To be mad with DD over this?

[nicknamegame]

DD is 6, and although generally an ok sleeper, she still tends to wake early at weekends etc. The issue I have is that when she has woken up, she pretty much won't give up until I get up too. Not unusual in kids I guess, but I'm kinda wondering when dd will entertain herself or not make such a dramatic entrance into our room in the mornings. She literally 'runs' into the room as though someone's chasing her and invariably whacks the bedroom door against the wall, which generally means I get woken pretty unpleasantly. If she wakes in the night ( she has episodes of waking at least once a night for weeks at a time), it will also be a running/whacking the door entrance which scares the shit out of me tbh)
If I send her back to her room, she will come back in EVERY 5 minutes, literally will not give up, so getting back to sleep is impossible and weekends usually start with one of those groggy headaches.
This morn she woke up at 6, and did her usual of 'bursting' dramatically into my room. We have visitors who she loves and wanted to wake them up as well- I refused to let her, so said she could either get in my bed for a cuddle or go back in her room, she stood there sulking demanding to be allowed to go up and jump on said visitors. I saw red at her standing there pouting and whining, and having to deal with a potential tantrum before even opening my eyes so I shouted at her to get back to bed, waking up my OH beside me.

Since then, DD has now burst back into my room on 10 minute intervals, (the last one dressed in Santa Claus outfit (funny!). I lost my rag though and physically frogmarched her back to the room, shouting.
She's in there now sobbing, and I've woken the visitors anyway because I can now hear them upstairs. It's now also time to get up so technically she got what she wanted - just took a bit longer than she would have liked. I know was BU shouting and reacting, but sometimes I feel my DD is a classic only child (sorry- usually hate that term) in that she refuses to entertain herself and sees me and my needs as completely irrelevant. She bursts into the bathroom when I'm on the toilet, and if I send her out, she will stand outside laughing into the gaps in the hinges about 'what I'm doing on the toilet' etc. If I'm eating something she wants she will try harass me til I give it to her, or she will 'monitor' what I eat, so if I give her one biscuit and I have two, she has her eye on my other biscuit the whole time she is eating her own, commenting on why I have more than her.

Writing it down - I think she doesn't know she is a child or at least that I'm an adult!
I kinda figured I would get a little more personal space as she got older and I'm resenting the fact that I don't.

Am I being unreasonable? Unrealistic maybe? I feel guilty now that she's upset but sometimes I wish I could make her see that it's ok to be awake on her own, or that it really isn't ok to not allow me personal space at times.

re getting into shouting matches.
This is where you need to be strong. Say "I have told you my decision, I am not going to discuss it any more". And then don't discuss. Just ignore the whining if you possibly can. If necessary shut yourself in the bathroom for a while, but ignore. It takes 2 people to argue.

Also re banging your bedroom door onto the wall. Get a doorstop or use a cuddly toy so it doesn't bang.

on repeat in our house are variations of the following:

Me: No
DD: please Mummy / Why not, Mummy / but I really want xyz Mummy....
Me: DD, what happens when you keep asking after I have said no?
DD: You get cross

No, of course I don't expect a small child to do what they are asked first time every time! Not at all.

But your dd seems to have no concept of how much this door banging early waking is for you ... and the way you describe it in your op, it has been going on for years. Surely you must have spoken to her about it before now?

If you have a Phoenix person near you they so lovely star charts!!

*do

To be honest - and I know this night sound stupid, but for years I kind of ignored the dramatic aspect of how she enters our room just incase it was related to a bad dream, plus as I said, she is certainly capable of coming in nicely. It's only really today, coupled by her dreadful waking of the whole house with the tantrum that I've accepted there is no fear there - she is bursting into the room out of disrespect.

She spends time at her dads at the weekends and he is an early riser, and I think much happier to be up and about as early as she likes, but that's something she just needs to learn to work on. I've decided as of today I'm no longer happy for her to charge into our room like a bull, hence posting on here.

As it stands, this thread has also highlighted for me the situation with her arguing with me the or the giving me orders, or using a high pitched nails-down-a-blackboard voice to communicate with me. I want it to change but I know I have a huge part to play in that.

Can someone talk me through sticker charts? To be honest, I've been a bit crap in the past, never really getting whether they should be used/drawn up to work on negative behaviours or rewarding bad behaviours. So do I give a star if she gets through the day having avoided the behaviour that is unacceptable? What is the goal- should it be linked to her dance class, or a weekend treat? And should it be one strike and you're out kind of thing or is there 'chances'?

I don't think anyone suggested (not that I saw, apologies if I missed it) that there was any mistreatment of her friends but lets face it smothering a child and crying in class at that age is hardly fair or age appropriate behaviour is it? So when I said she would end up with struggling to keep friends it was because of this and not any mistreatment, I do realise it is out of love but still her friend/other children will outgrow/be put off by this stifling behaviour.

I just noticed you said you would be a reward chart, I definitely wouldn't do this at all at all. Reward charts are for encouraging good behaviour not trying to stop bad. You are going to reward her for stuff she should be doing anyway? Bad idea, in my opinion, just get tough, man up, stop shouting and start warning in advance what the consequences to her behaviour are and stick to it.

Don't stop dancing today, it's too late, she needs to know in advance what the consequences are not after the fact

For the "high pitched nails-down-a-blackboard voice" or indeed the general whingy voice, my standard reaction when I catch myself before I just snap "stop whinging, DD" is "I cannot hear the words when all I can hear is whinging. Try again in a proper voice"

Sorry x posts - so what are you going to say "Well done dd here is a star for not bursting into our room, for not being disrespectful, for not shouting and for not ordering mammy about - well done"??? - eh no, she just doesn't do it, people don't get rewarded for not being bad

Magic, how would you tackle the issue with her friend? I am genuinely at a loss. I can't control how she is on the playground, I've talked it through with her a million times, told her off if I've heard she was crying at school, kept her away from said friend at weekends to try and dampen the attachment, spoken to child's mother, sat with dd and her teacher to talk about needing to play with others and the importance of giving people space. I literally don't know what to do with this one.

nick you really think she is dissing you deliberately.Maybe she has just forgotten that you are not her Dad who is up early. I find that 'respect' and 'disrespect' a fairly frightening way to talk. It reminds me of yobboes going down the street say "You dissing me man?".Do you respect her?

It also tends to be used by corporal punishment supporters to rule by fear it's not something to be used with DCs IMO.

Re dance class (or TV privileges, which would be cheaper and easier to enforce) - How about 5/10 objects in a jar on top of the fridge (pieces of pasta, ping pong balls, whatever). Every transgressions sees one removed - if they are all gone by a given deadline, then no dancing/TV that week? Something very visual to remind her how close she is to losing it.

I have to admit, the first time she didn't lose any I would be tempted to reward her, but I wouldn't mention that bit in advance.

What is her pal like - as in is she sort of the same as your dd, is she happy for the two to just play together etc?

Well that's the thing I've never really got with sticker charts, at the moment there are several aspects of her behaviour I want to tackle, so how can I give her something to work towards rather than telling her off about it all week? Lots of people here have mentioned sticker charts to sort it out, does anyone else have a suggestion on how I should draw it up?

Just on a practical note, for now get a big heavy doorstop to put behind your bedroom door so it doesn't slam against the wall when your dd comes in.

Maybe to deal with the problem of her friend; you could invite a couple of other friends she likes in her class or the street for short times. Give them tea or something.

Definitely agree with magestic re the reward charts - why reward her for something she should already be doing? I'd sit her down and make a few ground rules, not too many but 'loose' enough in their wording to cover pretty much all circumstances, e.g. In our house we have "we are kind and polite to each other", "we tidy up after ourselves" and "we eat food at the table".

Of course reward her for a sustained period of good behaviour and for making an effort but definitely do not give in to anything - you will need to be 100% consistent and make the sanctions clear before you start and stick to them!

I am a teacher in a secondary school and when I first started we had a rewards system which was awful - there were no set things that children got rewarded for so for instance there were generally naughty children who got reward points for sitting down when asked or remembering to bring a reading book in or answering 1 question in class. The ones who worked hard and behaved all the time found it much harder to get rewards as they did all that stuff anyway so didn't need any reward points to encourage them to keep it up. At the end of the year the prize winners with the most points were always the naughty kids...so they carried on with how they were behaving (badly) because they were getting prizes for it and the good kids stopped trying to get rewards because they just couldn't keep up with the number of points the naughty kids got.

I could see their point - the system was wrong and those who really deserved the rewards were not getting them and the pupils who needed to improve their behaviour had no incentive to do so as so little was expected of them anyway. Not the best example i know...Hopefully you can see my point...!

Ppea I think you might be taking me out of context- I certainly don't have a military type view of discipline, nor do I think my dd is 'dissing me' (!)
I'm coming at it from a point of view that my dd is struggling massively to understand the need to try and think of other people's needs. She knows I'm off work today sick for example, and still kept that drama going this morning, little things are pointed out to her to help her develop a sense of empathy for others, such as 'please give me privacy in the bathroom- it's isnt respectful to shout through the hinges while I'm on the toilet, or it isn't respectful to roar at me to change channels or bring you a drink', that kind of thing.

We have things like the examples I gave before plus 'getting ready for school properly', 'making my bed' and 'not going into ds's room without his permission'! Just whatever is relevant to the time. They can change weekly depending on what we need to work on/what is a problem. I phrase it positively and we talk about what the expectations are and what she can achieve. Seriously though it isn't an opportunity for mega presents or anything. It's to get the things we would do normally if behaviour is good but its stated in advance. I probably wouldn't use dancing as a reward more the smaller things. Maybe 10 stars is baking some cakes, 20 is a trip to the park and an ice cream and 30 is her favourite making it magazine? Then there is a link between the nice things in life and behaving well/being part of a family and towing the line a bit.

[[https://www.phoenix-trading.co.uk/web/corp/area/shop-online/category/amanda-loverseed/product/RBS45/my-reward-chart-organiser-pad/ I use this one for dd]

try again

I think you are making excuses for her, you are biased and could be overestimating your' lovely little girl', she has trouble mixing in school for whatever reason - could be because she hasn't learnt how to interact with people without fighting, .It takes two to fight and if you are fed up with it then stop!!!
Being possessive over her friend sounds like insecurity and controlling and if teachers have had to speak to you about it then it is a problem now.
You keep saying you 'tried but it didn't work' distancing her from this friend again reinforcing her belief that if she makes enough fuss she gets whatever she wants.
She will be so unhappy being like this and it is up to you too stop making excuses and start getting help to parent her differently if what you have tried hasn't worked.

Ppea- I do invite her friends from class all the time, I'm desparate to change the smothery-friend situation but its to no avail. She will happily play with other kids - but her number one pal is always there at the back is her mind and she would happily ditch other friends as soon as her bestie appeared. Her eyes literally glaze over like a love struck puppy (I'm not kidding!)

Majestic- her friend loves her very much too and they are always delighted to see each other, but this friend is a little bit of an intellectual (of that makes sense at such an age!) and loves to play games which are slightly beyond my dd, such as digging for archeological finds, playing 'museums' and detective role plays, which bore dd, so they bicker. This friend also complains (although kindly I must admit) about my dd not giving her any space on the playground to play with others. They also bicker during play dates but then beg for another one a few days later, so in a way, they can't seem to do without each other BUT my dd's behaviour will always go a step further. For example, she never wants a play date to end and have a crying fit about it, whereas her friend is always 'cool' about home time. Her friend also sometimes decides she has had enough and calls time on a play date, which causes my dd to complain about her in front of her. Basically the little friend is lovely, but very 'together' in a way my dd finds hard to achieve.

God I can't win. I've said I know it needs to change, I've said I will incorporate a sticker chart, get the clock, and talk to dd tonight. I've said I won't stop dancing tonight based on advice I've received here. Can you tell me how I've made excuses for her? I actually think I'm being overly negative about her on this thread, and have had this pointed out to me too. Really, the friendship issue is genuinely one that I DON'T know how to fix, please tell me how to sort that out rather than just tell me off about it??

Neena- thanks for that link, will go and check it out now