Temper tandrums at 10

[Trythisone]

My daughter has just had her tenth birthday party and I have been in tears !!

She is my third child, with a ten year gap for the other two so quite often I feel like she is an only child. My other two children were polite, well mannered and respectfull, they had there moments and were not angels by any means but third daughter has always been a challenge from approx 2 years old. She is very defiant and will not do as she is told. I have tried everything I can think of to make our family life a lot happier!! Star charts, discussions, praise, time out but nothing seems to work - basically if I ask her to do something or say the word NO I know it will create the tandrum.

The more I give the more she seems to agrue with me, whether that is material things or time with me. Sometimes I agree with her about something and she will still agrue with me. At worst we end up screaming and shouting at each other and she really is starting to say nastie things - I just never experienced this with my other two.

I have watched the nanny programme on TV recently and have been using the time out method, if she doesn't do as she is told she will have 10 minutes in here room - she refuses to go to her room so I add another 10 minutes - the time has gone up to 1hour 50min before she will go up with me dragging her up the stairs!!!

I have spanked her before but that did not help at all ( she laughed and said it didn't hurt!!).

She struggles with school work and is often horrible & bosy to her friends.

Sorry to go on but I just am really worried if she is like this now what is she going to be like in her teens!!

Hi Trythisone

Can relate to a lot you are saying here, and my three can often have me in tears, especially ds2 and dd.

My ds2 is defiant to the nnth degree and the same as you will not go to his room and he is eight now so cannot physically carry him any more. We have tried everything including gp and referral to see if he has any sort of condition.

Can't really help much as we haven't got it completely sussed either, staying calm with ds and repeating what you want done seems to help, also a lot of ignoring. When things get really bad, we give him several warning and then exclude him from things, ie parties or football the love of his life.

Is your daughter seeking attention, either good or bad do you think? or what triggers the arguements

if everyhting else hasn't worked... have you both tried rewards....hard i know. but you could start with very small rewards for very small positive actions, then (hopefully) you will see the results and can progress to bigger rewards to bigger achievements.
ignore the sneers, 10p for one positive action will be sneered at but if you ignore the sneers and offer 10p 30 mins later, then an hour later and you see something else +ve then reward again. they'll soon realise they could make a mint.

ignore me if this sounds tosh as i've beeen drinking!!!

I'm not really keen to use monetary rewards as mine are very money conscious and even offering them a reward, say sweets or an ice-cream becomes a nightmare, if one costs more than the other then they claim that I owe them money etc. etc.
However I do try to be positive and tonight I told them how good they had been and yesterday DS1 and DD went to my parents with me and DS1 is always winding DD up, but they were really good, so I made sure to comment to my mum about it, to show them that I have noticed, and its no always the bad things which are noticed

Hi KKGirl

I do think she is seeking attention, but it is constant attention and if she doesn;t have it there and then all hell brakes lose. I have tried to find out if it is when we change a routine, when she is tired, when she is upset and it can be any of these things! I ban her from telly and computer but it turns into a farce, because if I ban her from something she will continue to agrue with me, she tries to wear me down and tells me how to behave and what I should do - it gets to the stage where I have to ban her for say two weeks to get her to do one simple thing!!

my ds comes to dinner twice a week and we cannot have a meal without dd2 having a tantrum, if I am having a talk with dd1, dd2 will cause a scene and I will have to stop talking to my dd1 to sort out ds2.

I come from a large family and am well used to temper tantrums but most children grow out of them, she has but with me she will continue to argue, shout, scream & kick.

I am lost at where to go - has she got some kind of problem or is she just a spoilt child?

Hi trythisone. Iam afraid I can't offer any advice only sympanthy as I have the same problem with my dd who is inly 4. I have noticed that she is getting worse as she gets older though, its constant tantrums shouting and tears all day long. She is impossibe to take antwhere and just runs wild never staying by my side when asked to.
I have wondered if she has a problem or if she is just a very spoilt and wilful child. Apparently she is well behaved at school so this makes me think she hasn't got a problem as she can control herself in school.
How is your dd in school.

I think charlize's point about how her behavior is in other settings is important. That should be a good indication of whether her behavior is just for you, or is truly something she can't help (ie hormonal, chemical imbalances etc.).
If she is good at school and it is just something she does around you, I would suggest trying to look a little more at how you interact. I would also highly recommend going to a family counsellor to help you with this. It may be that your personalities just don't agree well.

I know that my dh has a hard time with our dd (23 mo.) and has not had problems with our ds (or his other 3 children who are not mine). Although I find our dd frustrating at times, I am much better at spotting her triggers than he is. The result is that her behavior seems to be much worse around him than around me. He doesn't seem to be perceptive about the things that are important to her that may not be important to him. For example, if she is carrying a toy and decides she needs to go to the toilet (we're just toilet training her) and dh picks her up to take her to the toilet and she drops the toy, and he doesn't stop to pick it up, she will start screeching the name of the toy at the top of her voice. Dh will then ask me why she's screeching when he's trying to put her on the toilet and she may even wet herself before he's gotten there because she is so upset. Dh can't understand the importance of that toy and why she would react so strongly to having it. (He may even say..but ds wouldn't do that). I keep trying to explain to him that it doesn't really matter why that toy is so important to her, but clearly it is, and since it's not something that is dangerous, it's better to pick more important battles to fight with her about. Ironically, although it may sound like I'm the one spoiling dd, in fact she is better behaved for me because, (I think) she senses that when I do ignore her, or tell her not to do something, it is for an imporant reason. My dd and I are very similar in tempermant, so it's easy for me and not so for my dh (who has the same problems dealing with me as he does with our dd!).

Again, I highly recommend going to see a family counsellor together to try and figure out what is triggering your dd's reactions. It sounds like you have made a valiant effort at dealing with it on your own and really at this point need a professional who can maybe point out things that you haven't thought of.