Daughter has wrecked the walls

[whatthehell1e]

8 year old daughter in a tantrum as I told her off for her behaviour yesterday (she painted the wardrobe in my room with her paints). I walked upstairs and she has sprayed her room, my room, hallway and her brother’s wall in baby oil. Whole brand new bottle. I have wiped it with towels but it’s not coming off. It looks like it has but after 5th attempt the wall dries but oil marks very visible. I’m really stressed. We cannot afford to decorate it all and it looks horrendous. I actually thought it was damp before I saw the empty oil bottle.

She's 8 years old. I very much doubt that she has done that knowing that the oil would stain. Her body is probaly starting to get ready for puberty so her emotions will be all over. Did she say why she painted the wardrobes?

I think the walls are the least of your problems! DD needs help.

But how old was your child? A toddler could possibly be regarded as an accident, an 8 year old is a deliberate act of vandalism

My decorator husband says to use sugar soap and then zinsser BIN (red tin). Then you'll need to paint the wall. Good luck!

Wow. Think you need to teach the kid some rules and consequences. I'd be witholding pocket money no school trips or treats till she's paid off her blatent vandelism

100%

It's available, (and cheap), from a any DIY shop. It's a special detergent for cleaning paintwork. Normal detergents contains silicates which causes problems if you try to paint on top, sugar soap does not, and its better for removing grease etc.

Hi
spray over the stain with acrylic varnish, leave till properly dry and then spray again, then paint.
I got rid of all the grease marks on my kitchen walls doing this.

I'd be concerned about the fake crying to manipulate people into thinking you'd been horrid. When you say she throws things at her brother, is she violent and with intent to cause harm or does she lose her temper? Any bed wetting? I also agree that at 8, she might not fully know what damage oil on painted walls could do.

I think the best thing for now is to keep contempraneous notes of her day to day behaviour. Do this for 2-3 weeks and then go to both your GP and school if there is enough there to warrant concern. If there is a potential ND issue, girls in particular, can be very good at masking in social settings/school which would then potentially lead her to act out at home when she doesn't feel the same compulsion to perform. Or she may have behavioural issues or have worries which a play therapist could help unlock. Alternatively, she may just be an 8 year old who periodically does naughty things.

Start making a diary to see if any patterns or worrying habits emerge and use that to decide on next steps.

Your husband is absolutely useless by the way and needs to take an equal role in parenting.

And I'm sorry about your walls.

I don’t have any advice on the oil on the walls but the school should have a dedicated teacher who would deal with all any issues with ALN (additional learning needs)children, ask who this this and raise your concerns with them, they should then offer to get an outsider to observe her in the school setting and report their findings. I’ve been through this with my son. Also some kids can get extremely embarrassed when having a telling off so for you to tell her off then your husband later on may make situations worse, best to tell her off explain why and then it’s done, no one can wants to be reminded of their wrong doings especially neuro divergent people who dwell on everything (speaking from experience)

This behaviours is a sign that she needs firm boundaries and consistent consequences when these boundaries are overstepped. It's the easy rout to assume that bad behaviour means your child has a diagnosable condition like 'ADHD' or autism, but honestly most of the time is comes down to inconsistent parenting and to blame it on a condition is the easy route out. The example of her wanting other children to play by herbrukea doesn't sound like autism at all, it sounds like she's having a tantrum and wants her own way. In autism this would look like a child having very strict sequences or the way and order things need to be down, and not being able to cope of these sequences were broken, not getting stroppy because someone wasn't doing what they were told. Your husband should be stepping in to help, but in my opinion, and from my experience managing many disruptive children around this age in my class (I'm a teacher) sometimes children do need to be told off. I think you need to be fair, but stricter.

I would paint over the marks with an oil based paint (primer or undercoat, make sure it's not a 'quickdry' one those are water based). You can then paint normal emulsion over the top.

Vandalism?? 😂 baby oil looks just like water. What are the chances an 8 year old would know the damage it would cause? Very slim

Baby oil is petroleum based, so degreasers aren’t going to work. Those are for organic grease. You might try to find something that will take off things like petrol or motor oil. Those are petroleum products too.

Dont be silly , she did it precisely because she knew it would cause damage, she had already painted the wardrobe!it was not an accident

Glad someone else said it 😂. Don’t think mine would have had the balls to do anything like that at that age. They wouldn’t have thrown a temper tantrum at that age either. It’s way past the age for tantrums.

I'd be doing all I could to get her into therapy op.

Malignancy of the level you are describing is terrifying in a child.

1 in 100 people are psychopaths (Born).

And even though other cluster b personality disorders such as sociopathy and npd cannot be diagnosed in childhood, they do FORM in childhood. And it is only in childhood that you have any hope of reversing them.

It's possible something else is going on.
But you need to seriously do something now.

Find a specialist in the area of child personality development. Tell them about the threats she has made. Don't disniss it as normal bratty behaviour because it certainly is not.

I think both can be true.

First, clear and consistent expectations, boundaries and consequences. If the child doesn't respond to that over a long period of time, you know there's other issues to investigate.

I don't know how anyone can jump straight to ND without considering the environment the child is brought up in and whether there's anything there that needs to be tweaked.

I agree 100%.

OP, is there a pattern of her seeking revenge after you punish her?

@Pinkbonbon

Talk about leaping to conclusions, and I say this as one of those dreaded people you talk about.Never ever would I have done such a thing because the consequences would have been very painful.

Truth is nobody here knows the child or the dynamics well enough to draw conclusions. There are many reasons why she acted this way but only the OP knows if there is consistency in the behaviour. I have certainly seen this type of behaviour from children who were raised with unclear boundaries and no repercussions. (Not that I am accusing the OP of being guilty of this)

Annnnnd now you've just made her sound like a budding sociopath.

When my niece was 8 she was told off for something and sent upstairs, she pissed in a cup and went into my sisters bedroom and spread little bits of it over the carpet and bedding - my sister caught her! Can’t remember the consequences but my sister was livid. When she was about 4 she did something similar when she was supposed to be on the naughty step, went upstairs and my sister was drying a mobile phone in a cup of rice. She spread the rice out evenly over the carpet because she was angry. These acts of revenge and a whole bunch of other things, including constant lying make me think she is ND bit my sister just gets on with it and so the cycle repeats.

This

@Gmary20
”It's the easy rout to assume that bad behaviour means your child has a diagnosable condition like 'ADHD' or autism, but honestly most of the time is comes down to inconsistent parenting and to blame it on a condition is the easy route out.”

No one is assuming she has these, but many posters are from experience picking up on clues that she might.

Do you have any experience with children that have special needs? Because in my experience working with parents that do, it is not “the easy route out” at all. Not from the first day of suspecting their child might have autism or ADHD all the way to diagnosis and then on to fighting for support and accommodation as well as the parents themselves having to learn counter-intuitive ways to parent and discipline their child as the usual be strict, be in charge, be in control not only do not work on these children but can actually be traumatising for them.

I see it as a lifetime of stress and worry because children with special needs often grow into young adults that fail to launch or need scaffolding and accommodation in the workplace.

Assuming she’s a naughty 8yr old and you just need to be more strict and your partner needs to be your echo would be the easier route. Thinking about why she is acting the way she is acting, reading up on autism and ADHD in girls, writing down observations, and meeting with the school, arranging for an assessment takes more work, compassion and care.

If she is Autistic 'naughty' step won't work... it's not really a great consequence for most kids.