My just 8yo is a lovely girl. She is absolutely perfectly behaved with everyone else but me. With me, she can also be well behaved and lovely but always has pushed every limit all the time over all the everyday things. An example would be bedtimes. Whereas with her younger brother I will have a variety of reactions to bedtime (pushing his luck, arguing, wanting to go, asking to go, being conspicuously a good boy) she will argue the toss every single time to the point at which I have to carry through with a consequence e.g. no story. She has got better in that in the past this would then explode into a full scale tantrum and now I get a bit of a strop and then we can talk about it. She knows exactly what she is doing and we can talk about it on that level but she doesn't know how to stop herself doing it and neither do I. We both get quite upset about this at times.
I have started to be a lot more careful about following through consequences quite swiftly rather than giving her more chances, and about keeping my cool with her, praising her when she does well and talking things through with her.
However, her birthday party today was another example. She has always been horrible after her party. She recognises it. She is cheeky and disrespectful and disobedient. She knows it, I know it. She takes the consequences. Nothing helps. I ended up saying today that I will think again about a party next year if this is the thanks I get. Crap of me I know. A consequence a year in advance. Sheesh. Just quite pointless and mean of me to say.
She did say sorry and then told me that she didn't know why she behaves like that and then this, which has quite upset me and is why I am writing this: that she doesn't understand why she can't just enjoy our time together, that she loves me more than anyone, and that one day she knows it will be over (when she is an adult) and she gets angry at herself for messing things up but she can't help it.
This sounds so awful to me and I am worried about her feeling so bad about herself at such a young age. DH says it is just because I am the focus of all her attention and that I don't do anything wrong, but I can't help feeling it should be better than this.
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Behaviour/development
Does anyone else have a child who ALWAYS pushes the line?
24 replies
margaritasbythesea · 10/01/2016 22:34
OP posts:
Frusso ·
11/01/2016 07:45
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