DD 4.2 Soooooo Overbearing

[sleepdeprivedby2]

Hi I am hoping someone has some experience of dealing with a really overbearing child (please please please tell me it gets better!)as I am at a loss as to what to do.

DD is 4 and she has always been very demanding of attention of me and the rest of her family but now she is that bit older she is also being very overbearing with complete strangers.

She does not think twice about talking to strangers (adults and children) and while I am happy that she is socially confident she also has no quarms about telling off children (climbing up the slide) that are more than twice her age and I am worried that she is going to get herself into trouble.

Yesterday at soft play she started playing with some boys more than twice her age (instigated by her). I warned her not to play with them as she would end up getting hurt but she continued to do so and got hit in the face. At this point I took her for a drink to calm down and get away from them and advised her not to play with them anymore (I was with her 1 year old brother so couldn't constantly supervise). She went straight back to them and low and behold I came round the corner to find three 8 year olds on top of her with her screaming for them to get off So you can see my concerns.

She can also be very physical with complete strangers and has no concept of personal space. This week at swimming I found her trying to drag another girl by the wrist from her lesson to the other side of the pool and even though the other girl was asking her to let go she just ignored her and carried on. A man and his daughter (2)are at swimming most weeks and she started talking to him and within half an hour she was splashing him and then tickling him like she would with daddy (not instigated by him I might add! he looked most uncomfortable).

I have tried explaining that not all people in the world are good and that we can't treat strangers the same as family but she just replied that they weren't strangers as she knew their names AAAHHHHH!!!!!

I have always tried to give her confidence in her own abilities and encouraged her to do things on her own, the only problem is it appears I may have done too good a job and now she is fearless which is scaring the hell out of me! So I'm just looking for some advice as to how to approach this and hoping that someone has a similar experience.

Thanks in advance.

I may be wrong but she sounds like she may have a touch of ADHD.

yes, I agree with Skifit, my eldest ds has ADHD and she sounds similar. I doubt if anyone will be prepared to make a diagnosis at 4yo but it would be worth asking your G.P. to refer her for an assessment. Does she go to Nursery - do they have concerns, does she behave in the same way if you are not with her? BTW my ds(15) is a high achieving, musical, delightful boy (on Ritalin) and I wouldn't swap him for the world.

Thanks for the replies though to be honest this has completely caught me off guard as I had not even considered ADHD.

jubilee10 She goes to both nursery and preschool, but whenever I ask about her behaviour they just say that she is quite quiet and they have no problems with her. So i believe the extreme behaviour is just when she is with me or her Grandparents.

Any ideas how I can get her to be slightly less intense and teach her some boundaries?

No advice really but I am in the same boat! My 3 year old DD is like this. She is generally very well behaved and polite but very overbearing, expecially a problem with strangers.

If other parents are joining in with their children (at softplay, playground) then she will think nothing of grabbing hold of the parents hand and leading them around, they often look quite uncomfortable.

She is also very tactile with other children holding their hands and hugging them too much, which often other children don't like and will run back to their parents.

She goes to nursery where she doesn't seem to act quite so bad and has plenty of friends but outside it is becoming more of a problem. I have started having a gentle word with her before we go to a place where there is likely to be other children and reminding her that it's okay to hug mummy and daddy but you ask the other child if they want a hug/to hold hands. It has worked quite well on the last couple of trips to the playground where she definately laid off the other children a bit. I assume that your DD is to start reception in September? My DD will be as well (at only 4 years 2 weeks old!) and I suppose we will have to wait and see how they interact and get on in a school environment and can talk to teachers about it (with regards to possible ADHD signs- I must admit I know very little about ADHD and would not have associated it with DD's behaviour).

Thanks DriverDan i'm glad to have a companion in the same boat.

Having looked at the symptoms of ADHD I really don't think this applies. ADHD talks about not being able to concentrate on tasks etc and we generally have the opposite problem in that she gets too engrossed in things and doesn't like to tear herself away.

We have parents evening at nursery next week so I will talk to them and see if they have noticed anything or have any other suggestions.

My DD2 is 4 and has recently started shouting "Love you!" after people when we walk away, be it the postman or a man painting his fence! Not sure how to steer her in the right direction on this either

For a diagnosis of ADHD her behaviour would need to be problematic at home and at nursery/pre school as obviously they can't just display it when is suits them. My son went to a private nursery where he had a lot of one to one and they had no problems with him (pre-diagnosis) but I can see now that I chose that nursery as The other ones I looked at were more informal and I knew he would just run riot.