Very difficult nearly 8 year old - am at point of desperation

[soliv]

I was wondering if anyone has any words of wisdom, amazing fool-proof tricks that work or general advice as I've exhausted all avenues and am at breaking point ...

DD will be 8 next week, she has an identical twin sister. For the last 6 months or so her behaviour as gradually deteriorated to what is now unbearable. She is unreasonable, disobedient, stroppy, constantly angry, rude, horrible to her sister and impossible to live with.

Example: Thursday am, I heard them turn their alarm off (they share a room) so went in to say good morning etc. As soon as I enter the room, she starts shouting that she didn't want her sister to call me into their room and would not listen when I told her that I didn't hear anyone call, I just came to say good morning. The next hour was spent with her refusing to get dressed, complaining about everything (too cold, too hot, tights too small, skirt too big etc etc), refusing to eat breakfast, refusing to do anything to the point where I had to shout at her as we would be late for school. This caused her to scream, howl and cry all the way to the school gate when she miraculously got over herself and went smiling into the classroom

This kind of behaviour goes on every morning, every day after school, every weekend and is ruining all family time. We've tried points/rewards system, she doesn't care. I always give warnings and then follow through with the punishment (DH NEVER follows through) - this usually results in her sobbing and saying 'I'm sorry mummy, I'll stop now' repeatedly after she's lost the privilege.

She is very smart and a model pupil at school. I'm wondering if she's emotionally immature as she can't control her anger at all, and doesn't seem to have the ability to stop herself when given warnings, even though she really doesn't want to lose the treat/privilege etc.

Sorry for going on but I really need help with this, esp with bday and Xmas round the corner

okay

first of all, DH should be singing the same song as you, v undermining for him not to, and confusing for the children, too

disengage from arguments - say your piece then don't get drawn into an escalation

are you making sure that you praise praise praise where you can - it's so so easy to fall into to the criticising trap - BTDT and very draining to live with. she may well have found that ''being naughty'' works better, attention-wise, than ''being good'' IYSWIM

Any help?

Do you think this is related to her being a twin and needing her own identity? She might not be able to put a finger on it herself (her feelings and behaviour), perhaps some professional counselling to help her separate her feelings might help her?

Thanks for your advice.

Totally agree re DH, and I've had the whole 'you're undermining me and no consistency' etc chat but as he doesn't get to spend as much time with them due to work etc, I always have to be 'bad cop'.

Tried disengaging, I literally walk away from her and don't engage in any more conversation with her, but she is persistent and relentless to the point where literally 2 hours later she is still full on stropping, shouting and being horrible. Hard to ignore for that long .. she probably realises this and keeps going for that very reason.

When I do praise, and she used to thrive on praise, she grunts and sulks as if I've just told her off - v infuriating!

We've always treated them as individuals, never dressed them the same, ensured they had one-on-one time with us, separate classes at school, etc. They do have v different personalities and we've always tried to encourage differences.

Thought about professional counselling - does anyone have any experience of this?

Huge sympathies, it is horrible. We have similar issues with 7.9 year old DS2 (2nd of 4 boys).

I have no answers, I am afraid, but am seriously considering asking GP for a referral to Child and Family Clinic for some support for him and us.
I am also considering a Positive Parenting course, but will have my work cut out to get DH signed up for that...

If my DD started shouting at me because I entered her room, I wouldn't be explaining why I went in, I would be dealing with her for being so rude. I always found any hesitation on my part resulted in worse behaviour from my children.
It can't help that your DH does not follow through with warnings/consequences as this must be confusing for your DD

Positive parenting, positive reinforcement, ignoring undesirable behaviours and not engaging are all excellent tactics (though often they are hard to follow when we feel we are pushed against a wall...).

Try speaking to her when she is in a good mood.

Don't antagonize her by saying things like 'you always get upset when..' or recently you are impossible to be around'

Chooses to start with one behaviour that you find difficult.

Empathetically tell her that you've notice that some mornings she gets upset. explain that this affects the whole family. Ask her to try and think what may be causing it. TOGETHER with your daughter try and find solutions. If the solutions she comes up with are unreasonable explain to her why, and encourage her to come up with better ones.

This would not only make her feel she is listened to it will also develop her skill in tackling solutions and taking the view point of others.

Good
Iris, Family Consultant.

I found with my 8 year old that it helped to look closely at what tv programmes she was watching. The Disney Channel as well as Tracy Beaker often model very bad behaviour, and I've seen vast improvement since banning them.

I would agree with Irisim. At the moment she is getting an enormous amount of attention through bad behaviour. I have known a DC actually admit that they want the attention, they don't care how they get it but what they can't stand is being ignored. Where is her twin sister in all this?

Sorry to butt in on your thread, Soliv.

Iris, I agree with everything you say. However, I cannot ignore a 3 year old or 21 month old sibling being hit/kicked/shoved across the room.
I praise every shred of positive behaviour. Which often triggers some assault on one of the littlies .
It is as if my DS2 is embarrassed/ashamed to be seen to be nice to his younger sibs?
Re finding solutions with him:
Me - 'What can we do to make life a bit nicer for all of us?'
Hiim - 'Kill DS3'
[notsurewheretogofromhere]

I am quite certain, as far as DS2 goes, we should have stuck to 2 DCs...

It's time to seek referral to Child and Family Clinic, isn't it??

Iris was talking about almost 8yr olds-and you would treat 2 8yr olds of the same age very differently from 2 pre schoolers where one is bigger, stronger and older than the other.
It would be interesting to know about the sister. Is it a case of good twin and bad twin? Is one getting attention for being good, the other can't measure up so is getting it for bad behaviour? (I am not making judgements-just asking the question)

This sounds alot like my step daughter. Very frustrating! She is constantly surrounded by boys, all of our friends have boys, and her school friends are 15 miles away in the town where she lives with her mum. we often arrange activities for her including girls, to the point that I'm filling the house with girls next week just to give her a break, yet we are given nothing but grief and attitude in return. She's like a stroppy teenager at 10! I have noticed a slight improvement when 1 on 1 attention is given, but it's not always possible as we have my step children at weekends only, and there is so much going on. (For the kids mind you!)

I don't have twins but ds is 8 and dd is 7. Dd can be a little as you describe your daughter.

Part of the reason for this I think is that she feels she cannot compete with ds. Ds is confident, outgoing and accademically good at everything. Dd is much quieter and fairly average in accademic terms. We have tried to focus on them having separate interest outside of school so dd can shine at something ds does not do.

I also think that with dd, the manipulation and anger may be because she feels that she is the weakest in the household and needs to struggle to make her presence felt. To a degree, I can see why she feels this.

I try and address what she does head on. Eg if she told me off for going into her room "I can see you want to make an issue of this. I am happy to discuss why you feel upset about it - do you want to tell me? This is your chance right now, as otherwise I am going to assume you have nothing to talk to me about. Shall we ask [other dd] to go an say good morning to daddy while we talk?"

If she continued to shout at me, I would leave and refuse to engage again until she had apologised, at which point I would try and talk again and hold no grudges.