To be dreading the half term because of my daughter's neediness?

[Sacredhandbag]

Tbh not even just the half term, I dread weekends, especially in the winter.

My DD is 7. She is incredibly full on. She talks from the moment she wakes up to the moment she falls asleep. She never stops talking. Even on the rare occasion there's noone else in the room. You can't even cuddle up and watch a movie with her because she fidgits and talks and asks constantly never ending questions.
She wants attention ALL the time. She demands to be played with, in fact she doesn't even demand she just starts playing a game with me against my will. I'll be doing the washing up or something and she comes in and says, "we're playing catch now" and lobs a ball at me and then is like "mummy! You're supposed to catch it! Mummy! Mummy! Mummy! Why aren't you catching it?" Or she'll hand me a doll and tell me I'm the mum and she's the dad and then she'll demand I recite my lines. Doesn't matter if I'm the the middle of something else. If I am sat on the sofa, she will immediately jump on me and demand to be played with.
She also constantly complains. Because home is so tough I try to take her out which is hard when it's so cold and we have a limited budget. I also have an 11yo DS so finding things they both enjoy can be difficult. But when we're out, we will 9/10 come back all of us grumpy and exhausted because she will always find something to complain about and ruin the trip.
And she posseses ZERO patience which means she struggles to learn new things. She can barely read. We try and try to teach her new things to do to entertain her but if she can't get it right first time she throws a huge tantrum and cries and says she can't do anything. She won't keep trying she'll just cry

So AIBU to be at my wit's end with what to do with her this half term? It's not so bad when it's warmer because she plays out with neighbouring kids. But having her home is so hard. She's fun and has a great sense of humour and is incredibly loving but she is SUCH hard work.

Suggestions also welcome.

Yes, we are also not chuffed about half term.
Glad we don't have any children.

Everybody is a psychologist somehow?

Girls are notorious for masking ADHD...really ? 5 days a week and with friends and with activities and in clubs. That's some serious masking.

Definitely. It’s exhausting for them and then they blow up as soon as they have a safe space.

They do tend to zone out or shut down to relieve themselves a bit from the mask, so daydreaming or clamming up or hiding. It’s not all pretending they can cope. Also friends are mainly playing so it’s high energy entertaining stuff.

And in clubs they might do things like subtly change what they have been asked to do or politely refuse to join in with the activities, show an incompletion of tasks, can’t make their minds up of what to do or answer or speak inappropriately. They aren’t rude, and appear happy, but are definitely masking in some way.

‘Dances to the beat of their own drum’ is something you will be often told by leaders of these groups, or ‘They bring so much energy to the room’ 😁

Yep mine did.

Ended up in severe burnout at 14 because of it. A lot of ND girls do. When we saw the Educational psychologist he said he was overrun with girls with this.

I'm sorry for parents and children who are struggling.

I think the source of a lot of it is ridiculous expectations placed on them by schools. No down time, no just hanging about. No playing out with your mates. 10 hour days, activities at weekends. They are small children.

I kind of agree with this. Not in a sense of "it's not ND/Sen, it's just the environment", more that I think the environment exasperates it maybe in a way it didn't (to the same extent) years ago.

So for example, my son is 5 and autistic. We're VERY fortunate that he's only in school 8.45-3.15. We walk to school at 8.20 and he's home by 3.45 unless we choose to go to the park or whatever. Weekends and holidays are spent at home playing, mooching about or going to the park, a farm, seeing grandparents or pottering around town doing errands etc.

God knows what he'd be like if (like many) we had no family nearby and/or had longer commutes or higher pressure jobs with long hours etc. He'd have to be in wraparound and holiday clubs all the time and I genuinely don't think he'd cope.

Yes @FiveWhatByFiveWhat I agree. My children spent approximately 2 minutes on their journey to school and did the odd club and beavers as an extra. One of them basically dozed through school , the other something like the behaviour described by the OP. They get ill, they pick up bugs, they get hyped up and agitiated. They are taught about totally unsuitable things which are beyond their comprehension.

I had a childhood like that though and I was super bored a lot of the time.

I did like to read and I had a similar age sister to play with. And I did "make my own entertainment" but DD is jolly lucky if you ask me, with the decent caring teachers, interesting holidays, Netflix and the Internet.

I'm interested to hear more about whether the OP's two kids get on or if the age gap/personality differences are too great.

This is really unhelpful to a mum experiencing burnout.

I doubt they just toddle off and clean their rooms at that age. It would take some cajoling. Playing catch would probably be the easier option actually.

Silly comment. My kids drove me to rage I didn't know existed. It's bloody hard work.

Toddle of she's 7 not a toddler and of course a 7 year old can tidy their room

Toddle off is a figure of speech.
Yes a 7 year old can tidy their room. They might not feel inclined to though.

That's exactly the point I was making. If her daughter is bored and being annoying give her jobs which she won't want to do so will go amuse herself. If her choice is either tidy her room or amuse herself then she is going to find something else to do that isn't annoying op

No my ADHD daughter wouldn’t have done that. She would have just carried on pestering. Because she’s ND and not NT.

How do you stand it.

I needed some time to do stuff

She's old enough to understand that there are other people in the house with needs and feelings. It's OK to tell her "mummy's having quiet time for half an hour" or whatever and say she needs to play quietly in the next room while you read your book or watch something on TV etc; don't feel guilty about it. It's also totally OK to insist on X amount of time reading and she needs to get X number of spellings right before moving on to playing or other activities. Don't let the exasperation show, just be matter-of-fact about it - "I'm busy now but I'll play with you later - you need to play on your own now". "Don't throw things at people who haven't said they'll play catch" is also fine.

Yeah some of the glib advice on here is unrealistic.

This is how it would go.

Dd, if you're bored, go tidy your room.
Noooooo! You said I could XYZ! [Watch TV etc]
No, I didn't say that. You can xyz after you tidy your room.
Aaaargh OKAY! (Disappears for ten seconds. Returns.)
It's lonely tidying by myself! You never make [1yo brother] tidy his room! I'm hungryyyyyy! Can I have an apple? You never give me any treats! I'm so hungry!
You just had lunch, you shouldn't have left most of it uneaten. OK you can have an apple if you take it to your room and keep tidying.
[Disappears again, returns in ten seconds]
I'm so booooored! You never play with me! Anyway I've been tidying for hours!!!

This is one option of how it would go. The other options include me being stern, losing my temper, threatening to remove privileges, bribing, wheedling, whatever happens, the outcome is pretty much the same.

They do understand.

But they’re like boomerangs. They just keep coming back.

l remember when my daughter was 5 or so, I’d nip upstairs to get dressed. I’d get pants, bra and jeans on ( but not zipped up) before she called for me. Without fail. And this would carry on all day.

She will tidy her room fine if I do it with her as a game/race/challenge. She'll do anything useful if I do it with her as a game.

But using "tidy your room" as a means of getting her out of my hair? Absolutely no chance. There is no way to get her constant neediness out of my face except diverting it to someone else (ie her dad, grandparents, school) or maybe TV.

Yeah that’s pretty much what I was imagining.

It's OK to tell her "mummy's having quiet time for half an hour" or whatever and say she needs to play quietly in the next room

No chance. Dd would honestly try. She does care, when I'm clearly burnt out, she tries to give me a bit of peace. But for her, 5 minutes feels like hours. I'd be lucky to get even ten minutes of peace. Half an hour of peace and quiet would never happen unless she was asleep or abducted by aliens.

@Sacredhandbag in the new schedule, why not include 3 slots of 30 minutes for teaching her how to read? This will help her focus mentally beyond her comfort zone so will help tire her out a bit. See if having reading slots causes her to go into a melt down.

so say, I agree to play with you for 30 mins and after that 30 mins reading together or learn how to read for 30 mins. Include chores as well. Some kids leave parents alone for up to 1 hour as they know the moment they appear to ask to play, mum gives them a job to do. She needs to learn boundaries.

But where not talking about your daughter where talking about op daughter as thats who the thread is for, not you and most 7 year olds are capable of doing chores.

The op’s daughter demonstrates exactly the same behaviours as my ADHD daughter. Therefore l suspect she maybe ND

A d my daughter would never do as asked. Nor would she play alone for longer than 30 seconds and wanted constant attention.