Please help! 9 year old daughter is so rude and defiant.

[Tonijayne]

I am at my wits end. My daughter is a lovely girl most of the time. Very loving, caring and selfless. Right now she is doing everything she can to assert some authority and push my buttons. I find myself screaming at her or breaking down in floods of tears. Only last week I took away her devices and this seemed to work but what other tactics can I use? I am going to sit her down and try to talk it through and see what her take is on what's happening. She went into school in floods of tears this morning after starting and continuing a stupid argument over nothing. Please help :( I want her to feel loved and supported but at the moment I am struggling to even look at her.

It's horrible isn't it? In my experience it's all part of raising strong willed women, so in that sense you're probably doing a really good job!

My 7 year old sounds similar. When she's on good form she's wonderful, wonderful company, but when she's not she's downright horrid

My belief and approach is always to use positive reinforcement. We sat down the other day to write a list of things we'd like to do to celebrate when we've had a good run of things. I'm not asking her to be compliant and always do what I want, the key is encouraging her to get her views/arguments across in a non-confrontational, respectful way.

The chances are, if you ask her why she's behaving this way she won't know. She's at a stage when she's wanting her own control over her life, but it feels like a constant battle for you both. Are there things at home that she can take ownership of? Can she earn pocket money doing chores?

It really is exhausting, but you're not alone and it will get better. Keep telling yourself that!

I've been through this. Really really hard. I've had moments I'm proud of, and moments that I'm not, in dealing with this sort of behaviour. One thing I'll say is that in talking to lots of other mum friends, many many girls seem to go through this phase around 8-10 (and only with their parents, so mostly behind closed doors). Like you say, my DD is heaven most of the time, but when she flipped it was like 0-100 in seconds, and then it was almost impossible to get her out of the mood. Jeckel and Hyde. She would argue that night was day just for the sake of it.

I think we are coming out of it now and I'm still not sure what advice I can give other than to keep practicing patience. Love bombing. One-to-one time. Not letting her get overtired (a massive trigger). Healthy diet and v few sweets. Trying to talk about it when she's calm (v difficult). And breathe, and know that it is a phase, and will pass.

Should expand on that list of things: it's nothing that costs money, just stuff that we like to do together, like taking the dog to our favourite place, riding, baking, drawing. Quality time things when we can focus on each other rather than external pressures.

Thank you so much! That is really good advice. She already does chores for pocket money but I like the idea of a list of things to do to celebrate things improving. I will give this a go.

I have thought a lot about this and I know I need to remain calm, I used to be able to but I'm on tenterhooks now just waiting for things to kick off so my nerves are shot to bits. I need to re-set things back to zero and start again.

Many thanks and good luck to you too!

I'm on tenterhooks now just waiting for things to kick off It might be that she's picking up on this. Your uncertainty may be making her feel insecure which could result in the boundary pushing. I know it's really hard (and believe me, as much as I know about child development it's a massive part of my job I'm by no means a perfect example of it at home) but having confidence in yourself and a positive approach makes all the difference.

Good luck

When dd 9/10 was being a nightmare she had a week of early nights!! Told her the truth, that tbh I didn't want to have to spend extra time with her watching TV after her behaviour!! She had just started watching a programme with her dsis a year older and that privilege was removed. She wanted to be more grown up but I said her behaviour had to reflect that! Over a year ago now and her attitude has massively improved!! Your dd is pushing your buttons simply because she can -