How strict are you with your kids?

[SheABitSpicyToday]

I think I need to be stricter with my daughter, who is just turning seven. She’s become a brat and is becoming difficult to live with. I just feel like we’re constantly arguing and it’s making everyone in the house miserable.
We argue about food, chores, what we’re doing today, going to school, what she’s doing with her clothes and it’s exhausting. She literally wakes me up to start an argument and it just sets me I to a bad mood everyday and my partner too when he’s got to go to work.

She’s being so difficult and I don’t want her to feel miserable but at the same time we’re all miserable atm!

Aibu to ask how strict you are and how you manage things in the home between everyone?

I missed the part about her not having the switch for a month - this is a situation I ended up in with dd2 as well. After about a week it loses all influence. It's such a long time til they get it or they've not had it it's not worth the effort anymore.

Re the holiday I agree with a pp that it will be a break for you and yes on the outside she is liking forward to it and excited, but given her anxieties re being away from you etc I'd expect an escalation of the behaviour, as I explained about the feelings about baby, 6 year olds have emotions they don't understand. All the chats about her feelings are great to let her know she's being listened to it if limited use in actually getting to the bottom of how she's feeling or why she's behaving that way as she likely doesn't know herself.

I do think you need to give her less choices, she may seem to want them and says she likes it but 6 year olds aren't developmentally mature enough to make them. Maybe let her make breakfast but make lunch and sit and eat it together. If you've booked a sports club then she gets told she's going, not allowed to stay home because she's had a tantrum on the first day. No need to feel stupid, people who run clubs for 6 year olds see it all the time. Let her choose her clothes/what to wear but only but clothes that you actually approve yourself. You've had lots of great advice here so hopefully you're able to take it on board and make things better for both of you. Finally, remember if you feel like you don't like her very much and you hate being a SAHM this will come across so you need to put extra work in to your acting game.

I’m not getting up especially early to do it when she’s capable of doing it herself

But why not? That’s the deal with being a parent - and sometimes it’s nice to show someone you care.

@OP my 4 year old is going through a defiant and highly emotional phase right now too. It's exhausting. I'm not pregnant and we haven't moved. But the posters mentioning anxiety helped a penny drop for me (thank you PPs).

It wasn't that long ago that our kids were taken out of school overnight, for months, with no idea of when things might return to a normal rhythm. And us adults were speaking about people dying and possibly worrying about dying ourselves, or at least getting badly sick. The pandemic has forced a huge upheaval and uncertainty on all of our children, and you've got additional (but totally normal) upheavals and uncertainties with a new house and a new baby on the way.

Is it possible she's worried your DH will love the new baby, his own baby, more than he loves her? Especially if she has a tentative relationship with her own dad? Is she weighing up his own happy reactions to a new baby and wondering about how her own dad was with her? I.e., "why did he go away? Was I not good enough to love? Is the new baby better than I am? If that's true, is Mummy going to go away from me too?" She may not be mature enough yet to express that kind of worry very well, but it might be worth addressing directly.

As far as "how strict":

If it's PJs and underpants that she's hoiking up, but it's only happening inside your house, I'd either let that slide and ignore it, or take the PJ shorts away. It's one thing if it's happening out in public. In the house, you and DP need to figure out together whether that's an argument you still want to feed into.

Meals are tough. DH and I don't want to cook five different meals, and I don't want to eat nothing but beige either. I've had the most success with meals that offer lots of choices for everyone at the table. Mexican, Greek, Italian, roast dinners. Sometimes, the best I can settle for with 4 year old DD is a few bites of rice, a tortilla wrap, and some cucumber slices at dinner time. But at least she's smelling what the rest of us will eat, and seeing our enthusiasm about the meals.

There is a lot of evidence now suggesting that junk foods and ultra-processed foods (most of the packaged stuff in the middle of the store) are highly addictive and can alter the way your body responds to food. You might be better off removing it entirely from the house (as far as your DD knows) and insisting on stuff like fresh fruit or a piece of toast for her snack. I have resorted to eating chocolate in my car alone before, when I've been desperate for it; otherwise, I'll get a meltdown from my girls about them wanting some.

I am a bit strict about TV and iPad content. More lax about the quantity of screen time than some of the mums I know, but I will log into our Netflix account through the PC, set age ratings on my DDs profiles, and blacklist entire TV programmes and films if I don't like the values they promote. If bad behavior escalates, I will cut off screen time completely for a while.

Another thought, do you and your DP have some scope to get someone in to help you out temporarily? Could a family member drop by for a few hours every day in the afternoons while school is still out, and spend some time engaging with your DD?

Just thinking about how hard I find it with my kids when I'm unwell. My DH is able to do a lot and fill in the gaps when I'm down or ill because he works hours that let him do that. When DH's parents were healthier, they would take our kids and spend time with them so I could recover or rest.

If you don't have a parent or an auntie who could come by temporarily while you're sick and school's out, is there enough room in your budget that you could hire someone to come by and look after your DD while you're home and getting some rest? Even a trustworthy teenager who could use some babysitting money?

For your DD anxiety, have you tried meditation? It might be a good activity for you both to start and end the day. Lots of great free guided meditations on YouTube. 5 - 10 minute meditations to begin with.

I find it also helps in giving kids tools to self regulate and understand the emotions they are feeling.

My daughter was 6 while I was pregnant with her little sister, her behaviour sounds exactly like your daughters. We had a really difficult time with her and it worsened as my pregnancy progressed. We tried everything and flipped between spending lots of time with her and giving her extra attention, to trying to be more strict and setting tighter boundaries. Nothing worked and we were both miserable and it upset the whole house. However once her little sister was born it was like a switch flipped and she went back to her normal self. She also loves her little sister (now 2) and there was no trace of jealousy when she was born. I think it was just the anxiety of not knowing what to expect when I was pregnant. Good luck!