What’s wrong with me

[Ihatemychild]

I have 2 DDs

I really feel like I hate my eldest (6)

No idea why. She irritates me all the time, annoys me, I have absolutely no patience with her. I find her weird, have nothing in common, she’s the complete opposite of me.

She doesn’t listen at all, yet she is very bright, has lots of friends and an extremely kind nature.

Tonight I lost it, she’s sharing a room with her sister for now and she keeps her up, i spoke to her before bed and I asked her to please go straight to sleep, I’m not well, DH is out, her sister is tired and I need her just to go to bed and go to sleep. I asked her not to go into her sisters bed, no talking tonight and just basically go to sleep. For 2 hours now she hasn’t fucking shut up, I’ve been up and down, shouted and warned it doesn’t matter. Came up to go to bed myself and she’s still talking and now she’s in her sisters bed.

I lost it and grabbed her out and put her in the spare room which has nothing in it atm. I shut the door and actually considered leaving her in there all night but know how cruel that sounds. Her sister was asleep within minutes so I went and got DD from the bedroom and told her to get into her bed and face the wall and go to sleep.

I want to smack her but I don’t.

She’s my first born, if anything was to happen to her I would die myself but I still can’t get rid of this feeling towards her. I don’t feel like that towards her sister.
I’m not depressed, I have a good life, a good husband and generally happy. I’d say she is a well behaved child but I just don’t “get” her.

I don’t know why I’m posting, a cry for help, maybe hoping someone else has felt the same and came out the other side. I don’t know.

how to discipline our children without fear that should have read in my post.

I have nothing helpful to add as DS is under 2 and very sweet (even with the tantrums).

But I wanted to say that as an outsider, 6 seems like a very fucking annoying age 🤪

@Ihatemychild

Oooh. That McFly wife did one. Not Giovanna Fletcher. The one married to Harry?

This. This one is awesome.

I became really unwell with a very rare brain tumour. One of the first signs was this very strange sweating. And intense anger. Had I of gone to the dr about the anger. I guarantee he would of offered anti depressants which I knew I didn't need. I was fortunate that I never felt anger towards my children though. But I remember if I was stressed and angry at others. Or a situation. My children picked up on it and behaved badly.

After the op. I became my old self. I'm not saying you have what I had. But I'm saying that kids pick up on situations. They pick up on stress. It's why they sleep when you don't need it. Yet don't when you need them too!

Look at your own behaviour. I remember just breathing. Stopping. Telling my kids how much I loved and adored them and the situation would change. Instantly

All of us look for unconditional acceptance from our parents but as parents it is so hard to achieve. Sometimes our children's charaacters are so removed from our own and sometimes we just find one child easier to love. It is a struggle we do not anticipate.

Practising unconditional acceptance even when you don't feel, thinking on your own irritating habits when they are being irritating and spending more time really getting to know your child are strategies that have helped me.

When everything in you is screaming pull away pull them incredibly close and just hang on. You will get through.

matcatlady

sorry - are you being serious?

the shed and the smack?

okpedro
I wonder would put an adult in the shed if they were annoying you and not doing as they were told? Would you also smack an adult? Why is it children are fair game

This.

I've been holding back. I cannot, cannot accept that it's ok to dominate children (or pets, or anyone weaker than you). Cannot.

Sorry OP but I find this quite shocking.

OP please speak to your GP or health visitor.

@Blondewolf Yep feel the same.. only a bully would speak about putting their child in a shed. How brave to pick on someone weaker and smaller than you

The thing about a six year old is ... possibly less than five years ago, she couldn't even walk or talk yet. Her whole world is so new. It's so precious.

OP you can't put her in a dark room or tell her to face the wall and be silent and go to sleep in fear. Empathise here. Even if she wasn't your own child. Just think of the person inside. Would you think it was ok for yourself? Would you want to go to sleep like that?

Get help.

And I (wearily) fear that many of those who came on here saying yeah kids are so bloody annoying are the same ones who were stressing in the two week wait and posting their joy at being pregnant ....

Well actually my 6 year old was a contraception fail.

But irrelevant. He annoys the fucking shit out of me sometimes.

But he is the most kick ass kid in the world.
He beats your kids hands down. All the kids in all the world. He's the best. Funniest. Craziest. Smartest. Wonderful. Amazing.

And irritating. At time slightly inappropriate. Loud.

OP, how are you?

You need to give her up for adoption if this is the way you feel about her

Parenting is the easiest thing to have an opinion on yet the hardest thing to do. For what it’s worth here’s my opinion. It comes from a place of expertise as well as experience but you can take it or knot ave it of course.

First of all well done for being brave enough to post this. It’s a surprisingly common issue for parents but is hard to talk about.

There are lots of reasons why parents have negative feelings towards their child, despite being kind and loving and holding strong beliefs about not hurting children.

• a traumatic birth
• post natal depression
• characteristics of child reminding you of someone in your past/present and triggering you
• characteristics of child reminding you of the worst aspects of yourself
• unrealistic expectations of capabilities of child
• own health/wellbeing being poor and thus less resources to cope with what is a demanding role

I could go on. There are other factors and it’s usually very complex and a mixture of things. Therapy can help to tease it out.

The first step is figuring out what is triggering you - notice where you feel it in your body and whether it reminds you of anything past/present. Ask yourself if you are looking after yourself well enough. Are you feeling under resourced?

This is all understandable and doesn’t make you a bad mum. Just a stretched and overwhelmed mum sometimes.

You can get something called ‘blocked care’ and even the most loving and kind parents can be susceptible. It can be just in one parent-child relationship or more general.

That said, this isn’t good and if it continues or gets worse then it will be psychologically damaging for her as well as you, but you can change it and she will develop and change too.

She needs to feel unconditional love and acceptance from you, alongside kind and consistent boundaries. Sounds easy but is incredibly hard to do.

Children of that age are pretty egocentric still and find it hard to see past their own needs and view.

One key thing is self care. Look after yourself well OP. It’s essential. Be kind to yourself.

Try and read some helpful stuff. Love bombing can help. Try AHA parenting as a starting point may be. Spending special 1-1 time with her and really listening to her and getting to know her even better might help.

If things don’t change or get worse then please do talk to a health professional. You are not on your own with this.

Best of luck lovely.

Oh JFC 😂😂

Sorry @Msmcc1212 that was absolutely not to you.

*take it or leave it

^ right , don't be so bloody dramatic. As if that's going to help this situation.

Op your post sounds awful and I read through it thinking "fucking hell" and think the first few responses read this as more of a "loved but didn't like my children today" post rather than a genuine cry for help, totally dismissing the severity of what you said. I think it seems clear in your responses you want to get help/ change.

My child is 2 , I don't have a great deal of experience so not going to give advice because I don't know what it's like to parent a child older than 2 but please do speak to someone about this , read those books and make changes. I mean with your daughter too because she needs to know that when mummy says something she means it and she can't push you to your breaking point all the time.

Sending strength

My previous comment was in response to the adoption poster

Havendilemma. Awful advice. Seriously awful. Please, if you haven’t got anything constructive to say, please do not post.

It’sallthedrama

Thanks for clarifying.

Mine wasn’t to you either. Just correcting typo! 😂

There are things you can do you improve your relationship. Spend more 1:1 time doing pleasurable activities. Try love bombing. Try to challenge your own thoughts every time you think of her in a negative way. Do whatever reduces stress at flashpoint (maybe let her fall asleep listening to an audiobook or sit in the dc's room while they fall asleep).

I sadly think it is likely that she will know that you feel that way.

I would consider family therapy if you can afford it.

God, this thread has killed me. I feel so sorry for your daughter but sorry for you too. Pretty sure this isn’t how you imagined life would pan out.

I’ve been really lucky with my kid, but we have still had little wobbles where something just hadn’t felt quite right. I can only describe it as I suddenly feel like he’s rejecting me a tiny bit, I get this vibe from him. Then I subconsciously start to act a tiny bit different towards him. Maybe a little bit colder.

But I recognise this dynamic as something that happened between me and my Mum and I’m bloody certain it can’t go that way!!

As soon as I realise this is happening I take action and love bomb him. Analyse my own behaviour. Put down the phone, get down and play etc. Start really listening instead of always being busy. It works so quickly, it’s a miracle.

I feel a bit sorry for my Mum that she wasn’t able to do this. I guess I read it somewhere, can’t remember how i knew to do it, but I guess she wasn’t lucky enough to work out how to break the cycle.

I know you say you hold her hand etc. But I think your going to have to go to extremes on this one. Try and love her like tomorrow may never come. Fake it if u need to.
When her behaviour begins to change in response you may be able to drop your barriers and bring back some love.

P.s I don’t want to be judgey but I hate your user name and please make sure this chat and searches etc and completely erased from your phone and computer, just in case.