My dd was 10 yesterday and had a party with 10 other girls at our house. She has been looking forward to it for quite some time and over the past few weeks has said to me she wanted it to be 'perfect'. Each time we talked about it and I explained there was no such thing as perfect, the only important thing was that she and her friends had fun.
It turns out i made a mistake on the email invitation so her friends started turning up an hour early. (!) Luckily, we were ready for them, but dd freaked out completely and started screaming about how we weren't prepared etc etc. After 5 minutes of being utterly hysterical, I was able to calm her down by explaining everything was fine, and she greeted her friends.
30 mins later, one friend wasn't doing exactly what the others were and my dd started getting angry about it. She was then extraordinarily rude to my parents in front of her friends, stroppy towards me and finally snappy at one of her friends. I pulled her out of the party, took her into another room and gave her a huge talking to about her behaviour. 5 mins later, she re-joined the party and seemed relaxed and as if she was having fun.
There were several other more minor incidents where it was clear control was a bit of an issue to her (eg who sat where during the birthday tea) but she seemed happy enough......until 10 mins before the end. I'd cut the cake ready for the girls to take home, and a couple of them asked if they could eat theirs straightaway, to which I said yes. My dd was in a different room, but when she realised others were eating some cake, she stormed in, screamed at everyone for eating the cake without her and stomped out in tears into her room. As well as all her friends, there were also other parents in the room when this happened. Frankly, I died a little inside at this behaviour.
I left her for a while until one of her friends said she wanted to talk to me, at which point I went upstairs and told her off again, explaining why she had been unreasonable. She immediately apologised, hugged me, said she loved me etc and came back downstairs.
The whole experience has left me emotionally exhausted/gutted and concerned that I am raising either a very highly strung child or one who is, frankly, a completely spoilt brat.
I do think she generally has trouble managing stress, and that a lot of last night was about being a control freak. The behaviour at her party is a very extreme way of how she usually behaves. She's a bright kid, with lots of friends, and is usually sweet, kind, thoughtful and happy. But she has a tendency to over worry about even the most minor things, she is very quick to lose her temper and it's far from the first time she's been rude to my parents. (EVERY time this happens, I pick her up on it, but it seems to have no effect.) This morning she obviously regrets her behaviour, says she has had a wonderful party and keeps thanking me for it, and is seeking reassurance that I still love her.
I'm beginning to think I'm really screwing up the way I parent her and might need some professional help eg family counselling, or stress/anger management for her. What do you guys think? Did I handle the situation last night properly? And how big a deal do i make of her behaviour last night today eg she def has to apologise to my parents, but should she be disciplined/punished as well?
PLEASE HELP - I just don't know where I am going wrong :(