Just after some advice please -
Myself and my husband had a boy 7 years ago and initially husband wanted another child quite shortly after so the age gap was small. We tried and failed to conceive for nearly 2 years after son was born and both agreed to go down the adoption route. To cut a long story short, we ended up adopting a gorgeous little girl who was 2 at the time and our son was 4.
Everything was amazing during the introductions and even more so when she moved in with us. She has been with us for nearly 3 years now and we are slowly noticing her behaviour changing. I do not believe it is ‘terrible threes’ or ‘terrible fours’ as some family members and friends have suggested - I truly believe she has undiagnosed ADHD as birth mother and father both have been diagnosed as well as autism in the family, she was born at a very low birth weight due to substance misuse throughout the pregnancy.
We are really struggling now as she tends to target our son, who is the total opposite and to be quite honest, I am starting to feel sorry for him. He cannot sit down without her jumping on him, spitting on him, nipping, biting etc. She also destroys his toys and special things such as Lego builds and special gemstones and coins. She breaks his toys and throws his stuff in the bin and just tonight she has taken his glass of lemonade from him and spat in it and found it hilarious. She loses her temper fairly easy and tends to squeeze people or things, including our dogs. She grabs our dogs’ fur and pulls their tails despite being told 100 times a day that’s unacceptable. We teach her right from wrong and she does understand what she’s doing is wrong however when being told off just smirks and laughs at us. We have tried taking toys away, she just goes and takes her brothers stuff. We have tried the naughty chair, she starts climbing all over it and singing and making noises. She cannot focus on anything or follow simple instructions and often forgets what she’s been asked to do within seconds. For example if she has her shoes on the wrong feet, we say ‘oh, swap them over’ she will take them off then put them on the same feet again, or if being asked to go get her shoes on she will leave the room and come back with a toy instead, forgetting about being asked to put her shoes on. She tends to latch onto people as well, no concept of personal space and constantly interrupts people when they’re having a conversation. She will climb all over people despite being asked not to and often goes through people’s belongings despite being told no.
Anyway, I do plan on having her assessed for ADHD but my main reason for the post was just some advice on how to deal with this behaviour in the meantime as nothing we are doing currently is working. It has gotten to the point where family members aren’t willing to support with childminding due to a few incidents of her hurting their dogs and telling quite significant lies about things (for example at my parents house she shouted ‘stop making me kick the dogs!’ When there were no dogs in the room with her. Also she was told NOT to pick a small dog up because he is quite old and within minutes she had picked him up and thrown him on top of a cage and his legs got stuck in the gaps, which again she found hilarious).
Please, no judgement just advice!