Surviving life with a strong willed daughter

[heartsandtears]

Dd is 7 and as the title suggests she is very strong willed and as a result misses out on so much through consequences of this.
She will lose almost all promised treats and never gets any money, she loses out on play dates, screen time all while her siblings enjoy these things because she simply will not do as she’s told.
This morning for example I had promised to take her to McDonald’s after school because her sister was going home with a friend for dinner so we were going to have a treat together, she walked down the stairs in the school skirt I bought her for next winter which is currently too big, I asked her to put her dress on and she refused and I told her if she didn’t change into her school dress she wouldn’t be going to McDonalds so she decided she’d wear the too big skirt and not go to McDonald’s.
This won’t be because she doesn’t want to go it’s because she will not back down.
I want us to have a good relationship but I feel like she misses out on so much and everything seems to be a battle of wills and I just want to love her and enjoy things together but she just will not ever do as she’s told almost of a matter of principle and will eventually lose out on everything she’s looking forward to.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can get along with her and get her to do as she’s told?
She is so stubborn and wilful she’ll happily take any consequences as long as she gets her way.

Hm, maybe. Or maybe they turn into mothers who insist their own daughters dance to their tune. Or bosses who don't listen to their staff. Or the sister in that other thread who refuses to pay the tip in a restaurant and embarrasses everyone else.

There's a balance, being headstong can be a good characteristic but she needs to learn when she has to compromise and follow the rules sometimes too. Maybe the skirt example isn't the best example of that but op has said it's constant.

Oh maybe ,

She looked you in the eyes, was verbally defiant, left the room and closed the door behind her...

What did you do next?

This example seems really passive of you, but then you talk about throwing away her possessions and cancelled trips. I can't get a handle on your approach. On this example were you more passive because of the advice on this thread? Eg low demand parenting?

What I think you could have done was to take her by the hand and lead her away from everyone to another downstairs room or outside (pick her up and carry her if you needed to) and get down to her eye level and sort it out. You can't let her go upstairs if you've told her not to.

But for both this and the biting, it seems like she's lacking in empathy. Did she properly applogise to her sister for that? I would completely ditch the punative punishments. They clearly don't work. You know that. She needs to develop some emotional intelligence. That's where you should be spending your energy and that's the discipline she needs. She needs you to point out other people's feelings, how she's affecting them, her own feelings, how her poor behaviour choices affect how she feels about herself. If she needs a diagnosis, I'd be looking more at autistism than anything else. But this might not be a hardwired brain thing, it might be something she's yet to develop

If it’s ridiculously big, how will it fit her in the winter? Or do you mean winter 2026? In which case why is it in her wardrobe?

A lot of what you’ve written reminds me of how I was as a child. I am an ADHDer but also have a diagnosis of PDA - I was an incredibly headstrong child and was deeply manipulative (my mum was a lot softer than you sound though) - I still have these traits as an adult but have learnt to be nicer 😂. With PDA the second someone asks me to do something everything shuts down and my heels dig in, it is incredibly difficult to override, even now (I’m in my 40’s) - this is even if I really want to do the thing they have asked me to do, or was planning to do it. I can’t bear being told off, it instantly makes me defiant - as an adult I am better at managing this, but the turmoil is still happening inside.

you are describing my daughter. Absolutely no issues at school but she goes from zero to a hundred in 30 seconds when at home. Well, that’s what I used to think. Now I know that she’s always hovering around 60-70 in terms of emotional dysregulation and the effort of containing / masking her instinctive behaviours all day at school means she can easily erupt at home with very little provocation.

I’m just saying don’t worry about what school sees or doesn’t see. A good psychologist will be able to ask the right questions.

best of luck!

Did you think to asK her why she wamted to wear the skirt? That probably would have been the logical thing to do.