Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

Flip

Original poster

Give me some tips for dealing with a 5-year-old girl's less adorable behaviour?

14 replies

imaginaryfriend · 14/12/2007 22:05

I'm finding for the first time that I'm frequently at or near the end of my tether with dd (just turned 5).

She's a fabulous girl, bright, funny and very very lovable.

Just lately she's become incredibly pedantic and hard to focus. She's gone from being someone who liked to sit drawing / colouring for quite a while to someone who seems to have little patience to concentrate on anything including listening to what anyone is saying / coming to sit down at mealtimes etc. Getting her to bed has become a real pain for the first time ever. And she's gone from being very amenable and easy to communicate with to questioning everything I say in a really horrible way. On top of all that she's also utterly morbid, all her games are about her favourite toys become victim to something dreadful and she always wants me to play the role of a bad guy.

There's loads more but I've got brain frazzle tonight. I'm sure this is likely to be a common thing but short of constantly nagging and creating a negative atmosphere what can I do?

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Bauble99 · 14/12/2007 22:35

No idea, IF, as mine are all noisy boys.

Bump.

Original poster

imaginaryfriend · 14/12/2007 22:46

thanks

OP posts:

babblington · 14/12/2007 23:03

I know nothing (!) I've a 3 .6 and a 1.6 year old, but maybe just pre-christmas exhausted emotional highly strung girl stuff? My 3 year old is abominable at the moment, and I can only put it down to be really really tired...?

Original poster

imaginaryfriend · 14/12/2007 23:05

Could be something to do with going into Reception last September? Although I thought school was meant to make their concentration better not worse!

OP posts:

Bauble99 · 14/12/2007 23:36

Is she at a state primary? National Curriculum?

I ask because you may find that if she has gone from being a 'sit down and concentrate' type of child, she is finding the curriculum followed in reception a lot 'looser.'

She hasn't been at school long and this may be her adjusting. Also, 4/5 years olds are knackered after a day at school when they start. Even those used to F/T nursery.

Is she doing half or full days at school?

RosaLuxMundi · 14/12/2007 23:41

Schoolitis is my diagnosis. Mine have all been dreadful in Reception. They have to concentrate so hard in class, loads of new stuff to process, so they let off steam at home in various ways.
Just go easy on her while she adjusts - it is an irritating stage but I don't think you can do much to change it, and I have been through it three times now!

sarah573 · 15/12/2007 08:28

Sounds to me like you have gone from having an exceptionally well behaved child to a normal child!! My DD is the same age as yours (was 5 in nov), and often behaves like this, although she has 2 older brothers as bad influences!!! I gather it gets worse as they get older and hormonal (can't wait!!). Sorry not a very helpful reply!!!

InnAFull · 15/12/2007 09:36

Poor old IF, I've often thought your DD sounds like mine and she did change when she started school, no doubt about it. From being my best little pal she became other people's and it was a little hard to take. When she had friends home she would show off to impress them and do the 'cheeky questioning/rebelling' thing.

I think it's probably natural, their first steps to becoming an individual instead of the other half of you, but still... she is still your DD you always knew, though, and things will shake down a bit. IMO many children don't love school (I certainly didn't) and they have to become 'tougher' to survive, that's probably a good thing overall...

ChristmasSendsMePsycho · 15/12/2007 10:41

hate to say this but this all sounds completely normal for a 5yr old.

I have now had 5 5yr olds, and each and everyone of them have changed within their first term or two of starting school. they somehow become whole different kiddies, rather than being 'your own', any more. My MIL warned me of this when my first DC started school. she said they become the schools for a while, before settling back into being 'normal' again. altho, that 'normal' will be a different kind of normal anyway as these kiddies change and grow at astonishing speed!!!!

I seem to have 'blinked' and missed the last few years with DD1.....all of a sudden she is a teenager, yet I remember that thrill of finding out she was coming, let alone that first day of school!!!!

Original poster

imaginaryfriend · 15/12/2007 21:56

Thanks everyone.

InnAFull ... do I know you with a different name? I'm sure I do.

I think a lot of what you have all said is probably completely right. I know the 'growing away' is utterly necessary to her becoming an individual. It's hard to know sometimes when to lay down the law and when to let her decide something. In lots of ways I'm happy for her to go off and be independent as she's frequently been so clingy in the past.

Then today we went to a school friend's party and she was so shy. She sat on my knee for the first half hour, on and off weepy, then finally sat and listened to the entertainer so long as I sat 2 feet away and she could see me face on. Then a bit later she was fine again.

All of which is to say I wished her out of the shyness, was glad when she found her feet again, and I realised that when she's being bolshy etc. there's still a rather shy little girl underneath who needs reassuring.

OP posts:

cory · 15/12/2007 22:52

About the morbid stuff- this is about the time they become aware of death for the first time. Something she's got to go through of course, but scarey. My ds talked lots about death and people dying at this stage.

InnAFull · 15/12/2007 23:23

It's really 'Oenophile' from the DDARA thread that's where you know me from. I went Xmassy (very slightly, lol.)

Seriously your DD sounds lovely and hopefully she will become a good friend to you as well as a daughter because you are so close, aren't you, and you are so sensitive to your DD's needs - mine are both 18 or over now and we have such fun together, both were bright/clingy/sensitive/bolshy in their different ways, never an easy ride at all, very high-maintenance, but every minute of the difficult times was worth the closeness we've never lost.

Shitemum · 15/12/2007 23:32

Maybe she's copying someone from school who has 'an attitude'?

Original poster

imaginaryfriend · 16/12/2007 01:07

Oenophile! I often think about you and our strangely 'mirror' lives! The way you describe your daughters is so similar to dd. And if things work out for me and dd like they sound they have for you I'll be very happy.

As for talking about death ... She's been terrified of death / loss / parting since she was about 2 1/2. Any films that have someone saying goodbye have her nearly hysterical.

Geez I do hope I don't do something that makes her hideously insecure.

OP posts:

Flip