Really dont know what do do - help me wth dd

[losingmyrag]

My dd is 6. Some would say she was exciteable and high spirited others im sure just find her a pita when she gets in one of her modes like today. She is ok when just our family the 4 of us but then as soon as we get visitors or were visiting anyone she is just loud, screamy, defiant definelty defiant and a pita. We had visitors today with 2 kids and she was constantly being loud and diving about and saying poo and the usual delights, asked her to calm down a trillion times and it just got worse, dh dragged her off twice to have words then she would come back laughing and blowing raspberries at us and gernerally dfemonstrating we have absolutley no control over her whatsoever. I was jjust sooo embarassed. I honestly have no idea how to right this behaviour. We have told her she is grounded all this week, no rainbows, no desserts after tea.

The visit ended with my dh upstairs having had enough and upset at his lack of being able to control her and our visitors going as they didnt want their children seeing such naughtiness - they said this to her and she grinned at them like it was funny - as they went she did get upset realising she had actually upset us all. We are supposed to be going away with them and i have told her rightly or wrongly we wont be now as they dont want to go away with a naughty girl. I also have a 2 yr old who likes immitating her screams.

i just went to library to get a book to tell me what to do btu they didnt hae anythig other than about toddlers or teenagers. Please tell me what to do surely someoen has been here.

Gah! I don't have one that old so no patronising advice but poor you - they can be little buggers can't they? Well done for keeping your cool.

Sorry I haven't been there but I was a little at your visitors being so judgemental, they are your friends and should support you. Anyway. Is there any chance she is acting up for attention? Could you ignore her when she is acting up but praise when she is calm?
As I said no experience here so hope you get some useful advice soon.

who moved - i didnt last night as we had pretty much the same when 2 of her friends were in last night and that ended in tears then a marathon bedtime of i want this that and the other. I did shout and scream and lose it last night and dh said how we should keep calm and just be stern instead of 'blaring ' at her because that isnt working.

oh it wasnt friends it was judgey pants sister in law and brother which makes it worse.......

why the need for attention though when she has her 2 fave cousins to play with ..... that probably sounds wrong but i know what i mean....

If DS (6) behaves like this, I take him upstairs/away from everyone else and we stay away until he iscalmed down. When he comes back to the group with me, then if it starts again I remove him for a longer period, straight away if necessary... etc.

Tiring - and frustrating when I want to talk to visiting friends, but now (at 6.5) he is usually better behaved, and the reminder that if he behaves in this manner, he will miss out usually settles things down.

worth a try - he did put her upstairs but she soon came running down and rather than make a scene we left her down to act an ass again......... our hole i know!

I thought showing off in front of visitors was quite par for the course for a lot of children

The fact that she was upset after they went does mean she has some understanding of what is going on.

Rather than calling her naughty and getting upset, I wonder if you could get at it from a different angle.

Is she the sort of child that might help out when you have visitors? So could she help prepare the table for tea, or help bake cakes in preparation and then be asked to hand them round nicely?

I know that sounds odd but some children (I believe) need a role when visitors are round. It's almost as though they suddenly believe they need to be the court jester and get all the attention when actually, you can teach them they can get attention for good behaviour too ('ooh look at these cakes dd helped me bake'). That sort of thing.

it's hard though and I do feel sorry for you!

I think it is a bit much to make a 6 year old resposible for whether guests stay or whether you go on holiday. It sounds like you all got a bit hysterical TBH - the punishment was a bit OTT and then she carried on and someone left and then the holiday was cancelled. Can you not remember being unable to calm down and putting on a brave defiant face on when the punishments were being lined up? I can. I think a better response would have been to literally ignore all the silly behaviour and not feed the frenzy. Or to take her out until she was properly calm.

Easier said than done and I'm sure we've all been there!

I too thought over-excitement when you have visitors is par for the course, and tbh, if my visitors had said such a thing to my child I think I would have been very impolite back, what are their kids like then? Mini-stepfords?

Poor you for getting stressed, but poor dd as well...bless, all excited and then in so much trouble.....My dd is almost 6 and we have the screaming abdabs when her friends have to go home, that sort of thing, but I just try and calmly reason with her, wasn't it fun, we'll do it again, but not if you always scream so unhappily at the end of it etc....

i think court jester is a spot on role she thinks she has - will defo try other tack. Tbh the visitor comment i was kind of glad off at the time as id ran out of threats and it seemed to jolt her a little. Min stepfords hmmm well they like to think so which is a whole over competetive canof worms thing they like to ram at us from time to time which i do manage to ignore. yes ott but at time wanted to get accross how much her behaviour affects us all.

i would love to cancel the holiday as it just going to be a pressure pot

At the moment she is actually tidying her room which is unheard off - is now polishing and hoovering it!

She is a good kid, lovely and bright but just out of control with excitement at times - you would think life was normally dull!

im going to go do my ironing now..... i feel calmer and a bit more in control plus bonus my house smells of polish!

Don't iron fgs, lie on the sofa and eat sweetmeats (and drink wine) x

she sounds lovely

don't let the pressure of sil make you think she's anything other than an overexcited child who will learn to temper that behaviour as time goes on

thanks for being kind - almost feel ashamed now for being a spineless namechanger! I only had to iron 2 shirts and 2 summer dresses and it got me out of bath time!

How often does she see the cousins and how old are they?

DCs are very similar age to their cousins and go a bit crazy from excitement like this when they meet up (about once every 2 months).

The "host children" are usually "worse behaved" when it happens at their own house. Fortunately meet ups usually happen at the grandparents and there is a room they can play safely in alone so we just send them up there to work it out together. Lots of being loud and diving about and saying poo while we carry on with civilised adult conversation downstairs.

every 3 weeks or more often - a yr older and younger so all exciteable.

So how come your DDs behaviour was a problem and not the cousins.

I would probably expect 5, 6 and 7 yr old cousins to be a bit crazy if they were only seeing each other every 3 weeks. As long as they are not damaging the house/hurting each other I'd just leave them to it.

Or you need to plan activities for them (they could all make the biscuits for afternoon tea or a craft project) but that would require supervision from an adult.

Or everyone plays board games/card together.

But I don't think it is realistic to expect them to be calm while the adults chat about adult stuff.

because they were well behaved and werent climbing on my dh while he was trying to talk, they were not shouting evil poo head at their dad and when told to calm down they did.

i would love to plan activities but finding one that suits a 2, 5,6 and 7 yr old hmm.

Have just rad this thread having posted something very similar myself following afternoon activities at our house. Irs just such hard work isn't it.

I am going to try increasing the time period of time outs as DS1 doesn't bat an eyelid if he is removed form the fun for 4 mins. We involve him in setting the table, aksing about drinks etc but its so hard to stay forcused on this and praising the good behaviour when he is driving us nuts and god help us we want to talk to our guests!

i am going to up time out even in public visitor situations instead of pretendng all is well. I am going to relax more though and not get hung up on my perfect judgey visitors.

You know also a fewmonths back i was on a shoutey mum supprt thread and there was a distinct change in our families happy time.

IME saying calm down to an excited child never works.

sorry, that didn't sound very helpful. Am trying to say you're not the only one.

She probably won't be like this on holiday because she'll get over the excitement in the first couple of days.