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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To really dislike my daughter

126 replies

RachLeighmum · 15/03/2013 09:30

I am sitting here in tears having just returned from another traumatic school run. My daughter is 6 and she is simply making our lives a misery. She acts like a spoilt brat, constantly whinges, is rude, she hits me, screams - the list is endless. So today's drama, we're walking to school and she - prancing about - drops her red nose. It rolled under the buggy I was pushing with my 6 month old dd and inevitably the wheel went over it. Cue, hysterics as her nose was now muddy and she couldn't possibly wear it (there was a smudge of mud which I wiped off). The rest of the way she cried, screeched and hit me. It was highly embarrassing and my blood was boiling.

Every day without fail we have this. It is causing an atmosphere in the house and nobody is particularly enjoying life at the moment as it is a black cloud hanging over us. I think my husband loves going off to work!

I feel envious of everyone who has that nice Friday feeling today. I, on the other hand, am dreading the weekend, dreading there being no school and having to spend two full days with my daughter.

There is not much left to confiscate. My dd's share a room and think that would hurt/punish dd1 most is if I moved the baby out of her room and into my son's room (he has a big room and would love this).

I just don't know what to do specifically with the sharing issue, and generally with how to deal with this nightmare. I feel sick to my stomach. Please please give me some advice xx

OP posts:
adeucalione · 15/03/2013 09:35

Generally speaking, if a child is a problem, then she has a problem, and it's your job to find out what that is. Possibly it is the subconscious realisation that her DM doesn't like her very much? FWIW I don't think you need to continue confiscating things, she needs a barrel load of hugs, attention and love (because she's 6). She sounds like a deeply unhappy little girl, I am sure she isn't 'enjoying life' at the moment either. How is her behaviour at school?

GiveMeStrength2day · 15/03/2013 09:35

Unfortunately I don't have any advice. But I feel your pain. My DD (5yo) is the same and, like you, I dread weekends. So have some Thanks and a Brew from me

adeucalione · 15/03/2013 09:36

Also - if the baby is in her room, is she getting enough sleep?

Helltotheno · 15/03/2013 09:37

Maybe the two of you should consider going to a psychiatrist to try and get to the bottom of it?

foslady · 15/03/2013 09:37

Are you engaging with her when she plays up? The weekends are an ideal time to start. Sit her down when she's calm and tell her when she acts up she WILL leave the area and you will not discuss the issue until she has got over the hysterics. If she comes back to you turn away and repeat 'I cannot tell what you are saying when you talk like this so I cannot sort anything - go and calm down and speak to me when you are able to talk normally'. My dd would get hysterical - snot, tears, anger, but eventually she learned that I would not put up with this and would only discuss the problem if she calmed (obv this wasn't the case for genuine upset!).
HTH

pictish · 15/03/2013 09:38

How did it come to be that she felt at liberty to hit you in the first place? When did all that start?

tiggytape · 15/03/2013 09:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

foslady · 15/03/2013 09:39

BTW, when she does come back calmer, hugs, talking it through, and tell her how good she is for doing this....

foslady · 15/03/2013 09:40

Oh - sorry, one more thing, we are all allowed to dislike there behaviour. It doesn't me we don't love them as our child

GirlWiththeLionHeart · 15/03/2013 09:41

There was a post just like this about a 6 year old girl last week. Ill try and find it as it had good advice op.
I second the view she is picking up on your feelings towards her. How do you react to her whining etc? Do you ever try and make light/a joke of it?

It does sound hard

pictish · 15/03/2013 09:42

Absolutely...none of us lke people who hit us, and scream at us...even if they are small. Love and like are different things.

OTTMummA · 15/03/2013 09:42

DS was like this after DD was born in July.
He still has his moments but i find one on one attention helps us reconnect a bit more and I always make sure he has either me or DH play a game in the evenings before bed.
I think that he was just adjusting to the new baby and I was expecting it to happen straight after she was born, but it didn't start until about 4/5 months after ( probably when he realised she was here to stay Grin )

SconeInSixtySeconds · 15/03/2013 09:46

It is such a tough situation, I really feel for you.

My dd is not easy - never has been. But when her behaviour kicks up a level it is generally the classic old cry for help.

It can take a lot to reach her, lots of cuddles, love bombing, time spent together to get her to open up, but it is almost always insecurity and sadness that is causing her to act like the world has ended.

The feelings of small children are so inextricably linked with their perceptions of how much their parents like and love them that by withdrawing you may be causing more of the behaviour.

It has taken us a while to reach this point (dd is 9) but I worked out that the tantrums were leading to an argument/confrontation which then led to sulking to an eventual apology and a hug. Which was actually all she wanted in the first place - a hug.

Original poster
RachLeighmum · 15/03/2013 09:47

Thank you so much for your replies. I don't think she is overly tired, baby goes to bed at 6.45 and sleeps through til 6.30am which is when we all get up. The lashing out, I guess it started a couple of years ago, she does it when she is angry. She is obsessed with her sister, to the point that even that sometime causes friction as I have to ask her to give baby some space/let me feed/change her, let her brother have a cuddle, etc. She cannot deal with not having her own way. Yes, if i could go back, I would do things so differently, I have spoilt her. I fear she feels labelled the 'naughty one' of our three children, I don't know how to rectify that, I know her feeling labelled that way is completely wrong but I just don't know how to rectify it especially when her behaviour is atrocious every single day. X

OP posts:
Hopasholic · 15/03/2013 09:48

Did it start to escalate around 6 months ago? It sounds on the face of it that she is trying to get as much attention from you as she possibly can before she has to go to school while you spend the rest of the day 121 with your dd2.
I would let your DH have the baby all day on Saturday and do something really nice with your dd1 on your own. What's her relationship like with her DS? It will get better, she needs a lot of positive attention and try your best to ignore her when she's seeking attention by playing up.

Hopasholic · 15/03/2013 09:49

X posted Smile

willyoulistentome · 15/03/2013 09:50

My 9 year old son has always been like this. Our family life - dreading weekend etc has also always been like you describe. I could not STAND my DS for ages. DS has just been diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome. I have read loads about it and it now all makes sense. Since we have adjusted our expectations of him, and understand what causes him to behave the way he does things have become much better. He is MUCH happier, and so are we. I would definitely write it all down - write down all the behaviours that worry you, everything you think is not normal and go to your GP with it. It may be nothing - perhaps she is just reacting to not enough sleep or a new baby or whatever. But it's worth finding out if it is something more.

Good luck!!!!!

SconeInSixtySeconds · 15/03/2013 09:53

The other thing we did that really helped at about your dd's age was to let her get a pet, in dd's case a guinea pig. Having another thing to love showed her that if she could love another new thing without it making her love us less we could love another person (in our case ds) without loving her less.

Corygal · 15/03/2013 09:55

I would rule out the obvious - food, sleep, boundary problems - then take her to the doctor.

lia66 · 15/03/2013 09:57

love bombing

Sounds to me like your daughter is very unhappy. She's just a child. She's challenging you and needs you to remind her how much you love her no matter what.

Chocotrekkie · 15/03/2013 09:59

my 6 year old was exactly like this (and still can be) we ended up shutting her in the porch one day when she pushed her sister downstairs deliberately.

We sat down together just the 2 of us early one morning (she gets up at 5.30 every bloody day) and made a massive week long sticker chart. It had about 40 columns in detail - come downstairs when asked, eat breakfast, brush teeth, get dressed, walk to school etc and it did help to narrow down the trigger points.
She was responsible for deciding if she had been good enough to get the toy at the end (funnily enough she was !)

One big trigger was what was on tv in the morning - We both now know she has to have her tv off at 7.45 before her favourite prog come on as she doesn't like switch it off once she has started to watch it.

Hunger is also a trigger - she has a snack the minute she is home from school.

Also I know I need to keep an eye on her food intake - if she hasn't eaten her dinner then I just take it away and she will have porridge before bed. If she hasn't eaten lunch then she will get a snack an hour later.

Pick your battles carefully and try to offer choices (do you want the pink or white socks rather than you must put socks on now)

Tiredness also a problem - she just won't sleep past 6 o'clock in the morning but she will lie in bed with the tv on low and kind of doze..

greenfolder · 15/03/2013 10:01

when you have got to the point where you have nothing left to confiscate, you have to accept that this is not working.

with dd2- i decided to ignore about 90 per cent of it. the 10 percent that mattered, i rewarded her for an improving picture. so, rather than reward or take things away for an incident, i would review with her weekly (might be too long for a 6 year old)- so, i would say- you were great on monday-this is what you did right- what happened on tuesday and why?

noticing good behaviour really worked- it takes a leap of faith though

ImTooHecsyForYourParty · 15/03/2013 10:01

Have you ruled out SN? (not likely but it's always best to rule out any issues that may be causing such behaviours) Have you seen if there is outside help, support and advice you can access to help you to manage her behaviour? Maybe seen if the school has any ideas?

Scoobyblue · 15/03/2013 10:05

Sounds fairly basic but have you tried a star chart? For specific things such as getting to school it worked wonders for ds2. Before we set off, I would firmly remind him that if we had a calm and pleasant journey to school with no tantrums, he would get a star on the chart. 5 stars = small prize (packet of match attax here). But you have to be very firm and only give the star if the journey has been absolutely problem free (which can take a few days). Lots of well dones and a big hug when you are putting the star on the chart too, so there are really two prizes - the positive affirmation and the star.

Pixieonthemoor · 15/03/2013 10:14

Whenever my dd has been difficult, I have felt myself withdrawing from her. I stopped hugging her, chatting happily with her etc as, frankly, who wants to engage with someone who is throwing hissy fits and behaving badly. It is a natural reaction. However, when I made the conscious decision to go way in the other direction, I found it really really helped. Post tantrum, I really tried to talk gently and nicely to her, hugging, bringing up things from the recent past that I could squeeze in a compliment or two ('you know, I was really proud of how you sat so beautifully in the coffee shop the other day' or some such). Paying more attention, not less, increasing time spent with her instead of avoiding her is pretty difficult and you have to make a conscious effort but I did/ do find it helps.

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