Did DD deserve to be told off??

[PillowFeather]

My sister came around earlier. DD (9) was being quite animated dancing around in the living room. I went to make a cup of coffee and just as I walked back into the room I heard my sister say “don’t come clarting around me!”. DD stopped dancing, gave a nervous laugh then retreated upstairs to her room. I shouted up that I’d made her a drink and got no reply so I went up to find her crying. I asked what was wrong and she shouted at me to go away.

I went back downstairs and asked my sister what had happened and she said “she was doing that stupid dance around me and I can’t be arsed with it, she needs to grow up”.

DD is quite immature for her age and it doesn’t help that my niece (sisters DD) is the same age but mature for her age. Niece is spending the holidays hanging out with friends whereas DD doesn’t have any friends 😞

I can’t get it out of my head, I think DD was embarrassed and I don’t think she deserved to be told off?! Or am I being soft?

It’s hyperbole. You know full well I am referring to the criticisms leveled at the niece in defense of the DD.

Once again deflecting on the niece though, as if that’s the main issue at play here.

It does sound as if your daughter is the common denominator here. She irritates your family, the other girls at school don't want to make friends with her, she refused to keep up a hobby because she was pulled up on a couple of things and your niece finds her babyish.
I don't, for the record, think there's anything wrong with a 9 year old wanting to play make believe games. But the fact that your niece snapped at her to stop being babyish makes me wonder if she had been tolerating baby talk etc all afternoon and had just had enough of her.

I think your daughter definitely needs help. It sounds as if she either has additional needs, or she needs to be pulled up more by you at times when she's being annoying and refusing to take any correction.

Also drama and dancing classes expect pupils to do what they're asked, and will tell your daughter off if she's not listening or messing around.

And what about every other 9 year old this girl has interacted with?

What's your excuse as to why it's their fault not the DDs behaviour causing issues

Assume away, you’re quite good at making things up to defend the aunts nastiness. Forget the fact that the aunt had just arrived at the OPs home.
The aunts “patience is thin”. What patience would that be? There isn’t any patience being modelled here as in the thirty seconds after the OP has said hello and stepped into the kitchen to put the kettle on, the aunt is already snapping “don’t be clarting around me!” at a child who was there first and is using her living room to dance about in. And then when the child’s cleared off crying in the face of the aunts aggressive nastiness, the aunt doubles down and tells OP “She was doing that stupid dance again and I couldn’t be arsed. She needs to grow up”.

There was no attempt to be patient or nice. None at all. And it’s not like the aunt had reached the end of a long exhausting day of constant annoyance and snapped and then regretted it.

Thats not what happened.

How do you know it’s the DDs behaviour as to why she has no friends? The OP has said her DD has low self confidence and is shy. You can have no friends and be perfectly well behaved don’t you know. Shy children. Bullied children. Anxious children. Nuerodiverse children. You seem to have tunnel vision on this and are weirdly invested in demonising and victim blaming a 9yr old child for what sounds like an unhappy home and school life.

The niece is copying the adults in the family. She’s learned it’s ok to call the DD childish and be as rude and snappy as she wants to be. The niece is also distancing herself from the DD to underline that she is different from the DD…it’s a common defence mechanism you see in children in toxic family dynamics. If a child has been labelled as the “annoying baby” and is being picked on by the adults (which is what is happening), the other children will copy the adults and act differently so they don’t become a target themselves.

Where have you got that? An aunt telling a child to stop dancing too close to her and an exasperated grandfather asking her why she persists in talking like a baby?
They sound like a family who are fed up with this child's behaviour. Whether you agree with how they spoke to her or not, there is no evidence that they think she should be wearing nail varnish and talking about boys.

Neither is there any evidence the niece behaves like this.

OP it’s such a difficult one because maybe there are additional needs, or maybe there aren’t and your sister is used to her daughter being out of the way or maybe she is simply very very different to you. On mn it’s always this way or that way, in real life kids are allowed be different and some can be more innocent, or more quiet, or more loud, or more creative etc. if you put my kids and all my nieces and nephews together between 4 lots there are polar opposites, sporty, arty, gamers, drama lovers, talkative, shy, comedians. One persons way of parenting or ideas of how a child should be mean nothing!!

Very well put. Agree completely.

Again, you’re speaking with an authority you don’t have. I don’t know if you’re projecting your own experiences or what, but you don’t actually know this family or any of the individuals in it enough to speak with such certainty.

There are issues here, with both peers and her family members. For her DD’s sake OP needs to look at the reasons why, probably with the outside help of someone who is emotionally removed from the situation, and figure out what she needs to do to help her daughter going forward.

No one here has any authority above another person here. I’m speaking about very common adaptations children make in toxic family dynamics. I’m not the only one aware of this:
@DuckbilledSplatterPuff stated
Your niece has witnessed how they speak to your DD and now feels that she can criticise her in the same way with no comeback.

The red flags are there for anyone with any experience in toxic families to see. It’s not my fault that you can’t see them.

And there’s more needed in addition to finding out why the DD is having problems…we’ve already said go get ADHD and ASD assessments. But a big part of the problem is also the way the OPs family is mistreating her DD. That needs to be stopped.

I don't get any impression the family are 'mistreating' the dd. I have heard grandparents say before to grandchildren "I'm not answering until you speak properly". I have heard cousin's call each other a 'crybaby' a 'telltale' etc. It's normal family life and is how children learn resilience.

Its no coincidence that your examples of not mistreatment are completely different from the things that have actually been said and done to the DD. Because if you cared to write out what really happened plus the OPs comments about how her witnessing these things made her feel very sad for her DD…you’d be left with the impression that she is being mistreated. So I suppose it’s easier to make up milder, gentler things instead of facing the ugly truth.

What have I missed out?

I don't get any impression the family are 'mistreating' the dd. I have heard grandparents say before to grandchildren "I'm not answering until you speak properly".

Sure, and that would be a sensible response. But it’s a far cry from the over the top and confrontational exchange the OP has described.

I went to make a cup of coffee and just as I walked back into the room I heard my sister say “don’t come clarting around me!”. DD stopped dancing, gave a nervous laugh then retreated upstairs to her room. I shouted up that I’d made her a drink and got no reply so I went up to find her crying. I asked what was wrong and she shouted at me to go away. 
I went back downstairs and asked my sister what had happened and she said “she was doing that stupid dance around me and I can’t be arsed with it, she needs to grow up”.

The conversation with my dad went like this:

Dad “why do you talk in that baby voice?”

DD “I don’t”

Dad: “you do, you’re doing it now, why?”

DD: “I’m not?”

Dad: “you are! You always do it! Why do you talk like a baby?”

bare in mind this was in front of all her cousins, most of whom were laughing

I’ve tried to coach her in normal conversation but she reverts back to talking about babyish stuff. A couple of weeks ago we took her and niece out for the day, DD said something about getting a rowing boat and playing castaway on the island in the lake and niece snapped at her to stop being childish. DD ended up playing on the climbing frames by herself and niece sat with us. It’s upsetting.

I’m referring to the authority needed to determine that all the blame lies with the family, based on snapshots provided by one party.

There are red flags here, but red flags in themselves are not enough to write off the family as ‘toxic’ based on an aunt telling a kid not to dance near her and a grandfather questioning to use of baby voice. You have no idea as to the deeper dynamic at play, and you seem completely unwilling to consider from any perspective but the DD’s. If you’re so inclined you can twist the existence of said red flags to write off the DD just as much as you’re using them to write off the family.

Haven't read the full thread, but my 8 and 10 year olds run around naked in the morning with their pants on their head because they think it's hillarious!! They are kids!!! I wonder what your sister would make of that!!

Your DD is a small child. It's HER house, not your sisters. She can do what she likes as long as it's within YOUR rules.

(Disclaimer - if I had my siblings round, I wouldn't let my kids run about with pants on head!! But a bit of dancing in the lounge would be totally fine by me, as long as they knew to be careful, not knock anyone's drinks over, and not be too loud or go too crazy with it!)

So you've just said yourself you wouldn't allow your children to do something silly if you had people over yet the aunt was unreasonable for getting annoyed at a child dancing in her personal space?

Would you be annoyed if someone was round your house and your sons took their pants off and wore them on their heads and that guest asked them to put their pants back on? Or to leave the room if they're going to be running around naked?

I guess this was a quote from OP
I went to make a cup of coffee and just as I walked back into the room I heard my sister say “don’t come clarting around me!”. DD stopped dancing, gave a nervous laugh then retreated upstairs to her room. I shouted up that I’d made her a drink and got no reply so I went up to find her crying. I asked what was wrong and she shouted at me to go away.

I went back downstairs and asked my sister what had happened and she said “she was doing that stupid dance around me and I can’t be arsed with it, she needs to grow up”.
The conversation with my dad went like this:

Dad “why do you talk in that baby voice?”
DD “I don’t”
Dad: “you do, you’re doing it now, why?”
DD: “I’m not?”
Dad: “you are! You always do it! Why do you talk like a baby?”

bare in mind this was in front of all her cousins, most of whom were laughing
I’ve tried to coach her in normal conversation but she reverts back to talking about babyish stuff. A couple of weeks ago we took her and niece out for the day, DD said something about getting a rowing boat and playing castaway on the island in the lake and niece snapped at her to stop being childish. DD ended up playing on the climbing frames by herself and niece sat with us. It’s upsetting.

There is absolutely nothing there to show any red flags. I'm inteested in the convo with OP's dad though. Read it.
Kid talks with baby voice
annoyed grandparent asks why
DD says she's not doing it - but she clearly was.
Grandparent exasperated asks again. Now it is obvious that there must have been a tone there. But for heaven's sakes. The DD is being silly, and the grandparent is over it.

The fact that the cousins heard it is really neither here nor there because from OPs other descriptions of how her DD handles people "telling her off" (who aren't actually telling her off) the fact that she ran off to play by her self is her normal behaviour at that point. And at 9 if that had been my cousin? I'd have laughed at her daftness too. As my cousins used to laugh at me for not wanting to play so i used to climb a tree to read my book (out of the way of them playing football or whatever). It's cousin teasing not bullying or meanness or anything of the sort.

(unless they all ganged up to point and laugh and call her a baby? that would be mean)

the aunt was unreasonable for getting annoyed at a child dancing in her personal space?. There’s no evidence the child was dancing in the aunts personal space, and quite a bit to the contrary including the fact the OP said her DD was dancing “in the centre of the room” and the aunt not mentioning the DD was dancing too close or in her space when the OP asked what happened.

I never said “all the blame lies with the family” !
This isn’t a situation where blame should even be applied at all.
The DD is struggling, the OP needs to get her assessed for SEN and access help AND in the meantime her family needs to stop mistreating the DD. You can’t bully a child into maturing faster.

There’s no evidence the child was dancing in the aunts personal space

the aunt told her not to clart near her. (I like that word - it's really evocative of hands flapping in your face)

So with our detective hats on we can work out that either a) the child was indeed too close for the aunt's comfort (the nearness of the dancing child is an undeterminable variable since the aunt and the child aren't posting and OP didn't actually see it) or
b) the child has done this before and the aunt knew what was coming (further evidence to be presented, m'lud, being the fact that the aunt later said that said child should "grow up")

I get it, @Discovereads you want only your version to be the truth (are you the dancing child?) but you simply cannot assume like that. You are taking the OPs comments as gospel (sure, OP is telling it as she sees it, fair enough) but you're also extrapolating things that make sense only to you and only in the scenario that Anna Pavlova can do no wrong ever.

And at 9 if that had been my cousin? I'd have laughed at her daftness too. As my cousins used to laugh at me for not wanting to play so i used to climb a tree to read my book (out of the way of them playing football or whatever). It's cousin teasing not bullying or meanness or anything of the sort.

@Brefugee you sound exactly like adults who say their parents smacked them and they turned out ok, so it’s perfectly normal to give a misbehaving child a smack now and then, teaches them discipline. Do you honestly think your 9yo self felt that your cousins laughing at you until you ran off and hid up a tree wasn’t them being mean at all? Do you honestly think that an adult teasing a child and calling her a baby in front of the entire family is all fine and normal? I think that’s a bit sad really. Because it’s not normal, it’s toxic. And it’s why children who are raised in toxic environments grow up to be adults who think such toxic bullying is normal, and say things like it “teaches them resilience” and so on.

@Brefugee
”So with our detective hats on we can work out that either a) the child was indeed too close for the aunt's comfort (the nearness of the dancing child is an undeterminable variable since the aunt and the child aren't posting and OP didn't actually see it) or
b) the child has done this before and the aunt knew what was coming (further evidence to be presented, m'lud, being the fact that the aunt later said that said child should "grow up")”

OR
c) the aunt thinks the dance is stupid (oh, wait she did actually say that) and so doesn’t want the DD doing it within her sight and hearing. She’d rather the DD go away so she says something harsh she knows will send her niece off in tears. Because she needs to “grow up” and not do “that stupid dance”.

Yes I’m fighting in the DDs corner because someone needs to. In every post you and others seem to only be willing to entertain the possibility that the DD is shit and the aunt is some long suffering saint.