unbearable 7.5 year old dd

[geekgrrl]

she just screams and strops from getting up in the morning until going to bed. Seriously, I feel like we just argue permanently, and she ties up all my energy, attention and resources. Dd2 (5) and ds (3) are just lovely and dd1 is a whingeing, shouting bundle of anger.

I don't know where I go wrong - I'm quite patient, I try to be cheerful and have a fresh start every day/afternoon, but it's usually already on the way back to the car from the school gate that the first strop starts.

She's always been a difficult child from the moment she was born but it's getting beyond the pale now. She dominates the family with her horrible moodiness and I don't know where to turn.

Of course, at school she's fine, v. able and a lovely child.

blimey you could be me.

I have had probs with my dd (8 in May) for ever.
I have bought every book under sun and tried all the techniques advised but still we have problem after problem. Life is one long battle.
I have no answers - but I totally emphathise.
Am living in hope that she will become the perfect teenager (when everyone else is having nightmares!)

unicorn, me too, I seem to have an entire library of parenting books!

Find myself thinking that it's only another 10.5 years until she moves out

awful isn't it, but I do understand. My dd just doesn't seem to want to fit in to our family unit, ie she expects us to go along with her all the time, and if she doesn't want to do anything - she makes it really difficult for the rest of us.
Her temper is awful too and she generally seems miserable at home.
I used to blame myself but then DS (age 5) is so much sunnier a character and willing to conform and comply, so I don't think it can be just down to parenting.
They are different characters chalk and cheese.