Cancelling dc club for tonight and bad behaviour

[Puddingbox]

Nc to not out myself.
Really could do with a handheld and opinions please.

Dc1 has been waking in the nighy. Initially because she was worried about something in particular (don't want to be super specific to not out myself) and we dealt with this with th3 teacher as dc was refusing to go back to bed and would come in our room from 3am and this meant one of us slept in the hallway so we could get back to sleep. This was only resorted to because dealing with it in the night by putting her back to bed was not working.

Dc1 also refusing to go to bed at night time by coming out and laughing like it is a game. Dc is 8 so should know better!
This has turned into something which was an anxiety to a game of sorts.

Things had improved for a couple of days where dc woke up and then went back to sleep without coming out.
However last night dc was again mucking about u til 10pm coming in , running in and out and being pretty cheeky. Then dc woke at 3am so I could tuck dc in. I know dc can go back to sleep themselves. And am now suspecting that this bad behaviour is partly due to Xmas (less boundaries, presents etc-we see a change of behaviour after Xmas every year) and so after some improvement dc waking yesterday I suspect was because I treated dc to joining a club they had been on a waiting list for for 2 years and we jist found out they have a space. Now dc behaviour is pretty spoilt and cheeky.

Anyways, this morning dc was screaming at me when i was brushing their hair and I told dc they could not go to their swimming lesson tonight.

AIBU?

If anyone has any helpful advice it would be really appreciated.
Thank you for reading

Just to clarify she has swimming every week, this is not her new club. She is an only child as well so as not to drop feed

I think you need to be careful about treating the night issue as bad behaviour if indeed there is some anxiety issues (I went through this at the exact same age and was ignored by my parents and it had quite an effect on me).

However, yes yes to this sort of punishment for bad behaviour. I did the same with my DS once cancelling not an activity but a day out. He didn't take me seriously because he knew we were meeting with a friend and thought he was smart to think that I wouldn't cancel on her at the last minute. Well I did! I explained the situation to my friend who was childless then but totally supported my decision.

DS had the biggest tantrum when he realised that it was really cancelled (he was younger, 5 or 6 I think) but the outcome was priceless. From there on, I only had to remind him of that day when he continued to mess about after a few warning and that ended it immediately.

Yes thank you swing I want to shock her into realising that this can't carry on. It was at first an anxious thing but she is laughing about it when she goes to bed and says "I'm not tired and I'm not going to bed" and is running from the living room to her room as if it is a game of Chase! In the night she has been going back to sleep. We've done various strategies as suggested by her teacher and it worked. But she wants us to get up and tuck her in every night at 3am. But the nights she didn't get up were , as she admitted , b3cause she wanted the reward at the end of the week which suggests this is alot to do with behaviour.

No doubt there have been and still are issues of her fear she has but I think this has developed into being quite a monkey!

Well you've said it now so you'll have to do it haha can't let her see you go back on your word. Consistency is key after all. Hmm I have contemplated keeping mine off clubs before (I have 3dc) but then I realised I would
A: Be wasting an opportunity to tire them out.
B: Potentially wasting money if already paid.
C: Losing out on a rare break from the little darlings.
D: Also if their are structured activities/competitions this may have a negative affect on others.
Maybe next time use a warning first and use other consequences/loss of priveledges e.g tv time, friends over that week, dessert etc.
If your DC is not sleeping well (a problem I've faced for a while) it's best to let her do anything thats using up some energy. send her in the garden get a trampoline take her for an evening walk followed by a warm lavender bath, a warm drink and chat about what you're expecting from her when she goes to bed for the night. You need to get the boundaries back in place asap and i find wearing them out and dosing them with lavender and talking about the days issues to be effective for me anyway. Dont let dc see you getting stressed out and stop the hallway sleeping it's showing her she has power over you...nip it in the bud.
Good luck x

Yes to punishing bad behaviour, but also important to reward the good.
How about a jar with buttons or pebbles etc. Start the week with 5 or 10 in it. Every time she stays in her room/goes to bed properly/helps around the house etc she gets another to put in. Every time she doesn't go to bed properly or wakes you during the night etc, one gets removed. Agree how many she needs to have in the jar at the end of the week to get a small reward, or save them up for something bigger after 4 weeks.
Does she have a proper bedtime routine - my DCs still liked to be read to at that age, and then 15 minutes reading to themselves before lights out. Agree that once that is done, no more getting out of bed.

Our DD (nearly 7) does the whole ‘I’m not going to bed’ bit

It get worse when DH is working away or about to go away.

When I’m here by myself I say fine, let the dogs out and ‘go to bed’ myself.

15 mins later she’sput herself to bed and is snorIng away.

Then resume evening.

Not ideal but it’s happening less and less.

Of course you can go back on your word. I do all the time. Just say ‘having thought about it, I said X because I was irritable and cross with you. Doing X make sure no sense, but can you understand why I was irritable and cross?’

I would say that since she’s had so little sleep she is too tired for swimming. She needs to get direct consequences for bad behaviour. For rudeness and cheekiness I would give a different consequence.

Are you still offering a reward for a good bedtime and a full night in bed?

I didn't keep mine off their extra curricular activities, I found other ways of dealing with poor behaviour.
There's a difference between going back on your word for an easy life, rather than because you've thought it through and it didn't make sense.
Talk to your dc and set boundaries, maybe stop the tucking in and just take stuff of them if they don't behave.
You do need to sort the bedtime shenanigans though, does your dc have a set routine.
Mine were only allowed to get up for the loo and otherwise stayed in their rooms from when we said goodnight.

Surely there are other things she likes and that can be used as rewards or to punish.

I wouldn't use a physical activity, as it's for their benefit and not a treat.

I do wonder if you're dealing with her behaviour in the best way.
Can't you keep returning her to bed and explain that you, as parents, need to sleep in your own bed?
The same for other problems.

At night, I'd give her lots of attention, read a book, have a quiet chat, until she relaxes and feels like sleeping. Make it a pleasurable time, with some giggles getting ready and lots of cuddles. Allow her to read a book quietly before falling asleep, if she wants.

Otherwise, you'll have a war in your home without any need.

is running from the living room to her room as if it is a game of Chase

By all means, play a game of chase. Then put on pjs and off to bed.
We used to have a good laugh and some rough play as the start of the bed routine and it worked out well. They use up some energy, release some feel well hormones, relax their muscles and welcome the bed.

We have a bedtime routine which is very defined. With bedtime story and then 10 minutes where she can read to herself. I give her fair warning as well. In the night we were putting her back to bed which went ok for 3 hours and she wouldn't stay or go to sleep. And so everyone was suffering.
We have a reward chart for sleeping in her bed and another for being well behaved. And she is close to getting all her srickers but unfortunately these stickers she got were on the good days which has not been consistent everyday.

Sorry meant to say went on for 3 hours*

Really appreciate everyone's ideas. Particularly like the idea of pebbles.

Hi my friend has mentioned the lush sleepy head lotion which can help to calm and help children sleep. I would ban my 7 year old from swimming if he had been naughty but then he adores swimming and would be devastated, but if she is not that bothered then it won't have the same effect but finding something else she would miss much more may help.

Thanks schmoozy yes she is very bothered. And I know she will have quite tr meltdown when i pick her up later because she isn't going.

Just because you have a set bedtime routine doesn’t mean it is the right one for her though.

As a former youth leader it used to drive me mad when we were used as a punishment! It’s not fair on the leaders who put in the time and effort and it undoes the benefit of going to an extra curricular activity

But the nights she didn't get up were , as she admitted , b3cause she wanted the reward at the end of the week which suggests this is alot to do with behaviour.
I would be careful about rushing to this assumption. Waking up at 3pm to the point of getting up is not normal behaviour at 8, so clearly something does wake her up.

From my experience having gone through this anxiety, I would say that the fact that she CAN not wake you up with the incentive of a treat doesn't mean she does wake up in fear.

I was a great sleeper until one day, I watched a news report about a 5yo child being kidnapped and later found dead. Everyone talked about it, but for me, it triggered a horrible fear that a man would come at night to kidnap me, torture me and then kill me. I used to wake my mum up to start with, but she was going through depression and as she explained to me, desperately needed her sleep and she told me off so badly a few times that it became a case of being scared of being kidnap vs fear of being told off

This lead to me arranging a whole plan to make things better. Although I went to bed early, I forced myself to stay awake until my mum went to bed. I would get up and put a bit of plastic in the lock because in my head, I convinced myself that the kidnapper would come in with a key that would open the door and this way, he wouldn't be able to put the key in. I then managed to train myself to wake up before my mum did to take it out. This was after I put it in before she went to sleep, found it, asked me what it was all about (and I laughed it off and didn't tell her because I expected her to ridicule me if I told her the truth). I was sleep deprived for months. The only time I slept well was when there was a storm because I'd convinced myself that a kidnapper would not pick a stormy day to do so.

Up to this age (mid 40s), I continue to sleep better when there is stormy weather! This lasted about 9 months I think. It's only in my 20s that I told my mum my experience and she was absolutely horrified to realise how deep seeded my fears had been. She thought I was just acting up a bit to stay up and just temporary anxious. She really never realised the extent of my distress and that despite this, I chose to keep to myself than try to explain it to her because the fear that she wouldn't listen or take me seriously was even worse.

Of course my experience don't have be that of your DD but at the same time, don't automatically underestimate that she could really be waking up in complete panic and that just having you walk in her room might be enough to take the edge and go back to sleep.

Yes swing there has been this underlying anxiety of this particular fear of hers. Not said what it is as it is likely to out me. And I have done lots with her. I have anxiety myself so I have used some of the cbt tools I have to help her. But I genuinely feel this is her trying it on as she is laughing in the night and making it like a game where she runs back and forth in the house in the night.

Laughing doesn’t mean she is finding it funny though it is simply an “easy” emotion to show a way to get her emotions out even if it’s not the most appropriate way

I would leave the evening/night behaviour out of it. Act on what you said for daytime bad behaviour. If she is in a badly behaved mode, she will show this during the day too, not just at night. I think that's what you've done anyway as you mention her messing about this morning?

Yes swing she was having a meltdown because I was putting her hair up for school and saying we needed to hurry up otherwise she will be late. She didnt want to go in as i had written in her reading record that she hadnt behaved at bedtime or in thr night as i have a communicarjon book with her teacher

And the reason why i sought support from thr teacher was because she was coming in tired for school. Her teacher has been great