Mother of god I'm seriously going to lose my shit

[imgoingtoloosemymind]

Help help help

I have an 8 year old dd who is amazingly bright and whom I love with every fibre of my being. She is my whole world. But fuck I'm so fucking frustrated with her.
She does. Not. Fucking. Listen. To. Me.

It can be anything... DD can you please bring XYZ downstairs?
She will lift X and Y, and walk past Z. I'll remind her 3 times. She'll still forget.

Last week we were in the kitchen. She was reaching for a glass in the cupboard. I could see that she was going to knock it flying.
I asked her 4 times... 4.... stop... step back and be careful. Did she listen? No! She knocked the glass over and 2 others with it. Smashed all over the counter top.

We are sitting watching telly this evening. She's drinking lemonade from quite a thin wine glass style tumbler. I noticed she was tapping it with her teeth. 3 times I had to ask her to stop doing it. 3 times. Next thing I looked and the glass is in about 5 pieces in her hand. She done exactly as predicted and broke the glass with her teeth!!! Thankfully she wasn't hurt.

I'm beside myself with frustration.

When we are with family or out and about she will need to be told the same thing 4 and 5 times. It's so tedious and it's wearing me down.

She is otherwise bright, popular, funny, creative, kind etc. But she will not fucking listen to me. Help! Any ideas?

I don't even know what my aibu is... maybe it's aibu to fucking run to the moon???? 😫😫😫

Shouts auditory processing disorder to me. Very bright people can have it. They often mask at school by using amazingly clever strategies but it wears them out, so tend to not use them so much at home.

I kind of understand the wishy washy comment. Both the glass related incidents you could see what was going to happen but didn’t really step in, she could’ve really hurt herself, particularly when she broke the glass with her teeth. I would’ve actually removed the glass from her grip after asking her once, also plastic cups if she can’t be trusted with glass.

Getting them to repeat it back to you as a PP said is helpful for getting it to stick.

I’ve had this with DS. What worked best for us was I’d say ‘DS look at me’ then I’d put my hand on his arm or shoulder or something and I’d very clearly say whatever it was then I’d ask him to tell me what I’d said. I found the combination of eye contact, physical touch and repetition to be the only really effective way of getting the point across.

I've lost count of the number of times I've had my son's hearing tested over the years... They've been very nice about it; and have now explained (to both of us!) that his hearing is more acute than normal which tends to lead to "tuning out" to cope and behaviours that can seem so similar to hearing difficulties (I had severe glue ear and hearing loss as a child, as did my mother, so have always been aware of the possibility in my own children).

There's some degree of ASD and possible ASD in our household too. Now my youngest is in his teens I'm trying to make him realise that if a conversation is going on around him, he needs to notice what is being said because other people WILL assume that he has heard the discussion!

This was me as a child, spilt every drink, broke every glass. My parents spent my whole childhood telling me to be careful but it didn't occur to me that not everyone had to concentrate so damn hard to not knock over a glass.
A cousin recently told me he had been diagnosed with dyspraxia. I looked into it and pretty much meet every symptom.

I stopped drinking with glasses that can be broken and tend to only use plastic or a chunky mug. Also worrying so much about my carelessness has meant that I only drink rarely in public and probably take in 500ml max a day.

Instead of telling her what to do, have you tried e.g 'I'm really worried that you are going to break that glass when I hear you tapping it against your teeth like that?' or similar. So you aren't giving her an instruction, you're letting her reach the conclusion that she needs to stop herself.

With mine, I also find that getting them to look at me before I ask them to do something really helps, as otherwise they say 'yeah, yeah' without actually taking in anything I've said.

My sister’s kids are like this. In her case it’s because they know she doesn’t mean it the first time and will ask them several more times before they actually have to listen/do anything. They’re never given consequences for not doing the first time.

They don’t behave like that with me though, because it annoyed me so I was very clear that in our house I will only ask them to do something once, if they don’t do it first time there are consequences.

Keep instructions as short as possible.

Use positive language - so say want you want rather than what you don't want.

Get some plastic tumblers as a consequence of the teeth on glass thing.

I remember deciding I had time for a quick bath one morning before the guy arrived to fix the TV aerial. I had just got out of the bath when the doorbell rang. The bathroom is right at the top of the stairs in direct eye line to the front door.

DS1 -about 11- never usually bothers to answer the door but this time he gets off his arse and ambles towards it.

Me:

Don't open the door, DS1
Don't open the door.
Don't open the door, DS1
DS1!
Do NOT open the door
DON'T OPEN THE DOOR
leave it
LEAVE IT!!

When I asked DS1 why he opened the door when I was yelling at him not to he looked at me like I was insane.

He was diagnosed with dyspraxia this year, aged 18. He also reckons he ticks a lot of boxes for ADHD.

This is my 7 year old as well. I usually describe her as away with the fairies as she does seem to live in bloody dreamland half the time. Very frustrating. Especially because there are times when only shouting gets results and I don't like having to resort to that.

Bloody hell, just googled auditory processing disorder and that’s my DH to a T!

Need to look into it more for strategies to help him(and help me not throttle him!)

My DD explodes if I try to give her more that one instruction at a time, and she is 13.

I have learnt though, just one thing.. no more than that. If it is urgent, like the glass situation, I have to get directly in front of her and say what I need her to know calmly and clearly.

If she is reacting and doing things when you raise your voice, then I suspect she doesn’t have a processing disorder etc...

She has an issue with feeling she doesn’t NEED to listen to you.

Have a look into sensory processing disorder too. It's a spectrum disorder so she could just have it very mildly. It basically muddles up all your senses, and can make following instructions hard because it takes your brain a while to figure out what's being asked and what an appropriate response would be!

And btw, I wouldn’t classify that as a normal behaviour from an 8yo.

I would also have been much more forceful about the glass (in both cases) because of the risk of injury.

I think it sounds like normal kid stuff. Maybe get thicker glasses and have less stuff in the cupboard? Re: not listening; children are notorious for not listening aren't they?
Sorry, I have had a glass of wine, but not sure how two glass related incidents and not listening to a parent have turned into dyspraxia?

Sounds like my dyslexic, dyspraxic DD!

Drove me nuts, but I'm much more patient now I know she isn't ignoring me on purpose. Eye contact and one instruction at a time helps. No background noise (TV off if I need to ask her to do something), I'll try touching her arm in future too.

She was assessed this year as having auditory memory and processing issues (DX is dyslexia, dyspraxia and attention issues). It was tricky to know what was normal up to this age as she's my eldest so I had no one to compare too. DD1 is very also bright, chatty and friendly.

If you think there could be something more going on OP, trust your instincts. Sometimes the 'not listening' goes way beyond that of the average 9yo!

Watching with interest

Sounds like my niece. She was very “away with the fairies” and clumsy. Always tripping over or dropping things and very, very sensitive. She was diagnosed with Clumsy Child Syndrome. Things got worse as she got older and she was finally diagnosed with Autism at age 14. I’m not suggesting this is the case with your daughter, but may be worth getting her assessed?

Sounds like my dd 9. She v v bright with dyspraxia and poor processing. 98% centile for ability. 9th centile for processing. she drives me nuts but I try to stay calm - diagnosis hasn't changed what she does but i don't get cross any more. We just have alot of plastic cups and plates !

Waaay back OP you said, ‘I can't just fucking yell every time I need her to listen to me. It's really exhausting 😫’ regarding the teeth tapping glass breaking episode.
What you can do though is not give her a glass, or once she starts tapping it, replace it with something stronger.
With the glasses and cupboard scenario, I’d have physically intervened. Being proactive is less emotionally exhausting than telling her. She’s very young.

Thank you for making me feel not alone💐. Dd totally ignored requests/instructions from me so many times this evening...and I did end up yelling for which I now feel shit. I do think I need to get her assessed...will def have to pay for private...anyone know how you find a good ed psych?

My son had a hearing test during pre school as he wasn't listening but it's fine. I do have to repeat myself still but thinking back on it, we made a few 'reaction' games and though they were daft they did help - he'd seen Despicable Me so if I shouted Freeze Ray everyone had to hold still. I have a rule if I whistle His whistle he has to reply, bit like echo location, but it snaps him back from cloudland. We still do that.

Isn't anyone else thinking what on earth are you doing allowing a child to 1. have lemonade in the sitting room and 2. have it in a thin wine glass?!!!!

You are ASKING for trouble!

Also, why have you got to keep on and on at her? Don't!

Keep breakables out of reach; have plastic tumblers and water to drink so that if it spills it won't hurt anyone and is better for their teeth..give her responsibility and expectations that are age appropriate and instead of TELLING or NAGGING guide her with eye contact instead.

Honestly your kind of nagging parenting style does my head in and probably does your dd's too.

I think it's normal isn't it? I know my 10 year old is much the same, he is slowly getting better.

I have found that actually giving him a bit more responsibility helps, but it could be just that he's growing up.