DD aged 5 becoming increasingly obnoxious

[clemetteattlee]

Obnoxious is probably too strong but I am at my wit's end.
My DD is a clever, funny, imaginative little thing but her behaviour has deteriorated since the age of four. Currently she rarely does anything she is asked to do, tells "fibs" (not big lies but generally stuff about people at school that isn't true), refuses to play with her little brother even if he is begging her and if she does she snatches stuff from him and is generally unpleasant.
My biggest bugbears at the moment are the fact that she completely ignores instructions. If I drop her at school she refuses to go in until she is ready, at pick up/after school club she refuses to leave! At Sports Day when every other child was happy to have a parent there she shouted across the field "I hate that dress you are wearing." Whenever we do anything nice together she immediately starts complaining/asking for something in addition to what she is getting. She is rude to family members and is always interrupting conversations. She never seems to be happy/satisfied.

Anyway, we are really struggling to manage her behaviour. We reward and reinforce good behaviour but, to be honest, we are searching for the positives...
We have talked to her calmly and she always says sorry but nothing changes. This evening, at the end of my tether, I just ranted at her for ten minutes and sent her to bed after she told yet another fib after I had to almost beg her to leave afterschool club (completely ineffectual and not how I want to parent.)

So, can anyone help? My PFB is becoming spoilt and obnoxious and I am at a loss how to stop it

You poor thing. It sounds as if you are really having a tough time of it. I have a feisty five year old DD and I manage to reign her in by being quite strict, which is totally not how I envisaged I'd be as a parent, as I was really quiet and biddable at her age!! I think your daughter probably doesn't feel happy acting up but doesn't quite know how to break the cycle and will be looking to you to show her (not easy). I think the firmer you are, even if you are worried she's hate you, the happier she'll be as she will know where she stands. Easier said than done and you've probably tried all this but thought I'd say it works for me. good luck

I work with children with behaviour difficulties. So i will tell you the practice that we use.

Pick on the one behaviour you want to work on at that time. Don't pick all of them at once or you will go nuts and feel like that you are getting at her all the time.

I'm not sure of how you reward and reinforce good behaviour?

What we do is reward the child who is doing the right thing. For example: Brother is sitting nicely doing what you are asking, sister is playing up, he gets the sticker. You say to him, "well done * you are doing the right thing, you can have a sticker". So many stickers and the child gets a treat. She will hate this as she is not getting attention so if she plays up and he is not reacting to it he gets another sticker. etc etc.

She will learn that bad behaviour will not get rewarded. This is hard at first and she may play up more until she realises.

We use what we call BODORS : blatantly obvious dose of reality speech. Which are clear instructions.
eg
you need to .......
the instruction was.........
the adults are in charge........
that is a personal comment you need to keep that in your head
(you will need to explain that just because it's in your head it doesn't mean it has to come out of the mouth)

Don't get drawn into a conversation with her, this will give her the attention she is looking for. At five they have a short attention span and will switch off.

Label the behaviour not the child. Don't use "you" but, "snatching that toy was the wrong thing to do".

Don't take things away, it will end up that she has nothing to work for. I made that mistake with one of my children. Instead give the brother something extra for doing the right thing.

Remember to keep a calm constant voice, she is looking for a reaction.

If she needs a "time out" that's fine. But the time out only starts when she is calm. It's no good doing a minute on the stairs for example when she is angry, she will still be angry at the end of that minute. One way is to teach her to put her hand on her heart and feel her heartbeat, the difference or angry and calm. Once she gets used to the idea of "time out", you can give her the choice and ask her if she needs a time out before she blows.

We always make the children "put things right" to say sorry for what they have done. We never say, " that's ok" because it's like saying the bahaviour is ok. We just say "thank you".

I hope this helps

Oh and i forgot to say be consistent.

Wait until she hits 6...

Seriously though, all those things you describe are things we are going through with DD1 at the moment. I'm often at the point where I feel I don't actually like her, but then she goes the other way and I feel all calm with her again. The lying is a big one for us and it's getting worse.

We've tried most of the thinks suggested by Sally, most of it is tactics I've learnt working with children over the years but it only seems to have a short term effect.

Have no advice, just masses of sympathy. I am counting down the days until the magical 7th birthday when hopefully, she will have calmed down by then!

Thank you so much.
I think I went into parenting a little naive - I can control a class of 30 disaffected teenagers but can't manage one feisty five year old.
I really like the advice about tackling one thing at a time and we are going to start with that!
Thanks again.

I think in situations like leaving somewhere, you can give her a clear choice:

Do you want to skip to the car/have a race/walk/scooter to the car OR

shall I carry you?

she has the choice, you achieve what you want without having to negotiate.

Sorry i forgot to say choices and consequences.

The kids that i work with have been excluded from school from 5yrs to 11yrs of age. It takes time, but if you do what you say and say what you mean, it does work. You must ALWAYS carry through what you say or she will get mixed messages. She may get worse at first until she realises.

Lets face it, if we had a book given to us when we gave birth that told us what to do it would be useless because every child is different. We learn as we go along.

If i knew then what i know now by working in a PRU, i would have done things with mine differently.