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Behaviour/development

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What can I do?

4 replies

smallmomma · 18/09/2013 11:25

I have 4 children. My daughter who is 10 is my oldest.
This is who I am having problems with.
I would like to know where I am going wrong.

Bare in mind, I treat them all the same. I have had numerous amounts of people tell me as I feel like a failure.
But my other 3 are completely fine and developing at the rate in which I would expect.

I will start from the beginning.

As a baby, all was fine. She had her days and nights mixed up, but that was it.
As a toddler, things began to change.
She loved doing things she knew was wrong.
But...kids are kids, and which kid doesn't!

Give her pencils and she would stab things with it.
I had lots of problems with her. Alot of which I have blocked out I think.
But I had professionals come out to help me try and establish routines and things, in order to try and help us all.

Nothing worked. When my daughter and my son hit aged 3 and 4. They became a double team.

Can I just add, their father doesnt bother with them. Incase its relevant.

So, I had my hands full. It wasn't so much a double team. It was more my son becoming her

OP posts:
smallmomma · 18/09/2013 11:49

Sorry I dont know how that posted.

My son became my daughters puppet.
They would ransack the house while I slept.
She was very clever, she would sneak into my room and turn my alarm clock off. She would even take my phone when I started using that as a back up.
In the jend i started sleeping on the settee to try and stop her.

I had no choice as she actually unlocked the door and took my son and herself for a wander around the street early hours in the morning. I then put a nail at the top of the door frame so they couldnt reach it. She piled boxes on top of each other and got them out again. Now I feel awful about this still to this day. Anything could have happened! Thankfully they were ok. When i told her off about this and told her the dangers she just laughed.
The next time was when we were playing in the garden. A gust of wind came and a heavy fence fell onto my foot. I was in that much pain I was passing out. I dont know how I didnt. I couldnt. I fell down and she saw the fence, grabbed her brother and told him to run. I remember trying to lean over, crawling trying to stop them. All the while trying to stay awake and aware while she is laughing, trying to escape. they didnt! Not sure how I won that battle, but I did.

The next year, age 4 and 5. Drawers were emptied on a daily basis. Kitchen cupboards were emptied on a daily basis. Things were smashed, doors were kicked, i was hit. No punishment worked. Everything was just funny for her.
She tried pushing her brother down the stairs.
She would go outside and urinate. She would urinate around the house.

Age 6 she made up a story of a boy in her school touching her inappropriately. I was past myself with worry and in shock.
I had a long, talk with her and told her i needed to tell the school and the police and she told me it was all lies.

Now as a mother my head was all over the place. Was it really a lie? Is she just saying that because she thinks she will get into trouble?

If i told her off she would scream to make the neighbours think i was hitting her.
Age 7 things were just getting worse.
She was bullying her brother, and turning family against each other.
She told me my ma. Tried strangling her and she told my mam i didnt feed her.

It was as though she learned the way to go on in school. Used school to her advantage, by playing the victim. It wasnt until year 3 when she realised the school was on my side and so she had to change her tactics.

Her bad behaviour started dying down. I thought things were improving. But it seems she just got more clever on how to deal with things more slyly.
When her younger brother was born she would try and take himout of the cot and things.
She would try and mother him to an extent. I got the impression that she thought she knew better than i did.

At age 8 sheclaimed a man had touched her. On a rare visit to her dads, she said she went into a mans house. Explained things with great detail of his house.
Police were called, hospital visits were made.
It was all a lie.

I couldnt of told her off anymore than what i did. That mans life could have been ruined!
She didnt care. She was not bothered at all.
Everytime she was asked why, we get a shrug of the shoulders.
The same response everytime she does something wrong.
Her brother has since stopped being her puppet and now she hates him. Calls him names all of the time and just bullies him like mad.
I honestly think its because he doesnt do as she says anymore.

Everytime i punish her she doesnt care. The same old blank look and shrug of the shoulders.

She is currently all sweet and innocent with me as i have taken everything off of her as she has started affecting my 9 year old with her nasty comments. Just last week she jumped i the bath with her clothes on because she was cold...as she says.

I am at a loss. I have spoken to the school. I am waiting for a psychologist.

Is it me? Everyone around me tells me it isnt. They tell me to look at my other children to hell me see that. I do, but i still feel I am to blame.

I am her mother at the end of the day.

What have i done wrong???
What can i do to fix this?
She starts big school next year. She is almost a teenager. I pick up danger from her and am already scared to physically touch her incase she tells the school a made up beating. She tried that with my partner

OP posts:
DeWe · 18/09/2013 12:33

(((hugs)))

She sounds really traumatised. Does your school have a family worker or someone you can talk to.

I think the thing that stands out to me is that she has apparently made up twice at a young age that she has been touch inappropriately. Now I don't think many children at that age would know how to describe that, so that worries me that there has been abuse some time perhaps in the past, perhaps ongoing.

Do you spend time on your own with her? Or maybe an aunt or grandma who can just make her feel special.

Does she enjoy seeing her dad? Does she react better for him? Does she behave worse before going, or after she comes back? When did he leave, and his he father to all your dc?

It sounds to me bigger than you can deal with on your own. Is there someone she can confide in, talk to, see if there is something that is troubling her?

smallmomma · 18/09/2013 13:15

Thank you.

I have also thought the same. As I could not see how a child of her age at the time could make it up.
But she swears...still to this day that nothing like that has happened.

She has plenty of family around her that she can confide it. I do spend time on my own with her.
She spends time with her grandma too.

Her dad has stopped seeing them both now. He was in and out of their life before that.
We split when she was 2 or 3.

It has been a year and a half since they last seen their dad. He was all for my daughter. Had no interest in my son. Even then. It was his girlfriend they seen...he was always out when they went for visits.

I really dont unerstand. I really wish i could. Even just a little...

OP posts:
smallmomma · 18/09/2013 13:16

Oh i forgot. He is the father of my oldest two.

My mam has been trying to talk to her tl try and help open her up

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