8-year-old behaviour

[ExhaustedMumbles]

My almost 8-year-old is angelic at school, rarely puts a foot wrong, always listens, does as she's told and gets glowing reports. At home, however, she is rude, constantly ignoring, answering back, foot stamping, growling at us if we ask her to do something when she's "busy"...etc. I see a lot of it as attention seeking, but the wrong kind of attention, and I find her difficult to talk to/reason with because she just doesn't pay any attention to what I say...constantly fiddling with a toy or interjecting with something totally irrelevant.
Her dad often loses his rag with her and yells in her face, which I'm somewhat convinced is her goal (to get his attention), but her behaviour remains unchanged.

Any advice from parents with similar issues?

Is your dd my dd? ! She has won behaviour awards at school but awful to me! Ive been told 8 is a difficult age. I'm actually hoping to get support. Hope you can find someone else with advice as I'm at a loss.

Is your dd my dd? ! She has won behaviour awards at school but awful to me! Ive been told 8 is a difficult age. I'm actually hoping to get support. Hope you can find someone else with advice as I'm at a loss.

I logged on here to find help for a similar issue so you are not alone! We have the same - behaves perfectly at school but at home she argues with absolutely everything, it's exhausting. She knows everything and nothing I say is ever right. She behaves badly and then kicks off when she's asked not to. In her words: "if you tell me off it makes me behave worse", I mean what are you supposed to say to that?

She is an only child and we have been very careful not to spoil her but her behaviour makes me think we have totally failed in that mission.

I'm sorry my reply is not helpful. Hopefully someone will be along with advice, in the meantime we can grit our teeth together.

We get a lot of attitude from our 6 yo LO (only child). I am currently trying the ignoring rule where I pick behaviours (like whining, backchatting) and ignoring LO until she shows acceptable behaviour. Obviously more serious behaviours need tackling but look it up and see if it is worth giving it a try.
We are trying to focus our attentions on her good behaviours and not bad ones.
Hope this helps a little x

It's comforting to know it's not just us. Sorry you are all dealing with the same. Ours isn't an only child, but her behaviour has always been quite bad at home, but angelic at school, even before her younger sibling came along. She is spoilt however, through no fault of her own (or mine, I must add..) because of early bereavement that close family try to make up for through letting her have everything she wants and everything her own way. Her behaviour may be a direct result of that but I need strategies for dealing with it in the here and now. I haven't really found anything that works...yet.

Your kid is right, lambchops. When you tell her off, it makes her behave worse. Why? She doesn't want you to see it as an effective punishment method.

We have to understand when parenting that in a very real sense, our children decide for us which punishments and disciplinary measures work and which don't. If a child truly hates being yelled at, they'll get more defiant and misbehaved after, to make sure you don't think yelling at them is a good way to approach the same problem in the future.

I think if she's very used to having everything her way, it's time to start TALKING a lot more. Framing compromises and other types of conflict resolution as mature ways of handling disagreements, while tantrums et cetera are seen as babyish or immature can sometimes make kids turn it around. But you have to actually talk to her, and make an effort to see things from her point of view.

Keep in mind that seeking attention is not a bad thing. Imagine how frustrated you would be if people told you that you were only calling your friends to meet for dinner because of your "companionship-seeking behavior."

One thing I have tried successfully with an attention seeking kid is to create kind of an attention bat-signal, something for the child to do that indicates clearly that they want attention -- something non-destructive or noisy, typically, and that parents and kids can both use. Simultaneously, the parents can develop a "busy signal" that tells other people "I'm busy doing something, so please give me some warning before asking me to change what I'm doing."

From there on out, you can use the attention and busy signals with one another, making sure you give her 10 minutes to wrap up when you're calling her away from something she's busy with, and so on. The trick with this one is, when the kid uses the "attention" signal, if your "busy" signal isn't on, you need to pay real, valid attention to the kid right away. If you're not following the rules you set, they'll learn quickly that there's not much cause for them to do so, either.