To feel so utterly exhausted by my younger daughter

[Bonjourmonami73]

I feel awful writing this. I love my kids to death and would do anything for them. My DS is 11, laid back, calm, will eat anything you give him, do anything you ask.

My 6 year old DD is the total opposite and I literally broke down in tears from it earlier on. She won’t eat anything I give her, she won’t wear any clothes she has, she won’t sleep, she shouts at me, won’t listen to anything at all, won’t do what she is asked and has major tantrums constantly. It’s so exhausting.

I have just bought a book about willful kids to help but wondering if anyone can help. I am literally feeling broken by the frustrations of it. I resort to shouting which I am not proud of but it’s out of frustration.

I love her more than anything but I find being around her so testing and feel so drained by the end of the day from constant conflict. It makes me feel I am failing as a parent every day.

She wears what you ask to school at any other time she chooses. If that's completely inappropriate (in your view) so be it. It's a phase, it will pass. If she won't choose new clothes don't buy them (mine went through that phase too).

If she won't eat food you provide explain that meals are at set times, she can have input when you offer 2 options before you cook it but not change her mind when it's infront of her. If she doesn't eat it then no sweets and she waits until the next meal. She'll eat when she is really hungry.

Any tantrums and she's on the naughty step and silent for five minutes. I had a timer next to the step any shouting or enraged crying and it was reset for another 5 minutes. That all sounds tough but there was no way I was becoming a 24/7 meals service at their beck and call.

I used to give to options only as I think too much choice is overload(feel it myself in superstores),never knew it was a thing.
We had the clothes thing,I used to take unused clothes on holiday to get some wear out of them!
Try not to make meals a battle,my DD also had school meals so I didn't fret about the evening,she ate as soon as she got home as she was starving,so egg and soldiers,picnic food,baked potato with yogurt and fruit.Some days she didn't eat and was happy with milk/hot chocolate at bedtime.
Visiting relatives was sometimes tricky as she was past eating if she had to wait until late.She didn't like some good so she just had the bits she did(she luckily loves plain pasta and rice).
It won't cure everything but gives you a break and more resilience to the rest.

As you say she doesn’t sleep my first reaction was can she swim? My thought is that if she went swimming a couple of times a week she might sleep better and that would help with the rest of the issues.

Provided there aren’t SEN issues:

1. Involve her and your ds in the cooking / prepping meals process.

1. Let her choose her clothes for non-school days with the understanding that during school she wears what you want.

1. Make sure her underwear still fits - my dn went through a similar phase but turned out it was because she was feeling extra uncomfortable due to tight knickers and ‘rough’ vests. As soon as they were replaced she was fine.

Bekabeech is spot on.

My dd was like you describe. I found that cracking the sleeping was quite important. I changed our bedtime routine completely and turned back into an attachment parent for about six months, lay down in bed with her, made up long rambling stories till she fell asleep next to me, did a lot of bonding activities and cut back on the routines and expectations. At mealtimes I found she could not cope with family mealtimes, perhaps it was too intense for her, or she felt all the time that the spotlight was on her eating or not eating, whatever, she was really at her worse then. My sister suggested that she eat in a separate room with a little tray, treatstyle in front of telly for a short time so she could defuse some of her negative associations with meals. this helped. I was amazed how pandering in some positive ways helped. Whereas setting goals, and expectations didn't seem to make things work and in fact escalated a lot of situations.

Dd is not on the spectrum nor does she have any diagnosed issues, but I think there are sensory/ADHD traits there, she likes to be very firmly held, but then screams if you so much as brush past her and claims you have "hurt" her. Also lots of demands and a feeling of dissatisfaction with her life. But behaves well and school and now at 16 a lovely if sometimes lively, hardworking, sociable girl with a fantastic sense of humour (not always about her self though) She hates to be teased and always has. My dd is the youngest and I think she has found it difficult in that role, although no doubt elder children also have their own issues. She wanted respect but also to be "special".

I recommend the Out of Synch Child and Out of Synch Child Has Fun. Also person centred therapy helped dd, although I think it helped me, in the sense that I saw things from her point of view. That was only a few sessions when she was 8...

BlueJava I found your approach escalated things and just taught her to feel ashamed and angry. with some kids, the problem of powerlessness just goes underground. they learn compliance but not to understand why they are so angry in the first place.

I have a 5 year old who will throw a massive strop if she puts on something which she then doesn't like the look or feel of. She and I put clothes out for her at night time for the next day and if she doesn't like something she needs to sort it out herself by finding something else. This can get tense if we have to be out of the door for something so just make sure getting dressed is habitually done when she gets up, and if you have something hugely important/ early coming plan to have stuff ready for her that you know she is comfortable in and have a quick talk about how you need her help in the morning to get out and she'll need to sort out clothing as quick as she can.

Wrt food, my DD aged 5 can be so crap at eating what everyone else is eating but she is allowed to have left overs, toast, yoghurt or fruit, though sometimes we don't have toast or yoghurt or fruit so she is a bit limited. I try not to stress her or myself about it. You could do stuff like boiled eggs and chopped veg in the fridge if you just worried too much (eggs have all the micro nutrients you need, not necessarily in the right proportions, except vit c - when my two have had a rubbish week nutrionally I give them something eggy and get some favourite fruit) but on the whole I think the thinking is that unless they have a specific illness then they do balance their intake over all. So I would say figure out a strategy that takes the drama out of it FOR YOU (waiting for them to do low drama is laughably unrealistic) so you can shrug and say okay darling, kitchen's closed but if you are hungry have xyz in the fridge, help yourself. On the whole this works fine in our house and we haven't noticed it particularly discouraging them from family eating or trying stuff.

It's really interesting when they produce new challenges that hadn't even occured to you from the first time round, isn't it? Just in case you had cracked bloody anything about parenting....

I have the same situation in reverse. My oldest is hard work while the other 2 are a breeze.
Can she articulate what is wrong? My oldest has to have all clothing labels removed and wore the same outfit every weekend for a year. (I washed it when he went to school) Is she developing a preference clothing wise which isn't in her drawers? Would she like you to pick an outfit?

My coping mechanism was to say "come and find me when you can talk calmly" and leave the room.

We did "love bombing" picking up on anything at all they did right and super praising it.

High quality bedtime ie bath, story bed at 8 o'clock.

Pick your battles: stop stressing about clothes and food. Keep it simple, give them a 'picnic" cucumber sticks, grated cheese, boiled eggs, etc bananas then you don't feel so bad if they don't eat it.

Stop feeling like a failure! when did that become a thing? My parents just let us get on with it (70s), Benign neglect....not recommending that....but something in the middle between that and panic parenting.

Welcome to the world of daughters...

Nakedscientist
My dd used to eat a lot of “picnics”, still does. And her fave was eggs for a long time.

I have been talking about this thread tonight with Dd1, now 23.
She says she remembers feeling anxious and scared and as if my happiness depended on her choices. I have cried...
She says aged 6-8 she felt as if she couldn't really fathom out what mummy wanted her to do, she just wanted mummy to be happy... And some how it depended on her choices..
I think what she wS articulating is what lots of us have expressed is don't give choice. Children then feel responsible.
My darling daughter has said she also recognises it was difficult for me and that parenting is hard and she has no issues about her childhood... I cried a bit more!