I’ve lost control over daughter.

[joiningdave]

She doesn’t listen to a word I say, if I say she can’t have something to eat until after dinner she’ll look at me with disgust and take it out the fridge and eat it anyway.
If I ask her to get changed out of her school uniform she ignores me or says no.
she has to have the seat she wants on the sofa and if her sister sits there she’ll squeeze in behind her and kick her in the back until she moves.
she won’t go to bed when told, just refuses. If she is asked to pass something she’ll say no ask someone else.
she doesn’t walk nicely home from school and will run off crossing roads without looking leaving me helplessly calling her name to stop while she carries on. She is so pleased with herself when she point blank refuses to do as she’s asked and looks so smug, even telling me I can’t make her.
I have completely lost control of her and so exhausted if I didn’t have other children who are well behaved I would have given her up, she’s just too challenging for me and I’m not cut out for a kid like this, she’s making our lives miserable and I’m not coping with her. Then she will suddenly be all loving and cuddly after.
she is the middle child of 3 girls and is 7 with ADHD
and like a lot of ADHD children she’s perfectly well behaved at school but within minutes of her coming home I feel drained and depleted.

ADHD or ND she’s doing this because she can.

we’d all like to behave how the bf pick we want to be in control - it’s human nature.

ND is an extreme spectrum in either and of natural human emotion and behaviour. Our job is to help those who are ND to manage their emotion’s and communicate effectively to get their needs met.

OP you cannot just let your DD do as she wants. If at 7yo when she perfectly understands what she’s doing isn’t acceptable she doesn’t anyway what will she be doing at 17? At 27?

you don’t need to punish you need actions and consequence. You may also need to re phrase your instructions and answers.

“dinner is in 15 minutes and if you are still hungry after we can talk about snacks” (get a fridge lock if needs be)

“when you’ve taken off your school uniform we can/ you can ……” then no more engagement or argument. She can make the choice to do it and get what she wants of not.

she climbs on sofa and hurts her sister then you take all devices and controls out of the room, you all leave the room and have fun elsewhere. She can have the seat - but it will be no fun or point of she has no body to upset to do it.

after school meet her with snacks. Hold her hand - use a wrist strap if needed and simply ignore whatever she argues and just state “we are walking home safely”.

people with adhd need constant dopamine hits and it’s very likely your reaction is providing this whereas you have to teach her appropriate ways to get it. Look at sensory activities that make her feel calm. Do them together. Build the positive relationship back up.

"she won’t go to bed when told, just refuses
Make her. Pick her up and carry her to her room".

Says someone who has never carried a tantrumming older child. I'm strong but ended up with a stress fracture carrying my 6/7 year old during meltdowns / to school / to bed. It still didn't work. Looking back it made no difference to my child and just injured me and wore me out over a couple of years.

If school aren't supporting your child she's possibly lashing out at home.

I do all of the above, day in, day out. I am completely exhausted with her. She isn’t getting any easier it’s like having a 7 year old toddler constantly living through the terrible twos.

OP you can't have your 7 year old running across roads, she could cause an accident. She needs firm boundaries and discipline.

Family Lives do free parenting courses, perhaps worth looking into.

Could you forget about the getting changed after school thing, let her wear school uniform all day if she wants? And maybe buy less interesting snacks so there aren’t things she wants more than dinner? But hold absolutely firm on bullying siblings and bedtime.

Is there another parent sharing the load, OP?

What input is there from her DF ?

Absolutely not. If she gets hit by a car then two families are traumatised. Yours and that of the driver. I suspect she'll stop running off should you own and use a set of reins.

I think you should get outside advice. Speak to her headteacher at school in the first instance. I'm so sorry it must be hard on all of you.

It's going to be a pain in the arse and require consistent effort but in the long term this will help, she's still so young and you do not want her entering teenage years feeling she can do exactly what she wants.

So far all that's happened is she's been proven right, she CAN do whatever she wants at anyone's expense. Time to put hard boundaries in now and solid consequence, which will be a fight at first. She takes something to eat, take it off her. If she's very unruly just keep healthy food ingredients in the fridge, nothing snackable. Hard I know :( When she's a shit to her sister on the sofa, she gets off and sister sits back down. You can take her off by gently but firmly lifting her at that age if she really pushes it.

Its going to be hard because those consequences will affect her siblings and she might thrive off the attention and the negative effect it has on them. Time to reward them for their good behaviour too, and if she feels it's unfair she will hopefully draw parallels between their behaviour and hers. She has a reason for this behavior with her ADHD but it's not something that will be good for her long term.

I agree with some other posters, some of these things should be reasonably easy to fix (some others possibly not so much).
The snacks seems such an easy thing to sort. You take away from her and you store all snacks out of reach.

I struggle to believe she does not care about anything. She surely enjoys and likes some things? If she likes TV, wouldn't a consecuence of having no TV for a week work?

No.

I'm very ND, and this kind of behaviour is crap parenting and testing boundaries.

Yes, dad lives with us, although he has them in the morning while I work and is off to work for 2pm when I’m back for the school run so he misses the afternoon drama but she’s the same for us both. Weekends she seems to be happier if we keep busy but she’ll act up if we’re in company.

Don’t be a wet lettuce OP Shes 7!
Take control and actually parent her, and discipline her (and stick to it!) when she refuses.

of course it’s bloody hard work, but you just sound like your not going to try and do anything because ‘it doesn’t work’ but that’s because you're giving up and letting her do whatever she wants. Let her scream and cry if you remove something as a punishment! Don’t be a walkover and just give in!

Im all for gentle parenting, but it sounds like your not doing any parenting at all!

Does she enjoy the attention? I have dealt with a lot of ADHD kids in the classroom but haven’t parented one myself, so definitely don’t listen to me if what I’m saying is nonsense, but I think I would try not reacting. “I don’t want to go to bed!” would elicit no other comment or action than a firm and neutral “it’s bedtime”, repeated every time she spoke until she got bored. I would not even look at her - I would carry on with what I’m doing. That might take hours the first few times but I think it would improve gradually. Then a shower of praise for compliance, however hard that might be - no rehashing of old ground, no “If you had listened to me then x y z”, just “great stuff, let’s go upstairs”. No engaging in ANY battles, just totally neutral repetition of expectations. I once had to ask a boy 37 times to come into my classroom. Eventually he got so fed up of the repetition he complied.

Also lots of exercise. White noise for overstimulation might help at bedtime too, to allow her to switch off.

This! My son (6) is autistic, suspected ADHD and he behaves in a similar way to OP's daughter - including the smugness and 'I don't need to listen to you' type behaviours. I implement all of what you are saying and it really really works. Not every time, but things are getting better. Boundaries, consequences and 'rules' can really make a difference. But I really sympathise - it is HARD!! I also think when they behave so well at school, home is their safe place - she has been masking or 'being good' all day, and then must find it hard to regulate so it all explodes at home.

I agree with you for the ones where there’s a physical danger (the road, the sibling being kicked) but I think that using physical force for e.g. a snack being taken, is probably just going to turn into a fight and cause more harm than good. Of course she can physically overpower her 7 year old, but if she fights back then mum has to use more force and I think that actually undermines your ‘dominance’ as the parent.

Loads of good advice here. We use 123 magic. You can buy the book on Amazon.

Have you explored ADHD meds?

When my child was diagnosed I signed up for a 10 week parenting course and it was really helpful. My child also does things like run off across the road. It not as simple as going after them when you have other children to consider.

School also helped me with strategies to control them and change their behaviour at home, using sand timers and the like. They were incredibly supportive and whilst they go to a mainstream school the SenCo was experienced and sympathetic.

Search out support would be my advice. Join groups with other parents who can share tips and tricks that help.

You might want to move this thread (by reporting it) as AIBU will be full of unhelpful “make them” or “be the parent” comments and that isn’t so simple with a ND child.

Recommend book "Raising Lions". It's basically a guide to authoritative (that is firm, very boundaried but also warm and loving) parenting of strong willed / defiant / demand avoidant children. Some children are far more intensive to parent than others. She sounds like a tricky one! Being in charge at 7 years old will be very frightening for her, so you both stand a lot to gain by getting on top of this. Hope you are getting some support as well and wish you best of luck.

One important strategy is to connect woth her every day after school. It can be by listening to her and discussing her favourite topic, playing board games or joining in another activity, and being fully engaged.

Regarding bedtime - how about she gets a choice to read with a bedlamp after bedtime for a specified time?

Remove all the intensity, all the excitement, all the drama (basically all the dopamine) from all of these encounters. Adopt a calm/bored voice and just repeat & repeat & repeat her into submission.

If she enjoys pantomiming when you have company, behave like she's barely even there and just announce to your friends 'Oh this is tantrum number 37 today, or could be 38? Not sure? Anyway, did you want a coffee?'

No such thing as “very ND”.

She sounds like the infamous Megan from a Supernanny episode.

There may be an element of actually not really coping in school, masking that, and then it all comes out at home and she is being controlling at home because she is struggling at school.

However, regardless of why she might be behaving that way, you cannot facilitate it.

You have to stand your ground and say "no". You also need to pre-empt her.

She takes snacks without asking - you don't buy snacks.

She kicks her sister off the settee - you sit yourself next to her sister so she can't.

She won't take her uniform off - her dinner isn't served until she does.

She runs off - put her on reins or go simply walk off in a different direction.

My DS had behavioural issues and I was having conversations with him from a much younger age that if he wanted nice things to happen (snacks, treats, days out) then he behaved. If he didn't, then don't be expecting nice things.

He chose his behaviour, I chose the consequences.