5y.o very contrary- concerned it’s ODD

[Danzie]

Hi, my 5 year old daughter has always been a difficult character, but lately her behaviour has been bizarre and unmanageable.

She will argue with me about absolutely nothing, e.g I’ll offer to read her a book at bedtime, she won’t pick a book so I’ll go to leave, then she screams and says she wants a book.. but won’t pick one. Repeat this x 15. Whilst she gets more and more hysterical.

She gets really angry about nothing, and can be hostile, rude and disobedient (but not ‘naughty’.. she doesn’t run off/break things/hit etc). She is really good at school and largely good for others. No history of trauma or anything negative.

She is currently sat outside the bathroom whilst I’m in the bath, she is crying and saying sorry, explaining that she knows how her behaviour is unacceptable and unkind. But I’ve heard this before, she still won’t think twice to do it again (although it’s positive that she does understand).

Lastly, her behaviour is made worse if we give her ultimatums or say ‘I’m counting to 5’ etc. This actually seems to encourage her. Ignoring her bad behaviour and only reinforcing the good behaviour tends to escalate it as well. Hence why I’m out of ideas and questioning WTAF is wrong with her

@babysharkah she’s year 1 but she really needs this break over Xmas... i reckon she is exhausted (as am I!!!!) x

@lougle interesting collection of children, my favourite line yet! Bet they are amazing, even if It’s not always easy. My little battle axe is the apple of my eye, despite turning my hair grey!

@muddlingalongalone
I’m glad I posted, I’m a psychologist and sometimes think I should be able to figure these situations out immediately, but you need fresh, neutral eyes. Other mums have all the lived experience you need sometimes to see what you’ve missed!

We have very relaxed (but not relaxing 😂) mealtimes. If they eat the same thing for five nights of the week, fine. They eat hardly any vegetables. I’m just happy that they are eating. The oldest two have ASD, so it’s not just ‘fussy’. The old ‘They’ll eat when they’re hungry’ is sadly not true. They’ll quite happily not eat.

Update.. having watched my 5 y.o really hard these last few days, I don’t think she is anxious about choices. I think she uses those opportunities to create conflict (still not really sure why, can only presume attention).

I did have a good think about how we’ve dealt with bad behaviour in the past, and realised there are absolutely no consequences. She doesn’t eat dinner? She still always has a pudding. She’s rude at bedtime? She still gets a story.

So I have started putting her in her bedroom for allocated amounts of time when she is rude and starts her ‘push-pull’ behaviour (today’s drama: You're not allowed to look at the Xmas card I made you mummy. Why won’t you look at my card? No, stop looking, you can’t look! You’re not interested, you won’t look! x 300).
I have been withdrawing my attention and giving short dispassionate responses, or ignoring rudeness altogether, and only engaging with her good behaviour. Doesn’t really feel right, but nor does giving her tons of attention every time she kicks off.

Will see how she gets on.

Children crave boundaries and perhaps in your desire to show her unconditional positive regard, she hasn't quite established where her boundaries are, so has been testing them. I imagine that with your psychology background, you've been a little more...patient... than many parents may have been, so you may not have noticed until now that her attempts to force you to 'show' her the 'line' have fallen a bit flat on their face, because you've gone with her behaviour to an extent, and modified your behaviour according to hers!

It might not take very long at all for you to turn the around, if what she's really looking for is 'who's in charge and where are we heading, here?' It can be quite scary being a child. I quite regularly have to remind my DD3 that I'm the parent and she's the child, so it's my job to know what's happening, decide what we're doing, think about how much it costs, how we're going to get there, etc. She's just responsible for doing what I ask her, at the time I ask her to do it, preferably with good grace.

Found this while scrolling for advice about my very contrary, strong-willed 5yo dd! How are things now, OP? Hope your daughter moved on from this phase. Would love to know if anything helped in terms of approach. It is so wearing and worrying at times.

I’m not the OP but noticed I’d replied about my 9 year old, who is now almost 15!
She’s taught me a lot about parenting! I carried on with strategies like ‘How to talk’, work on validating, attuning and containing. I’ve learned to listen and not advise/ problem solve too quickly. Have a look at this free app. I’d have found it really helpful at that age https://www.humanimprovement.org/

Thank you, that looks interesting - will take a look. I feel at a loss sometimes - the bossiness and attitude can be really difficult. Advice out there is so contradictory - sometimes I feel we need to come down harder with consequences/punishments if she is rude (we hold firm boundaries but generally haven’t used punishments like taking away screentime). Other times think I need to work on connecting with her through fun. School are very positive about her behaviour.