One child is easy going and chilled out the other is a tetchy nightmare.

[ThereWillBeAdequateFood]

I’ve got two kids dd (9) and ds (6).

They have very different personalities and always have. Dd was a tricky baby, poor thing had colic and wouldn’t sleep unless being held for months and months.

Ds was a doddle as a baby.

Now they are older they are still chalk and cheese. Dd is really getting to me, I did an Easter egg hunt for the two on them. She ruined everything with her negativity, how the fuck can you be negative when finding chocolate?

She sucks the fun out of everything, if I do some thing nice for her 50% of the time she just rolls her eyes at me. Obviously she gets pulled up for her piss poor attitude.

I’ll always love her but today I really don’t like her. Is anyone else in the same boat? Any advice or words of wisdom would be great.

If I had two kids of the same mindset as ds, parenting would be a piece of piss.

I have one of these

They overthink everything. They plan how things should be and get angry when their plan isn’t followed even if they haven’t shared their plan!

It’s a mine field.

Thanks green nice to know it’s not just me. Yes she seems to have this idea of how the day is going to go. If it doesn’t meet her expectations she’s devastated.
Whereas ds, just shrugs he shoulders and gets on with life.

Sounds just like my 9 year old! He can be so grumpy and downright rude at times it drives me up the wall!
My partners 6 year old is really easy going and placid. For example, if you tell him off he'll accept it and move on whereas if you tell my 9 year old off, he seems to think he's been wronged and will get in a massive huff about it, storming to his bedroom 🙄

I read something saying that for every negative characteristic, there is a ‘flip’ positive one. So an over-sensitive child might? be artistic or more understanding to their friends going through difficulties. An overwrought overthinker might be better at planning ahead or being organised. Etc etc.

I try and use it more about my DH though (my DS is still too young to really see a personality). So my DH is always late and it drives me crazy! But it comes from a sense of optimism that everything will work out and of course he can cross the city in 5 minutes and actually that’s quite a nice characteristic in other ways. I try and tell myself.

I like your outlook @pjani. It inspired me being a bit more tolerant of my loved ones, ahem, quirks.

pjani I like your approach. Like my husbands insane attention to detail. His fanning about drives me made by it means he does things well (eventually).

She had her positives, a lot of them ac

A lot of them actually. I think I see the worst of her as home is her safe place.

Her teacher’s have always given us glowing reports. We sit there looking like this wondering if they’ve mixed her up with another kid.

Anyway had a long chat with the little madam and she’s been quite sweet since.

I'm reading this book at the moment (Smart but scattered) and it says we all have a different profile of skills, if your child's profile and yours are opposites then you'll always butt heads as you don't understand each other.

Sounds like she is lower in flexibility and emotional control but is possibly very good at planning and maybe like your husband is good with attention to detail? Whereas you and your son are more laid back.

I have one of these! Also a 9 year old dd who never sees the positives and flips out in a strop it the flick of a switch.
Her sister (4) is polar opposite and mega excited about everything (I hope it stays that way and dd1s behaviour doesn’t rub off on her!!)

It’s like living with eeyore and I have no idea what else I can do to tackle it!

Zomg! I keep thinking about starting a thread about this, mine is 4 and, to be fair, is often pretty joyful, but fuck me, the whinging!

I have realised 2 things, as pp, some of it is the difference between what’s in her head and what actually happens. Yesterday morning it was her hair, we only had one bobble, so it couldn’t be the way she had planned & and what I suggested was unacceptable. So despite a new dress and chocolate, whinging, on and on and on.

I think the other thing is not letting her do enough things herself. Oh and not getting her to tell us the plan beforehand.

I’ve been lucky enough to see some light at the end of the tunnel. My DS is now 17 but has been very difficult to parent. He did improve a lot at puberty, around 13/14, as he started to be able to see that his negative reactions to events could be over the top. He isn’t easy to live with, as his perfectionist streak is still there and he still has a detailed plan of how he wants things to unfold, but he is much better than he was. It hasn’t rubbed off on DD who is 13 at all, she is her own self and as a child was much more straight forward to parent, with DS I was often trying to second guess his reactions in advance, no need with DD, who is spontaneous and still at 13 gets excited and ran around the garden like at 8 year old at our Easter egg hunt yesterday.

I can totally empathise. I have DD (6) who is lovely, happy, reasonable, understanding and just a ray of sunshine. By contrast, DS (nearly 5) is negative, glass half-empty, impatient, moody, unreasonable. He can be lovely, but there is lots of shitty behaviour in between.

Interestingly, my easy-going DD has been difficult to teach to read (finally she’s got there), whereas my DS was reading ridiculously well at 3, and just “gets” everything. That’s really not meant to sound like a brag at all, it’s just something I have to remind myself of when he is being hard work in other areas 🤦‍♀️

My two are like this, the 4 year old is sweet and happy whereas the 9 year old can't cope if the things he plans in his head go a slightly different way and is so negative about everything.

This was me as a child, and still is though obviously now I express it less to avoid impacting on others. I don’t know what it is - I’m an overthinker, insanely organised, worry about anything and everything and constantly compare myself and my life to others and find things lacking. It’s such a mental burden.

So this might just be ‘her’ and she might learn to manage it as she gets older. I really feel for you though; objectively I can see that I’m a PITA unless I keep myself strictly under control.

My 5 year old's negativity is really getting to me. He was the sweetest natures baby and toddler, but since starting Y1 he's become so unhappy. Constantly whinging, incredibly emotional. Cannot cope with even the gentlest of tellings-off - and interprets anything other than the most glowing praise (which he gets plenty of!) as a telling off, and it sends him on this downward spiral "I'm not a good boy, I'm not good anything, and you're going to stop loving me and throw me away."

I went to school months ago and raised how unhappy he'd become, because from a few things he said it sounded like he was getting a hard time from the other boys - calling him a girl and a baby. They assured me they'd keep a closer eye on him, but just days later he came home having been chased, pushed over into the mud, punched and kicked and had his trousers pulled down. Obviously I went back to the school and told them this was clearly an incident of bullying - they'd tried to frame it as "a game of tag that got out of hand."

It can't just be school though, because he's been no happier since we've been on lockdown. A couple of times he's told me he wants to kill himself - he's 5 FFS, I've no idea how he even knows about something like that!

Sorry, this probably isn't the place for this. I'm just finding it really hard - I just want my happy little boy back, and I don't know how to help him.

@GreeboIsMySpiritAnimal that really does sound like it could be a school issue? Combined with the somewhat perfectionist nature?

Same.
Ds1 hard work. Has bought me to my knees. Literally. Sucks all the joy and pleasure out of life. It's quite sad really.
Ds2 easy as anything.

I thought so too, @Coldhandscoldheart, but he seems just as unhappy being at home with me.

He also has a older sister who's as even-tempered and laid back as you can imagine - which is odd as she's on the autistic spectrum so should be harder work, if anything! But whilst she is largely unbothered by other people and what they might think of her, he cares so deeply about other people's opinions and never seems to think he measures up.

Agree with what a PP said - when their personality traits are opposite to yours, you're bound to clash.

I've found my people!

Greenbol that sounds very hard. The school should definitely be doing more to help and the comments about wanting to kill himself are not normal for a 5 year old. That must be very distressing. I would make an appointment with the GP** and maybe on chat or children's health as there will be more people with experience of this there that may have some suggestions to help. And keep talking here of course. The lockdown is really tough on the kids.

I only have one child so everyone (me included) assumes it's my parenting. But it just seems to be how my DD is. It's the rigid thinking around plans not working out, and intense anxiety and having to control everything, that is so exhausting. DD also had reflux, glue ear etc as a baby. When I've posted before it's been suggested that she may have autism, but school say she is fine and she doesn't have any other signs. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I have a DS who is 7 and exactly as you describe. Unfortunately I don't have another child to compare to, so when he has bad days I blame all his negative traits on my parenting. I know deep down that this is just his nature, but I do sometimes long for another child just to test the theory that perhaps it's not my inadequate parenting skills!

For those of you with only children, it most definitely is not your inadequate parenting. I really hope this post provides that reassurance

So glad it’s not just me.

My mum seems to believe all kids are born with a blank slate for a personality. So any issues the kids has are entirely the fault of the parents. I’m sure I’ve fucked up plenty of times with my kids but they definitely have their own personality right from birth.

milkrunningout amazing that your ds improved with puberty. I’m dreading dd going through puberty, feels like she’s already a teenager some days.

She sounds like my DD1 who is 7.

She was diagnosed with autism last year.

So anyone have any tips for dealing with a tetchy nightmare? My DD is resistant to routines unless she's decided what they should be. I've tried getting her involved but then we are back to her having a plan in her head that doesn't go her way...
I've tried consequences but the only one that she cares about is TV but then she will interrupt me every 10mins (literally) as she is bored (followed by an explosion about how bored she is and she doesn't want to do anything).