To find my nine year old daughter draining

[Sasha998]

Can someone give me advice. I’m a single parents to two girls and the eldest (9) is really wearing me out. Her behaviour has gone awful and I feel like there’s just no peace in the house at the minute. She sees her father and me and him have a very amicable relationship. And I’ve been a single parent for some time.

I get that she’s at the age where puberty is kicking In but she’s absolutely awful to me and her little sister. She will call my younger daughter a ‘tramp’ or ‘disgusting’ if she wakes up and doesn’t shower/brush her hair straight away. She makes my younger daughter cry often by just being very mean to her, constantly looking at her and saying things like ‘eww you’re disgusting’. She has text me previously whilst at her dads house saying she HATES her little sister because she hasn’t combed her hair?!

she is constantly giving me attitude, if it’s not pulling faces at me or eye rolls it’s side eyes or talking to me like I’m a three year old (talking slowly and exaggerating the ends of words)

every single day there will be a battle in the house. In the morning she will refuse to have breakfast, at dinner she will constantly make excuses for whatever food I’ve made despite at times her choosing the food. She will make comments like ‘stop force feeding me I don’t want to be FAT’ (obv I don’t force feed her.) she will actually say to me it’s child abuse to tell me off!

I have wondered if she has an eating disorder of some type but i don’t think she has. She’s at the age where she is very image conscious, she will wake up extra early for school to ensure she has a long shower and pampering session before she goes yet always manages to evade breakfast.

she is extremely bright at school and in her after school activities so no issues there and is very well behaved at school, always gets glowing reports but with me and her little sister she just turns into this mean girl and I’m becoming to really dislike her behaviour. She just doesn’t listen to me. She doesn’t understand ‘no’ and will whinge and cry and do whatever it takes to get her own way.

this evening she made a huge drama about hot chocolate - id made both girls and myself a hot chocolate and she decided it was too ‘chocolatey’ so after persuading her to have it saying me and her sister have had it, it’s nice etc and she being adamant that she won’t have it, I told her to get ready for bed then because it was bed time anyway and she was non stop crying and whingeing and then came down and was like FINE ILL HAVE THE HOT CHOCOLATE and then afterwards said I force fed her it.. when she decided to have it. This might sound minor but she is constantly being manipulative and doing things like this on a daily basis

I just want to have relaxed evenings without having to worry about what she’s going to kick off about. I have had one to one time with her where her sister stays at her dads house (when my eldest refuses to go) but even when it’s just me and her she will find something to argue with me about.
for example, she wanted to go shopping last week, I was quite ill and had a bad stomach so I said I can’t take you today i am ill but we can go next week and she went crazy at me insisting I take her, despite knowing I was ill - the funny thing is, her dad had just taken her shopping the day before yet she insisted and ended up arguing with me

she has on occasions called me a ‘fat ugly pig’ (im not fat so it’s interesting she chooses to use this word) and other things which I am too ashamed to write on here (not swear words)

there are no issues at school. As mentioned she is excelling and has a good friendship group. She does after school activities and has hobbies.

she sees her dad every day, she’s fine with him.

I just don’t know what to do. And I don’t know what I’m doing wrong all I know is that I feel drained and I feel sorry for my younger daughter who sees this behaviour and is also on the receiving end of it

This just gets weirder.

Plesse get her some help and talk to your ex about keeping her away from her weird Aunty for a while.

What did your ex say when his sister tried to wax his young child's legs? Does he have any concept of how disturbed that is? It's nothing to do with her being young and image conscious.

Also, if the only 'consequences' you've been implementing throughout her life are telling her off, in what sound like long stressful standoffs, you've got a tough road ahead.

I will talk to her about her aunts behaviour. With regard to the whole showering thing, ever since me and ex split up, the first thing he would ask when he would FaceTime them is ‘have you showered’ and if I didn’t shower them every single morning he would tell me I am disgusting and the grandma would always tell my daughter so and so (one of the cousins) has a shower twice a day so from there she had an obsession with her daily showers which have progressively gotten a lot longer

I just wanted to echo the other poster's comments that this seems incredibly extreme behaviour for a 9 year old. No child of that age should be that self conscious. Her outbursts seem to go from one extreme to another. I'd recommend reaching out to the school, gp or family support services for mental health support. This won't get any better any time soon. Good luck!

He said he would have a word with her and ever since she hadn’t tried waxing her again. But he didn’t say anything else

That's some really relevant additional information in your last post. This is coming from her dad, she's literally just mirroring his behaviour

I think my 9yo is somewhere in the middle here. Her and her friends are only interested in slime, fidgets and spend hours making YouTube shorts (that are never actually posted on YouTube).
She's getting more interested in skincare and clothes - would wear make up if I let her but I don't except special occasions.
Her classmates are all the same.

She has a bit of a sassy attitude is definitely experiencing hormone changes and is pushing boundaries, but not to the extent OP describes. She's a bit whiney etc and tries to get her own way, rarely a door slam but wouldn't dare call me or her sister disgusting names, fat etc.

The most worrying bit about your post to me is the food comments. My Dd would still eat sweets/junk food as much as she could get away with. Doesn't seem very body conscious yet (long may that continue) and would never turn down chocolate etc. I don't think she'd even know the terms force feeding etc.
I'd spend a bit more time looking into this

You're going to have to have a conversation with her about how sick her father and his family are. It's not just the aunt. A lot of damage has already been done so you definitely need to go to a therapist with her to help have that conversation. It's going to be hard for her to cope with after what sounds like 9 years of no one telling her that they're insane (in child-friendly language). She sounds attached to them, she's trying to keep her father happy, and probably is trying to emulate the aunt.

Very odd obsessions for a 9 year old.
Your younger daughter appears to get the worse treatment. Constant put downs about her appearance and self care.
Is the 9 year old jealous of her younger sibling? Did you separate from their father around the time you had your youngest? I wonder if the 9 year old really dislikes her younger sibling and blamed her for the family split.
That's where I'd start: why is this awful behaviour directed at the younger sibling?

It is very unusual for a 9 year old to spend so much time looking after hair/skin. She must have seen this somewhere and liked it. Which is Ok of sorts, unless it becomes a really big obsession by the time she's 13 for example.
I find it more disturbing that she perceives others as unworthy individuals if hair is not right, they haven't showered asap etc etc. It is very unkind.

Try and spend alone time with each, particularly outside the house with the 9 year old. Neutral territory. Get to know her better and spend relaxing time together. Maybe go to a place with animals, perfect environment to cultivate her kind side.

We've worked out where it's coming from. It's her twisted father and his family.

Yes, admittedly my 9 year old is a young 9, and seems to have found her tribe of similarly young 9 year olds, I accept that.

we are seeing some mood swings, a developing interest in clothes, wanting to wear make up to parties. But that’s about it.

Where is it that they learn an interest in things like skincare, clothes, music etc? I am into those things but she isn’t really arsed with what I’m doing.

You're going to have to have a conversation with her about how sick her father and his family are. It's not just the aunt. A lot of damage has already been done so you definitely need to go to a therapist with her to help have that conversation. It's going to be hard for her to cope with after what sounds like 9 years of no one telling her that they're insane (in child-friendly language). She sounds attached to them, she's trying to keep her father happy, and probably is trying to emulate the aunt.

All of this. I typed my earlier reply about some aspects being similar to my 9yo before I saw your updates. I had read all your comments but think they crossed with mine: sorry

@Pollyputhekettleon - took ages to type, I missed all that!

Where is it that they learn an interest in things like skincare, clothes, music etc? I am into those things but she isn’t really arsed with what I’m doing.

For my 9yo it seems to be mainly by mimicking friends with older siblings, she also has quite a few teen girl cousins who she idolises. She hasn't got tik tok but a lot of her friends do and she does admittedly have some access to YouTube.

It's actually really sad the way the world is going. Other than banning use of the iPad altogether its so hard - even if I was to do that, she seems to pick it up from friends anyway.

It sounds to me like she needs TLC not punishment. Is your relationship with your ex DP in a good enough place to explain to him that she is taking the shower thing very much to heart, maybe he was trying to have a go at you (not nice obv) but she’s taken it that he thinks she’s disgusting if she doesn’t shower? Can you both as parents try jointly to focus on making her feel loved and secure?

If you can’t rely on him then it’s trickier, maybe other posters who have experience co-parenting with an ex may have advice on how to handle it. It does sound like she needs protecting from some of the messages she is getting from ex MIL and SIL

Yeah my daughters friends are all eldest children, come to think of it. She doesn’t really have any older teen role models etc. she does watch a bit of YouTube kids but she likes videos about sewing and icing cupcakes and Harry Potter Lego 😂 I don’t let her use normal YouTube or tiktok. But I must admit I’m having a really hard time with giving her a little more freedom.

id made both girls and myself a hot chocolate and she decided it was too ‘chocolatey’ so after persuading her to have it saying me and her sister have had it, it’s nice etc and she being adamant that she won’t have it, I told her to get ready for bed then because it was bed time anyway and she was non stop crying and whingeing and then came down and was like FINE ILL HAVE THE HOT CHOCOLATE
This bit in particular sounds a mix of her having anxieties around food (or genuinely disliking it) and her wanting to spend time with you/get attention from you.
Your message was that she either had to drink it or go to bed. By giving in and drinking it she got more time with you.
Can you plan in more opportunities for positive 1:1 times with you? Just you and her hanging out nice and low pressure (ie not focussed on food or image).

She doesn’t dislike her sister and when they get on they do get on well but she gets very very annoyed at her when she looks, in her own words, ‘messy’. I have told her time and time again that she is not her parent she’s her sister and to leave her alone but she doesn’t get it. She sees her dad every day and spends more time with him now then when we were together, I don’t think she blames my youngest for the split

sorry if I’ve missed this, but how old is her sister?

You need to back off on making a big issue about eating no stropping back downstairs to drink the hot chocolate then blaming you when my daughter did this I would throw it away if she said she didn't want to eat I said fine put it away got on with eating my own food

Yes I can talk to him about it but he will not see any problem with her having long showers every day as he thinks it’s normal. If my girls sleep at his on a school night (rarely) he makes sure they wake up early and showers and he wakes them up early enough to have long showers if they want to..

My DD developed an eating disorder/anorexia at age 10. It very much started with a self awareness around how she looked (she definitely didn't get this attitude from me or her dad, Mr and Mrs Average), followed by "wanting to eat more healthily" (we didn't argue with this as it didn't seem a bad thing). Things like access to a mobile phone/tiktok etc didn't help, neither did comments from others regarding appearance/weight.

It sounds very much like your Ex and his family are having a negative influence on the way that she thinks about and sees herself and others, I don't think it's in any way normal for a 9 year old to be worrying about these things, and she certainly shouldn't be speaking to your or her younger sibling in such a way.

I think I'd be trying to get her a good counsellor NOW to try to nip things in the bud. In my experience, once my daughter's eating disorder took hold it snowballed very quickly indeed.

Her sister is 7.

I have tried this many times il say to her for example, let’s watch a movie she will refuse saying it’s boring. Her interests are literally shopping which I can do with her no problem but I would like to do other things with her as well. All she likes to do is go shopping and have bubble tea

You say you have a very amicable relationship with her father. Yet he called you disgusting if you didn't shower them daily, he allows his sister to prematurely sexualize her, and he and his family have inculcated horrific attitudes to weight and looks, total disrespect for you and her sister, and hygiene OCD, in her. Your daughter and her sister are both suffering because of this amicable relationship and it needs to get a lot less amicable in a hurry. Start protecting her, now.