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 also wonder given her anxiety, she may have the intelligence to be reading what she is but given her age is too young to emotionally understand it. It is concerning that at her age she is so concerned about you dying.

Around the arguing, you need to disengage here and be the adult; your daughter needs to break the link between arguing and attention. Star chart may not work for her, but what about a different motivation reward. Something that she really wants, and can work to it? Small, medium and long term focused on keeping bedroom tidy and other specific behaviours.

I also wonder if she's a little young to be responsible for breakfast and lunch? Do you eat together? Can you spend some more normal day time together?

I don’t think she’s too young to make her own breakfast no. She’s been doing it for about a year now and she enjoys having that control having it exactly how she likes it. Plus it means she gets her hour to chill in the morning without me, and I get a bit more sleep.

Sounds like she has gone through a lot of changes recently. With moving and missing her friends and another big change on the way with a new sibling. Sounds to me like she really needs some one to one time with a good connection. I 2nd some big love bombing before the baby arrives.

She's too young for the independence you are giving her.

You need to have breakfast together and eat the same thing.

Throw away shorts which are too short.

No drinks or scissors in bedroom.

Routine and realistic expectations

Mine can and do make their own breakfast but I always get up with them and we generally eat together.

So agree with removing access to scissors. She's not using them appropriately, so remove them.

She’s not allowed scissors in her room. She took them from my makeup bag.

And of course you should be putting her go bed. She's seven so just finished year two , still an infant child.

Even the most intelligent seven year old needs to have more grown up books read with them so that they can discuss things etc.

You seem to be treating her much older than she actually is.

And this is going to get worse when the baby arrives.

You need to realise how young she is

Do you eat lunch together?

@SheABitSpicyToday

She’s not allowed scissors in her room. She took them from my makeup bag.

Because you gave her access to them. If you don’t want scissors in her room don’t allow her to have access to scissors.

She isn’t a small adult, shes a little girl who needs care and parenting, not a person who should be left alone for an hour every morning so you can stay in bed.

I was strict in that if I said there were consequences to bad behaviour I always followed through. Never threaten things you don’t then carry out. But there were things I didn’t bother to argue about - food mainly - I tended to cook things they liked, tried to introduce new things but not to make things impossible. But if they didn’t eat what I had made then there were no treats afterwards.

I do think at different times children get additional hormones and that can cause bad or different behaviour. Also school - so moving to junior school or the worry of secondary school.
The other thing I tried to do was to spend some time with each child alone doing things they liked. At least once every month or so. Just me and them and no stress just fun. It’s not easy I know but sometimes you need them to know how important they are to you.

You need to realise how young she is

I agree. You talk about hormones etc but actually she just sounds like an anxious little girl who needs some reassurance and boundaries.

So I should keep my makeup bag in a locked safe? Get over yourself. She snuck in to my bedroom and took them and was punished accordingly.

@SheABitSpicyToday

So I should keep my makeup bag in a locked safe? Get over yourself. She snuck in to my bedroom and took them and was punished accordingly.

Anything dangerous should always be kept out of her reach.

Dangerous really? They use scissors at school. She used scissors in her craft downstairs. She even uses a knife when chopping fruit and veg!

@SheABitSpicyToday

Dangerous really? They use scissors at school. She used scissors in her craft downstairs. She even uses a knife when chopping fruit and veg!

At school is she left in a room alone with scissors, or she is appropriately supervised by an adult?

If you as the parent give her access to scissors you can’t then be shocked if she cuts things up she shouldn’t be cutting, you should be thankful she wasn’t injured.

The scissors are not necessarily dangerous for her but if she's cutting up bed sheets with them it's not really ideal. For me if my kids cannot use something as it's intended I don't let them have it until they show me otherwise. Did it only happen on the one occasion and she's not done it again since you dealt with it the first time?

@SheABitSpicyToday

So I should keep my makeup bag in a locked safe? Get over yourself. She snuck in to my bedroom and took them and was punished accordingly.

Well, yes.

If you don't want her damaging her bedsheets, you need to remove her access to the scissors.

If she can't be trusted not to take dangerous items, you need to make sure she has no way of accessing them. You're lucky she's only cutting bedsheets - what if she cut her hair or injured herself?

Yes I can be surprised because she’s 7 years old not 3.

Just as I can leave her alone with a pot of Sudo Creme and not expect to come back and find it smeared all over carpet because she’s 7. Not 3.

She was doing it because she was being naughty. It’s nothing to do with her being too young. She knows not to go into my room and take things that don’t belong to her.

@SheABitSpicyToday

Yes I can be surprised because she’s 7 years old not 3.

Just as I can leave her alone with a pot of Sudo Creme and not expect to come back and find it smeared all over carpet because she’s 7. Not 3.

She was doing it because she was being naughty. It’s nothing to do with her being too young. She knows not to go into my room and take things that don’t belong to her.

I agree in the sense that it wouldn’t occur to me to keep scissors out of reach of my 7 and 6 year olds as I would never expect them to use them to cut up bed sheets (and they wouldn’t dream of it). But now she’s done it once, you need to make sure she can’t access things like that.

Which I have done.

She was doing it because she was being naughty. It’s nothing to do with her being too young. She knows not to go into my room and take things that don’t belong to her.

Yes, because she's seven and still a little child. You can't trust a seven year old to be sensible all the time - as has been proven by the fact that she's snuck into your room, stolen a pair of scissors and damaged her bedding.

When I was that age, I snuck into the drawer, stole some scissors and cut a chunk out of my fringe. Because I was seven and seven year olds do silly, spontaneous things and can't be trusted to control themselves.

Don't get distracted by the scissors.

Yes she was being naughty.

Yes she knew she was wrong.

But she's a very young child.

She's still learning the very basics of life.

She will make mistakes and do things wrong.

The basic point is how to make those errors less common and to try and improve day to day life.

You need to realise how young she is. Get up and eat breakfast with her. And put her to bed every night.

All of her art stuff has been removed from her bedroom.

You need to realise how young she is. Get up and eat breakfast with her. And put her to bed every night

Yes. She seems to be left to her own devices a lot. Bathing herself etc. Encouraging independence is obviously a good thing, but she’s still a young child.