pulled aside at school pick up by her teacher with the days latest nonsense. With exactly the same complaints I suffer with at home.

Her teacher even said she almost feels gas lit some days, because my daughter is so polite and calm when she's openly defying you and point blank not listening to whatever is asked of her. You so question yourself!

The teacher also commented that she is doing remarkably well at school considering she often decides she's not doing the work, gets up from the table and walks off, generally being an imp. If she actually applied herself she would do incredibly.

She is kept entertained, in plenty of extracurricular clubs, she swims, she does ballet, she has lots of time at home doing crafts, loves to draw, but fuck me she is just a nightmare to live with.

I'm now at a stage of daily migraines, I dread spending the day with her. Isn't that awful? I feel sick typing it because I can't convey how much I love this child but I'm done in.

I've just put her in bed. She's asleep, I'm in tears on the sofa because yet again I've only gotten 1/10th of the things done today I needed to because every single step was met with pure opposition. It's like wading through mud.

Please, tell me I'm not alone, tell me it ends?

Better yet, tell me how the hell I make this better.

X

Wow ok the replies have really piled in since I went to bed last night!

I'm reading through but I'm going to take my time because already I can see some are just out to be judgy and hurtful. I'm not naive, I obviously posted here because I know there's an issue! But I don't appreciate the pile on from some posters who want to write my daughter off as a brat, you need to ask why as grown adults you feel the need to be shitty to a 5 year old child.

Thank you for those who get it, who have taken time to write thoughtful helpful replies! It means a lot and I'll be reading through them as I can.

I won't be commenting again, I am really not in the right emotional place to read such horrible thoughtless posts about what a crap child she is and what a useless mother I am.

I agree with others OP that your example is lacking consequences. Your daughter sounds similar to my just turned 6 year old. She started trying to reason her way out of tasks she didn't want to do at age 4. It only took a few times of implementing consequences for her to start understanding that when I ask her to do something it's non-negotiable, as I generally only ask her to do things that are necessary anyway. Luckily I never have to ask her to do homework, reading or self care tasks as she does these without ms asking her to. She occasionally tries to argue with me about things she doesn't want to do, for example, we allow her to stay up later at the weekend. Now it's school holidays she first tried to reason with me that every night she should be allowed a later bedtime, as she doesn't have school the next day. I repeat that no, I've said it's bedtime, children need sleep, if you continue to argue with me the privilege of later weekend bedtimes will be taken away. She knows from past experience that I am serious, and goes to bed.

OP there is not a parent in the world who couldn’t find an example of their kids behaviour that wouldn’t result in a mumsnet pile on. Don’t be so hard on yourself 💐

You mentioned a baby - does she have a new sibling? Is this her way of getting your attention focused on her?

@MigraineLevel9000 I am sorry that some posters are horrid.

please do consider explaining consequences (teachers upset, you upset, etc in a factual way). I do this a lot with my DD who seems so similar to yours and it is the only way that works for her.

my DD is not SEN, she is just way too clever for her age and easily bored. Sadly she also tends to see how far she can push things - and she loses respect for people she can boss around. Explaining social contexts, feelings and how people perceive the world differently works very well for me and her. I am always the adult though.

the dad of one of her friends is on the spectrum and he actually said that the only way to reach him when he was a child was to explain to him why he needed to do certain things.

try different ways to deal with it (over time) and enjoy your amazing DD. My DD is very interested in a variety of things and I bought her a book about quantum physics for children. She loved that and all other fact books she can read. She is also learning Arabic on Duolingo as she has a friend who speaks Arabic (this was her own idea, nothing to do with me). Having a clever child is an adventure. And the more you encourage her in her interests, the better your relationship and the more she will respect you (if she is anything like my DD).

She sounds identical to my 6yo dd. It’s exhausting. Only difference is, mine becomes mute around other people and is quiet and well behaved at school. It’s like she stores it all up for us when she gets home. She also tantrums a lot when I put my foot down (I get so wound up and battle situations like the ones you’ve described- I’m trying not to do this now as it gets me nowhere and leaves me even more drained).
She also has this trait whereby, if there’s something she wants to be able to learn to do, eg, hoola hooping, cartwheels, skipping, using Healy’s, hover boarding, cursive writing, you name it, she will practice and practice, almost obsessively, until she nails it. Which she normally does. Obviously it comes hand in hand with “watch me” “watch me”, “look and me”. It’s constant. I love her so much though. 😁🤦🏻‍♀️

There have literally been 1 or 2 harsh comments and 3 pages of helpful constructive ones.
I get that you feel exhausted and defensive but you arent considering how to change the negative, exhausting loop you are in.

Put the sword down and step back.

Write a list of 7 things you want her to do.

1. Bedtime
2. Going out

3 Mealtimes Etc Work on and stick to those thingsonly If she wants to go to the park dressed mismatching or without a coat, fine. Dont struggle with unimportant things.

Look up 123 Magic.
Simple instructions, if she interrupts then
broken record not arguing, pleading or asking.
Tell her " Shoes on" " its bedtime"
3rd repetion and then consequence, you remove colouring, put her shoes on, leave.

Start with the expectation that she is going to put her shoes on not that theres going to be an argument.
You are in charge here, she needs you to be.

I have a 15 year old very wilful highly emotional absolute superstar who’s going to rule the world and do whatever she wants with her life who’s also one of my very best friends.

I was burned out at your stage too.

instead of looking for ways to change her I’d look for ways to preserve yourself.

protect your energy at all costs

take time for yourself

do things you love

choose your battles

wine?

I agree re schools need to continue their work and advocacy of teaching (and assessment) systems to be more inclusive and flexible. This year’s exams were extraordinary in their individualised provision for pupils who couldn’t sit in an exam hall, and whilst some of MH impact due to covid, not all.

In the meantime, i’m still working through how to reconcile the last decade shift in expectations, behaviours & attitudes of kids (and some parents) towards their oracy and listening skills, in group educational settings.

Apart from a v small number, each kid I’ve met with an ADHD, ASD, autism diagnosis has found some adults in educational setting that they can work well with , with limited difficulty, opposition, defiance or upset, but this is usually in small class groups. so there they are capable of choosing whose instruction to follow but really struggle with usual class sizes.

The thread (like many others) is about wider societal issue of whether parents are responsible or not for their children’s socialisation and for addressing what society deems unwanted behaviour , regardless of why they act the way they do.

OP your daughter’s behaviour is clearly bothering you , sounds exhausting and not working on many levels. One of my daughters sounds quite similar . Lists are her friend, taped to mirror in her room , the fridge and the front door. Headphones for noisy city days and quiet locations whenever possible.
I’ve resisted testing her as her presentation suggests a diagnosis but symptoms are manageable using techniques including some suggested by posters here .

good luck and hope you can find ways to make it easier for your family together

I’d try getting tougher first then if that doesn’t work, look at assessing her for asd, pda etc

Tell her you’ll count to three then say there will be a consequence. Don’t get into the trap of saying what the consequence is, so they can’t choose whether it’s worth defying it or not. It also gives you time to think of a consequence you can carry out rather than blurting out one that impacts on you too, or is impossible to carry out. You can also sometimes use a consequence by saying “we were going to buy an ice cream when we got to x place, but now the consequence for not getting ready by the time I counted to three, will be no ice cream”- when actually you had no intention of getting one anyway. They think they’ve had a consequence regardless. Don’t overuse this “trick” too much or they’ll get to know you are bluffing.

Ive seen pda before. Read up techniques on that. As a pp says, choices and phrasing things so they feel it’s a request not an order helps. Often something simple by just starting the sentence with “please do x” helps.

But try getting tougher first.

I had one a bit like this. What worked for us eventually was a firm voice. So "put your shoes on please". (Arguing etc). Then "put your shoes on this instant". I think I did so much explaining that it was overwhelming and my DS reacted my better to his DGF (I think it was the voice).

My DS remembered everything as well and knew what buttons to press (not to deliberately upset anyone but to play into your values). To this day he likes a debate.

Your DD sounds very bright. It will get better.

It is exhausting though, no wonder you are upset.

I am really not in the right emotional place to read such horrible thoughtless posts about what a crap child she is and what a useless mother I am.

Please try & ignore those ones - you are a great mum, and your DD sounds lovely.

You have a challenging situation to deal with, and some great advice here - which outweighs the shitty replies 💐

Apologies as I haven’t read all the responses- I think that Autism is a strong possibility. However I think ADHD is too. My son is both but I am ADHD and recognise myself as a kid in some of the things you’ve said! Don’t listen to the individuals saying you don’t need labels - they haven’t lived it. Labels are the key to understanding and help.

Might just be being 6!

Saying that, my kids are ND and noone picked it up at that age, we had to wait a while until they were quite a bit older. Teachers said no NDs, definitely not, now they had full ed psyc assessments and have more than one very clear ND! They are lovely little guys and it's made everyone's life easier knowing what we are dealing with.

Quite a few NDs present as problems with focus...first thing I thought of with your post was that. Then again could just be that she's little and has the energy of 10 people as 6 year olds seem to! Having a great verbal vocab can often happen with dyslexia funnily enough, and problems with processing and focus can also be a part of it...how's her reading and writing?

I honestly could have written all of it before the school part. My daughter is beyond hard work the lying and backchat is my massive gripe, she argues over everything, has an answer for everything and she is making it very difficult for us to be around her as everything is a challenge. You tell her no, she does not stop, literally. Its such hard work, I worry sometimes there is something underlying but all I get from school is, she is a lovely polite, intelligent, friendly little girl.
All in all I have zero advice for you but know exactly how you are feeling :(

Oh gosh and just ignore the ‘you’re a crap mother’ posts. There are individuals on MN who literally live to bring others down and tell them how terrible they are at being parents and all there kids needs is some discipline. They’re the amoebas of MN and are best ignored.

Your original post describes my 7 yr old. Hard work isn’t it. Hard to know what’s normal. We’re going down the GP route, husband has adhd and her cousin autism/adhd

The range of activities that your daughter did while left alone is very impressive, I think!

Can she read well? Does she play any computer games? To me she sounds bored.

My son is a year older and although not quite as argumentative has some traits in common. Things are much better if he is gainfully employed either with a long book (ideally a series of books) or some sort of game that he can play by himself. In either case the activity needs to be quite difficult -- eg online chess, where he's managed a blitz rating of about 500, but obviously isn't good!

I also think you need to give yourself permission not to treat her as an equal, i.e. to tell her what to do without feeling the need for endless justification.

As other posters have suggested, there may well be an underlying reason for her behaviour. Whether that is the case or not, it would definitely help your exhaustion to avoid getting dragged into the verbal tennis as much as possible. It sounds like you are treating her with so much kindness but you are entertaining a lot of nonsense and in doing so, granting her a level of control that is not appropriate. She needs you to be the adult.

The book How to Talk so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids will Talk has some good tips for reducing the word count of instructions.

So perhaps after the first request for shoes on, get down to her level, make eye contact, say her name and then just "shoes". Give her a minute to process that and if there is no action, then move to gently help her along her way. "I'm going to tidy away your colouring things now". I wouldn't personally say she needs more firmness, but I think fewer words and more action from you could be a way forward.

For me, going by what you have said it’s just you not being firm enough. I have 3 young kids and there is no way we would have time for that when trying to get everyone out. Can you imagine all 3 deciding they want to act like that?!
Give a 5 min warning that they need to finish as we are leaving soon.
when 5 mins is up if they refuse to come or argue the point, pick up child. Hold them still whilst shoes go on, carry to car and strap in.
Children need to know you mean what you say. If you say it’s time to come and she can say no and get away with not coming then every time will be a boundary push further and further. She is in charge, not you and for a child this can be very internally destabilising / worrying for them.
I find IME with family members who haven’t set clear boundaries that when it comes to teenagers, they challenge authority in school and don’t see why they should do what all the other secondary school kids do. This leads to problems in secondary school as school at this age just won’t put up with it.

I agree that the dialogue approach isn’t working for this child. OP, try firm instructions with no negotiation and introduce consequences for non compliance. Be consistent with it every time for a few weeks. By then you will see if it is going to work for her. The first week will be awful because she will be furious that her usual tactics aren’t working, so be prepared for that.

see how it goes - I’m a teacher and was a behaviour consultant for a while and my first thought with this child would be that she’s very intelligent and as worked out how to get her own way very efficiently. If the above approach didn’t work I would consider other things - ASD etc. However, from what you’ve said it does look like she’s just excellent at playing everyone.

Congratulations you have a 6 year old! They are bloody hard work. Dd is a bit better at 7 but nearly broke us at 6. Awful age IMO.

Just reading the comment about phenomenal long term memory, that's quite common in dyslexia too.

What we use (ADHD and another ND in our kids, not sharing too much as don't want to out myself) - quick morning chat about what the plan for the day is so everyone knows what to expect, 15 minute warning when we are leaving to go somewhere, 5 second count to do something in time, star chart, house rules. If someone tries to negotiate it's a breezy 'great we will do that later, we're doing this now' and get on with it. Firm around boundaries, evening time for discussion about why X or y did or did not happen, how stuff works, etc, but it doesn't get in the way of our schedule. It's very easy to implement this stuff when everyone knows it's a routine yet it's made a phenomenal difference to the happiness of our household.

Where did you get ‘lazy’ from? She sounds anything but.

OP She sounds very intelligent and that can be challenging in itself. If she is not autistic is she possibly highly gifted?

God I hope I didn’t make you feel criticized! Your kid sounds like a delightful, strong little girl! The way you describe her sounds like you genuinely admire her while she exasperates you. You certainly don’t come across as a bad mum at all, but a loving and kind one!