Horrible personality

[NoonA2023]

Hi all. This is my first time posting so hopefully doing it right. I’m desperately trying to help my 13 year old daughter. She’s been ‘tricky’ since she was about three and finally got her diagnosed with adhd a couple of years ago. My main worry is socially. She makes friends easily and is very socially motivated but has had ongoing friendship issues since infant school and has been described as horrible and told everyone hates her, right up until now. She isn’t spoiled and receives consistent discipline. I try and coach her but she keeps repeating mistakes. Sometimes it is quite spiteful-eg stirring up trouble gossiping about people, sharing secrets and just generally being a b*tch. Autism has been suggested but I can’t find any articles or research about malicious behaviour, more not being aware of one’s actions. I worry it is narcissism or another personality problem. She can be very sweet, kind and generous but only when she wants to be. I don’t want to keep paying thousands exploring diagnoses and I feel that I just need solutions for her. My husband’s mother is very similar so there’s probably a genetic component. We have had to cut her out of our lives because she’s so awful to be around. Sorry for the long ramble. Has anyone experienced similar?

I know you don't want to spend more money but this is your child. Get her to a decent child psychologist and explore what's going on. It might simply be impulsive behaviour in which case strategies and medication may help her. If it's something more it deserves to be explored.

I'm sorry I can't really offer any help or advice but I just wanted to say that my 8 year old is the same. I love him so much and have empathy towards him as I feel his is vastly misunderstood and I get upset with myself for feeling like if I could change parts of his personality I would, that's really not a nice thing to say as a mum but I am a people pleaser and so socialising with friends and family etc as a parent to a child who can be spiteful and unkind is very hard to manage, I have tried to determine where the behaviour comes from and am still at the very early stages of that journey but I am convinced he is ND in some way and he doesn't share, is spiteful and unkind, stubborn and argumentative, manipulative and generally unkind - sometimes vastly and all at once and other times a snippet of that behaviour will come out and other times he's incredibly kind but he is most of those things whenever he is on his own turf - he really struggles to share and take turns, take guidance from others etc.

irs more obvious the older he gets and he often tells me now that he chooses to spend lunch times alone as he'd prefer that to being guided on game choice - he will not play something he does not want to play and even then wants to be in charge a lot of the time - not all the time.

I don't imagine he's a very nice friend some of the time. I dread what till happen as he grows as he struggles to maintain friendships now and I struggle to 'make excuses' for his behaviour.

He is a lot better behaved when he's just us so I tend to avoid inviting people as much as that's when issues arrive but then I feel guilty for isolating him.

honestly I feel your pain xx

Take a look at https://www.starfishsocialclub.org/ which has a very interesting approach to helping kids that are ND navigate relationships without masking and other harmful practices. One of her big ideas is teaching kids about their reputation and how their behaviour affects it. Might be something useful there.

Do you think it might be helpful to look at therapy or counselling for yourself to disentangle your feelings about mil and dd? That’s a tricky thing and it’s probably not helping with decisions.

Thank you, that’s sound advice about MIL. I do draw comparisons far too much. The Starfish Social looks really interesting, I’ll take a look.

@Alana1983 sorry to hear you’re in a similar position. Hopefully the info above will help you too.

@SquirrelSoShiny thanks. It’s not that I’m against paying for help, just that I feel you have to know what you’re asking them to test for. I keep coming across differences in opinion on adhd v autism but I suppose it is more important to treat the symptoms regardless the diagnosis. She’s already medicated for adhd.

Do you know if there is a version of this Starfish training for adults?