Help! My 9 year old is driving me crazy with her naughtiness!

[adertiger]

HI, I’m new to this site so hopefully I’m doing the right thing!
My 9 year old daughter is being extremely naughty, getting very angry, shouting at me, etc. We have a traffic light system in place (she gets a waning, then goes on to amber, then red), and we are trying to be strict with her and she gets a punishment (no TV, etc) for being on amber, and a harder punishment for red. (It used to be a punishment if she went onto red, but that didn't make much difference.
It has got the stage where we even make her fill in a chart on a daily basis and if she is naughty throughout the week she then might get a further punishment at the weekend (no TV, or not going shopping with her sister).
However, nothing seems to be working. She gets upset when she gets a punishment, but she then turns to her usual self very quickly.
My husband and I just don’t know what to do. My husband is now getting frustrated coming home on an evening, and is getting agitated (so am I to be honest)… We know we shouldn't get flustered, and angry, but it is hard not to!
We have another daughter slightly older, who is fine (as fine as older sisters can be).
Please help.

I do think it sounds all a bit too strict...charts don't generally work for older children (I actually don't like them for toddlers either) it seems she can't win...most 9 year olds are naughty at least once a week. Her anger could be due to lack of control in her own life...feeling as though she can't win with all these charts.

I'd remove all charts and tell her that you want to just forget all the punishments and charts...and want her to be happy...why does she get angry in the first place?

If the punishments aren't working then back off on that, stick to token sanctions and try to look for the root cause. It's clear something is behind it.

Has she always been like this or is it a recent change?

Is it always anger related? Does it feel like she's not really in control of herself when it happens?

It sounds like the whole situation and relationship has become stuck in a negative pattern which neither she nor you are enjoying. Getting back to basics, she needs to know that you love her, want to spend time with her and that she is lovable. Planning in some fun things to do together sounds like a good plan to me. When you know some of the things she enjoys, maybe you can use them as rewards for good behaviour, for helping out at home etc. Also, wherever possible, try to catch her doing the right things and praise her for them. These steps should restore some of the positivity in your time together and help build up her self esteem. What do you think?

Hi, thanks for the advice.
To try to answer some of the comments/questions:
I appreciate most 9 yr olds are naughty sometimes, but this is daily. We've only recently gone to the chart as we couldn't think of anything else.

Her anger is definitely through lack of control, whether it is with or without the chart. One example is that she started shouting at her older sister because her sister got up slightly earlier (lots of these examples!)

She knows she is loved as we say this all the time, and we make sure sure she gets rewards/ things she likes when she is good. We've also used the chart as an award, so if she is good by the end of the week she will get something special (obviously with some leeway as we can't expect here to be good all the time).

We do praise her also when she is good... we are aware that we can't be negative all the time.

She can get so annoyed and angry, then 5 minutes later the nicest girl you would ever wish to meet!

I would be happy to take away the chart, but we have done this before, and it's all gone to pot! thus reverting back to the chart!

I just think charts are setting her up to fail...and not get a reward. She sounds a little bit hormonal....which my DD certainly was at 9. Lots of senseless temper outbursts etc.

I would ditch the charts...they're singularly babyish for a child of 9 anyway...and try to see a pattern in her outbursts. I worked out that my DD would be prone to them if she hadn't had a lot of sleep or if she'd eaten junk food. try to find the reason behind her temper rather than just punishing them or trying to control them.