to think I'm failing as a parent

[BitsinTatters]

Dd1 is 7. Eldest if 3.

She is battling everything. If I ask her to go and get dressed she scowls at me and is grumpy etc. Every thing results in storming around slamming doors, shouting at people.

Refuses to wash / brush teeth / brush hair. Everything is a battle.

Or she can be really teary. I make sure we do stuff alone so she's got time to talk if she needs but it doesn't seem to be helping.

What am I meant to do ? I'm getting really down and tired with all the grumpiness. I have tried talking to her about it and she agrees she's grumpy but doesn't know why. The only way to get her to do any thing after asking a few times and getting nothing but sulky faces or shouted at is to say right I will count to 3 and if you are not doing X then you won't be watching TV today / going to the park / going to party today etc

It's destroying me :(

She wants to tell you something that you are not hearing.

I still like 'How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk', really helped with my youngest stroppy pants (aged 8). It seems to be a stage, when they come out of that cuteness of early school age and into sighing heavily, eye rolling, cheekiness and generally acting like anything you do is the most ridiculous thing ever. It used to wind me up a lot.

Now I have established that if you are rude to me, then I won't do nice things for you- you have to be basically polite (that's not to say they are always polite, but with a quick reminder, they are in the main). Sometimes I do ignore a minor bit of eye rolling and keep going and they just snap out of it. Think less about how you can enforce boundaries and more about how you can be close and have fun, and then discipline on the odd occasions. That book is really helpful for this.

And learning to listen is a skill, I am rubbish at it, I found the book very helpful in reminding me how to shut up a bit and actually listen, and both children do talk with me more about their worries/ideas, this is a time in which they are growing up, even if you feel she is still very little.

She wants to tell me some thing that I'm not hearing ?

That sounds worrying.

"She wants to tell you something that you are not hearing"

I'd say that it sounds like a wind-up personally OP, if it were genuine advice why would the previous poster stop there and leave a cryptic message like that? Not helpful at all.