Friend hates her young daughter

[kingsofleah]

I’m not making this post to tear down my friend, I do genuinely want to support her but I don’t know how.

She has an 8 year old daughter we’ll call (L) who she just can’t handle, she has completely lost authority over her and she will not do as she’s told.

L can be very disrespectful and disobedient, when my friends tells L not to do something she’ll respond with shut up you bitch to her mother who then pleads with her to stop what she’s doing while L will adamantly refuse so my friend will conclude she’s a horrible child and she hates her.

She has two teenagers from a different marriage and they were both reasonably compliant and well behaved so I think she had a different experience parenting them and didn’t face the challenges she does with L.
I watch as she argues with L and loses every battle, she’s always been softly spoken with no assertion and just seems completely intimidated and overwhelmed by L.
I am concerned at her revelation of hatred towards her daughter which is probably pure frustration but certainly isn’t going to do anyone any good in the long run especially as she seems to be so incredibly close to her teen children I’m concerned she might create a golden child v black sheep effect.

I feel sorry for L because her mum has clearly no patience with her and simply can’t be bothered with her challenging behaviour.
L can also become aggressive and verbally abusive towards her older siblings and her parents.
I don’t know what I’d do in this situation but from what she openly tells me she can’t stand her and when L keeps on and on for something as she is quite stubborn and does keep on but my friend will just snap at her to go away or to leave her alone.
I don’t know if it’s child abuse or just not coping with a challenging child she seems like she’s just stopped caring and I don’t know how to support her.

I wondered that too, she can't even chat with friends because she has none, so sad.

This kind of thing is horrible to witness. Very emotionally immature parenting.

Yeah this it it imo

How old are the older girls? Not their job but they should be stepping in to help their mum a little bit

Speaking as someone with a challenging child (though nowhere near what you describe), it can be very difficult not to get resentful and just give up with your challenging child. It can be soul destroying having to cope with it daily.

Unfortunately it turns into a negative feedback loop and no matter how difficult children can be, they’re still children and need support. Your friend and her partner absolutely need support and help too, can they access family therapy?

She is a loving parent and offers lots of cuddles but every I love you is met by a punch or I hate you.
I bought L something for her birthday a couple of weeks ago and L said it was a stupid present and asked why I had bought that.
I don’t know much about ND but I’ve looked into it this afternoon and see some characteristics such as licking everything in sight and meltdowns.
I will always be there for this family, it’s such a mixture of people because I think one of her older ones may be autistic but it manifests in extreme intelligence and she’s like a walking encyclopaedia who deliberately does everything by the book but L seems to struggle at school and absolutely hate authority so it’s hard to think they could actually be more alike than it seems.

They absolutely could afford to if they prioritised it, but I can’t make them

One is 14 girl) and one is 17 (boy)

Oo so young 😬 x

I was referring to the 8 year old

No, I was referring to my earlier post
I daid that the teens should be helping, but theyre also quite young really

I have a child with adhd and autism.

she is now a young adult.

there are two possibilities here.

one is that the child has autism/a similar issue. This seems quite likely. In which case the parenting courses (which are aimed an NT children and parents) may not help.

the other possibility is that there is not any ND or similar at play here and it is a parenting/family issue.

i’m an ex teacher and I’ve seen both situations.
in some ways the second one is actually the hardest to fix as often after a child is diagnosed and adjustments are put into place their behaviour improves and the situation at least stops spiralling down.

there are plenty of parents of autistic/adhd children who will happily tell you how much hard work those children are and there are also many parents who have walked away from them because their behaviour is so difficult to deal with.

I spent a lot of my professional life working with kids with autism and they are very hard work to be around. You don’t get back the responses that you get from NT kids.

the other option is that there is something going on within the family that is driving this. Again, in the case of the kid I’m thinking of, dad believed in physical punishment (snacking) for kids up until teens and mum was both trying to protect the kids and also stop dad finding out about her affair. Neither parent was offering any emotional warmth to the kids.

however fixing a dysfunctional family is very, very hard. Family therapy is not easy to do and most adults are quite resistant to therapy at all much less whole family therapy.

maybe suggest to your friend that it may be autism? If it is it’s actually the easiest to deal with in some ways.

This is tricky. If she is alone at school, potentially bullied, or just friendless, she will feel ostracised. Her home is her "safe" place, she has no one else to talk to. Where do children (or people in general) lash out at the most - where they feel safe. When children don't get attention for being good, they will resort to being bad. Any attention is still attention for children. I know this child must be hard work for the parents. It sounds as though they need individual and family couselling ASAP.

Could this be the trigger to her bad behaviour? Spending all day with mum then being foisted off to strangers (as she would see it) and her behaviours been bad ever since. She probably can’t remember why she feels like she does

I think those posters who assert with so much certainty that this an abusive, alcoholic household and suggesting SS are making a bit of a leap with the information given. Yes it is a heartbreaking situation and yes the parents need to find a way forward but as the OP states: She is a loving parent and offers lots of cuddles but every I love you is met by a punch or I hate you

She also says that her mum seems to be intimidated by her child. It doesn't sound like she is handling it particularly well but that is not the same as abuse, it sounds like everyone needs help.

And three empty bottles of wine, if that's over a week between two people (we don't know, but could well be if for recycling) works out as less than a glass of wine each a night, which would hardly be problematic - and pretty usual for a lot of parents!

She should be strongly encouraged to get support for her child, herself and her husband and it sounds like you are in a good position to do this OP, but I don't think it would be a good idea to listen to some of the more extreme reactions on here, unless you have other safeguarding concerns you haven't mentioned.

Well I did the same to my children and presumably most parents after the initial year or so will have to return to work and routines will change?

She got lucky with her older children, as she sounds like a pretty shit parent tbh.

I’ve only read all of op’s posts so apologies if this has been covered but your description is shouting pathological demand avoidance to me

So did I but if her bad behaviour started at the same time the child obviously struggled to handle it and it’s been mismanaged ever since

"if they prioritised it" - I think you're being a bit unfair, until you've been in the situation yourself it's impossible to know how you'd react.

I also wonder how naive people are thinking that family therapy or social services will just fix everything. It might, but I've seen lots of this situation professionally and personally and interventions are almost never the silver bullet people think they are. In fact, we stretched ourselves financially to provide one of our children lots of play therapy and it made such little difference.

If she has autism there is a possibility sensory issues means she cannot stand being cuddled, and that would explain her responding to the offer of a cuddle with aggression.

Whatever is going on, her parents need to find proper support to work out what is going on and try to manage it. Because this is not an issue that will fix itself. Left alone it will grow and grow.

Sounds very like Autism which is being masked at school. This is exhausting for a child and explains the release and kicking off at home. I second the advice of getting a referral.

I suspect L is SEN and quite possibly has Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) along with it. If your friend is waiting on an assessment for herself, and often (but not always) Autism/ADHD can run in families. Your friend needs support, and her first port of call should be the school. Pastoral care can signpost her to outside help.