Trouble with my 9 year old DD… please help :(

[KiaOraa]

My 9 year old is generally a good kid, but has her moments as they all do. Lately though, she’s been becoming more challenging, doing things she knows she’s not allowed to do. Nothing incredibly serious, just quite trivial rule breaking, but it’s really affecting my trust in her. I’ve explained in a calm way that I can’t trust her if she breaks my rules. She seems to listen and understand but then the rule breaking continues. I don’t let her play out in the street, and friends of hers do, but how can I trust her if she always breaks rules and lies to me?

After school today, she asked if she could have a hot crossed bun. DH bought some chocolate and salted caramel ones for a treat. There were 2 eaten which was strange as the packet was full last night. Not that I generally monitor the food, but that meant there wasn’t enough for one each. I asked DD if she’d had one, and eventually she told me that she had taken one and put it in her school snack box. For reference, school ask us to provide a small snack for school. Today I gave her melon and a madeleine.

This has really frustrated me because only a week ago, she took something from the kitchen for school snack as opposed to the snack I had provided her, and it contained nuts. Her school is nut free. She wasn’t caught with it at school but I dread to think about some child having a severe reaction because of her doing this. I had a serious discussion with her about this and how irresponsible it was and what harm she could have caused. She was very sorry at the time. I explained explicitly that she takes the snack I give her, but obviously today she sneaked something out of the kitchen again.

I always make sure that her snack is something that she likes, but I don’t give her anything containing chocolate, which is what she wants me to give her.

Tonight I got a bit fed up and spoke to her in a stern voice, telling her that she is not to take anything other than the snack I give her. She went absolutely crazy, screaming at me and frightening her sister. I told her to go out of the room and I took her with me to the hall. She continued to shout so I said she needed to stay out there and have a think about how she speaks to me. She was still shouting at me and I said, you need to stop shouting by the time I count to 5… at this point she opened the door, slamming it open and it’s hit me on the head.

Im absolutely heart broken. Where am I going wrong? What am I doing wrong? She is just lying and being deceitful all the time at the moment.

I have very few rules, but I do expect honesty. What do I do? 😢

“If she wants to change her snack can't she just ask?“

Honestly, she absolutely can. I actually showed her the snack this morning and said “is that okay?” She said “yes, thanks mummy!”

I think it's fine that kids don't have a chocolate bar in the school day.

They can have them at home!

@Nooyoiknooyoik i needed to hear this… thank you! Relationships with kids are always evolving and I don’t claim to be doing everything right. I don’t know what’s for the best half the time. I really appreciate your advice. ❤️

I would look at the school policy with her each week and ask her what she wants for school snacks. Give her that autonomy to plan it out herself.

Keep track of what she has chosen, maybe keep it in a box labelled 'school snacks'.

Tell her that if she keeps taking chocolate/ non-school snacks to school, you will stop buying it to have at home because she can't be trusted, and you will only buy school-approproate snacks, end of.

I used to take and hide food because I had very little control of anything in my life at that age, there were other things happening but I do remember taking food, hiding it and not even eating it, it really was therapeutic for me.

Perhaps you can be slightly less rigid and let her control what after school snack she has, put her snacks in a box with her name, ask her what she wants on the shop within budget.

You sound quite ot about playing outside, I would allow her to and only revoke it if she can't follow the rules you set beforehand about checking in and home at a certain time.

@spelunky thank you! That’s basically what I did after the nut situation. I asked her to tell me what she likes and bought exactly that. However, she still took something else. Simply because she knew it’s not allowed and she wanted it.

*You sound quite ot about playing outside, I would allow her to and only revoke it if she can't follow the rules you set beforehand about checking in and home at a certain time.

Really? But she’s really careless at the road side. So I should just let her play out unsupervised despite me knowing she’s not careful enough to keep herself safe?

In that situation I would make it clear that if she takes something like that again, you will only buy fruit/ healthy school snacks, full stop.

She gets the autonomy to choose what she has at school, within the school rules. That's life - you have to follow rules - but within that, ou get choice.

If she can't stick to that and continue to take chocolate etc, then you stop buying chocolate altogether and only buy school approrpiate snacks, so she doesn't have the choice.

She'll soon stop if you do that.

I’m sorry I know this is a serious post and I’m sure you meant some slices of melon but the image of your DD taking in a melon as a “small snack” is making me laugh. Poor girl probably couldn’t open the thing.

I imagine she was less careful because you were there, my DD does the same, however seems very capable when I'm not there supervising.

Also, sometimes children need to experience the close call of a risk before the importance of what their parents say sticks.

Really surprised at some of these comments. She’s 9, assuming she has a good breakfast, she can last until lunchtime with only a small healthy snack as per school rules. Why are people so determined to provide a treat like snack? Also 9 is young to play out especially with no road sense. Trust your own instincts re this.

I actually think you sound pretty soft in the way you deal with her, almost like you are pleading with her to comply with your rules around not lying rather than sanctions for breaking them.

She might well be more responsible when she doesn't have you to rely on. 9 seems a bit on the older side for just playing out on the street, my dc were walking home alone by that age.

Could you try asking her "what do you want from ......" and choose a fruit and something rather than making it and asking if it's ok?

I'm just thinking that if someone says "is toast ok" I'd answer yes - because I like it even if I'd rather something else.

Have her choose snacks from shop for week and have in her own snack box.

Put the other treat food out of sight and reach and so cannot access that.

Agree hormones likely play a HUGE part at her age too.

I agree that all you can do is let her choose her snacks & impress on her that treats are available for outside of school.

As for the playing out-if she messes about with the friend & wouldn't be careful I would say it's not worth the risk.

You are mad because she has eaten two hot cross buns? One without asking? I think you need to chill out a bit, in the grand scheme of things does it really matter she took a hot cross bun as a snack into school? Sounds a bit trivial to be getting so cross about.

Can you ask her each evening if she wants X or Y (both choices being the healthy non chocolate things)?

Currently you are more or less saying 'you'll have what I give you and nothing else' which is different from 'here are the things you CAN have, which of those would you like tomorrow?'.

By doing that then she knows exactly what to expect in the snack box. It's not a 'surprise' when she opens it.

@Favouritefruits

but then her eating two means there isn’t enough left for everyone in the family to try
one. And that’s not fair is it?

Does she get to eat chocolate at home? (Besides in croissants)

@Tekkentime - yep! She certainly isn’t hard done by on that front. I try not to make a fuss of chocolate and send an “everything’s fine in moderation” message to my kids.

I'm surprised then by her reaction. It probably is just her way of rebelling a little bit.

This post could have been about me as a child. I had a similarly strict mother and we used to end up in huge arguments about small things like this. As an adult, I very much suspect I am on the Autism spectrum, but to others they would never have realised - quite typical for girls. In situations like this, when challenged, I would panic and not be able to explain my reasoning. I would then get in trouble, feel increasingly overwhelmed and unable to communicate, until I ‘melted down’ in a similar fashion to how you describe. My relationship with my mother was absolutely destroyed around this age and never recovered, as everything became a conflict. This may also explain the lack of road awareness.

I may be way off base here, and I do not know your individual situation. It may be absolutely nothing like this so please do not feel I am diagnosing anything, but I wish someone had said something to my mother before our relationship was irrevocably destroyed.

@KiaOraa

has she apologised for hurting your head op?

I don’t understand why people are saying you are controlling. You are definitely doing the right thing by encouraging a healthy diet.
I simply wouldn’t buy any sugary snacks during the week (no temptation)
they should be seen as treats, so just a weekend thing.

I don't see what you do as strict. She gets a choice. Taking the extra bun was greedy and plain old fashioned naughty!

@LuckySantangelo35 yes, she has apologised. She was very upset about it and told me she feels very guilty.