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AIBU?

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Please help, daughters behaviour is awful

1 reply

Anonymouse789 · 01/04/2025 16:52

I can't cope with my 8 year old daughter any more. She lies, hits her older brother (10 & 3), and purposely antagonises them. 2 days ago she burnt a hole in the carpet with the hairdryer, which was an accident, but she didn't tell us, and when we found the burnt hole she denied it and denied it until eventually admitting it when it was so obviously her. I told her I was annoyed that it had happened but accidents do happen and I was much more cross that she didn't come and tell me (could have set the house on fire) and that she lied about it. Tonight when I collected her and her older brother from school, when we were walking to the car she keeps barging into him so I told them to walk separate sides of me. She won't eat her tea and tells me she has tummy ache. Fine. Then it's time to get ready for swimming for the older 2, so they go and get their clothes and she blocks her brothers way walking slowly all the way up the stairs. Then I hear a scream and cry so rush upstairs and she's hit her brother. Again. At the weekend I had a talk with her after she hit her brother and said she really needed to think about her actions and other peoples feelings and that hitting anyone was totally unacceptable behaviour. And here we are again. I don't know what to do! She's now not going swimming or to brownies (which she really enjoys) but I just get the feeling she's not really that bothered. No matter what I do she just doesn't seem to care. She'll cry a bit at the time but it doesn't affect her bad behaviour. When I ask her why she does it all she can say is she doesn't know. At other times she can be the sweetest child and often makes cards/pictures for me, or helps play with her younger brother for a few minutes, and is very loving. What do I do???

OP posts:
Endofyear · 01/04/2025 17:36

Honestly, I think this sort of sibling behaviour is fairly normal. She's not the devil and you don't want to label her the 'naughty' one in the family, because in my experience children will then live up to the label. Obviously there have to be consequences for bad behaviour like hitting, I would remove her to another room for a bit and then make her apologise to her brother(s) or remove privileges such as tv time. Consequences have to be immediate to actually make the link to her behaviour.

I would also make an effort to spend some one to one time with her - give her lots of attention for being good and helpful. Ignore low level annoying behaviour or distract. Deal with the hitting as matter of factly as possible, no big emotional response, just 'we don't hit each other in this family' and then consequences. It's possible that she is feeding off the attention she gets for bad behaviour.

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