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Behaviour/development

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Eight year old cannot amuse herself and is very angry and frustrated

1 reply

Superpanicky · 01/04/2021 10:03

Looking for ideas on how I can get my eight-year -old to amuse herself. I’m really worried that she cannot seem to spend anytime playing alone at all, she follows me around constantly, moaning how bored she is, i go to the toilet and she’s there, lingering. I do play with her of course but I can’t do it all day everyday and plus I don’t think that is a healthy habit to get into for her- I think it’s vitally important to be able to amuse yourself from time to time. Her younger brother has no problem with this and he plays with her too but it often dissolves into a row. She too is frustrated by her behaviour as well, she is deeply unhappy and it’s very upsetting for us all. There is no reason for her to be unhappy, she has a stable home life with a family that love her, she has friends at school, does well academically, all the toys etc she could wish for, pets, a garden with trampoline swings etc. Covid lockdown has magnified the problem, I thought it would get better when she went back to school but it hasn’t. We made her bored list with ideas for her when she is stuck, she refuses to do any of them, I’m literally at the end of my tether and it’s starting to affect my relationship with her because I literally cannot do anything or get anything done without there being tantrums. We’ve even tried to reward her for spending short amounts of time amusing herself and even that doesn’t work! I really fear for her, is this normal?

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
MissTT85 · 05/04/2021 11:50

Hey there, I think the covid has made thing worse for her and maybe caused some anxiety, it sounds like she is using I am bored as a reason to follow you around, does she have anxiety when you leave her? If you can try and get her to express how she is feeling maybe you could get to the root of it.
My daughter struggled with this and found it hard to express her emotions so she used four paper plates with different emotional faces on and she will mark it each day to tell me how she is feeling. It worked for her and we would talk about what was going on and turn the emotion into some positive or with a better outcome.
I found art really beneficial and found lots of using your imagination artwork on Pinterest . I think it helps if it is something they have an interest in.

hope this helps :)

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