Worried about my 4yo DD

[RubaDubMum89]

This is going to be a long one, so I'll summarise here:
DD 4, 5 at the end of the year, has been hurting the animals. Last week she cut both the cats ears with scissors. Today she's pulled loads of feathers out of the chickens. I'm at my wits end. Would you start proceedings with a Dr for her to see someone or am I over reacting?

Long version:

We had some problems with DD when she was younger - 2.5ish - smacking the cats and throwing stones at them etc. We spent a long time explaining to her how the cats have feelings, when she was hurt it's not nice and that's how the cats feel etc and the behaviour stopped. We've not thought anything of it since then. Now it's resurfaced.

To give you an idea of DDs personality - she loves animals, she's generally a kind and loving child, she's even had a couple of certificates from nursery for always being super kind to everyone. The cat she hurt is like her best friend, they've grown up together, play together, sleep together, when she's hurt and she crys he comes running from where ever he is to snuggle her, it's is (was?) a really beautiful relationship.

Then, last week, I saw the cat walking around with two bloody ears. I knew straight away what had happened - when I'd been cleaning upstairs I'd come down to find DD chopping paper up with the nail scissors we'd forgotten to put away - I knew she'd cut his ears and my heart sank. I felt sick. I asked her about it, I couldn't shout at her because I knew I'd go too far, and she denied it, then after asking a few more times she told me, she'd been making paper dinosaurs and the cat was in the way so she cut him. I asked if she knew what she was doing and she said she knew it would bleed and it would hurt him. She couldn't tell me why she would want to hurt him.

After I'd cleaned the cat up I took away all of her toys. They're all in the loft and she's earning them back day by day. All treats were cancelled, no puddings, no chocolate or treat food and no TV at all until she's shown us she can be nice again.

We debated at the time taking her to see someone, the Dr probably and hoping they could refer her on, but after a good 5 hour discussion and tears we decided we'd wait and see, as the behaviour is so very out of character we wanted to believe it was a stupid thing done by a 4yo who lacks comprehension.

Everything has been going great. The first incident with the cat was exactly a week ago today, she's earned a few toys back, she got to watch TV for 30 mins after tea last night and she's been her usual loving self with the cats. Then this morning, I was in the bathroom with the door closed and she pushed a chicken feather under the door. Then another. Then another. Until there was 10/11 of them.

I asked her if she'd pulled them from the chickens and she said no, to which I said in all the time we've had them, we've not had but 3 feathers fall out and she said I was right, she'd pulled them from the chickens. Again we've had the same conversations (me and her) she's promised not to do it again and I've taken a couple of her toys she'd earned back away. She's also no longer allowed to go near the chickens, which she was upset about.

Honestly, I don't know what to do. Do I take her to see someone? Do I seriously consider rehoming the animals now? I'd like this to be a VERY last resort as I adore all my animals and many of them predate DD but I'm worried what the next incident will be now. I don't know, my mind is all over the place. I'm worried about her, to say the very least and I'm devastated this is happening.

We're quite strict with DD and hold her to a high standard with behaviours and manners. We won't tolerate rudeness or back chat. She's never physically punished, we operate on a 3 warning system then she's sent to her bedroom. Maybe we're too strict? Is this a power play? But then it feels ridiculous to react to bad behaviour by being less strict?

Before I ramble anymore - AIBU to be so worried? Or am I totally over reacting?

I’m a bit shocked by the outrage on here, sounds like she’s just trying to get attention, she knows she shouldn’t hurt the animals but she’s doing it in front of your face literally- she’s obviously trying to tell you something ( I don’t know what though ).
I can’t see any benefit from taking her to the gp, there is literally no one for them to refer to, at best they’ll get health visitor/school nurse to
Give u a call & they might provide a bit of advice about ‘behavioural issues’.
Don’t rehome the animals, just supervise her when she’s around them, this is important for her safety as well as the animals as they may retaliate if she tries anything else and hurt her.
Keep the communication flowing with her, lots of attention & love so she knows she can safely express her feelings to you.
And maybe a bit of a harsher punishment if she does anymore animal mutilation - like lock her in the loft instead of the toys - ok just kidding don’t do that

Please rehome your animals!!!!!! You don’t deserve to have them if you’re not even considering this for your own selfish reasons. Obviously your daughter needs help but please rehome your defenceless animals.

@KurtWilde

Glad to see some more sanity has started to seep into this thread. Not sure how anyone could call a 4yo a psychopath/sociopath

Actually, while clinicians never utilise the archaic labels of psychopathy and sociopathy, it can be and is identified in children as young as two. While it’s obviously a horrendous thing to have to process, it can be dealt with and managed and the earlier the better.

That is not to say however, that I am in anyway attempting to label this child. Though I do think it is extremely important medical help is sought.

And ignore comments like those above discouraging clinical support.

OP I am a child psychologist

There are some ridiculously irresponsible posts here. It is completely inappropriate to speculate that a 4 year old might be a sociopath or have a personality disorder. There are good reasons why we don't diagnose such conditions in childhood.

There is a difference in what your dd has done and, say, putting a firework on a puppy's tail. She has not undertaken a mindful action to hurt an animal, knowing it would be hurt. I am a bit concerned at the leading nature of your questioning as well; this would not be allowed by a professional as such young children can be easily led or answer in a way that they think will make their parent happy. If you ask her "did you pull these feathers out of the chickens" a) you are communicating that this is possible and you think she did it and b) you are potentially leading her. What answer is she meant to give? How do you prove a negative?

I am confused as to how she could possibly have snipped both ears on the cat. It makes no sense that the cat would stay there. You said as soon as you saw it you knew what happened and again you led her in your questioning. Is there no other explanation?

I also think that you need to be more realistic in your punishments. 4 is so very young. We would normally recommend 4 mins of time out for a standard transgression. Now this is obviously more serious but the gulf between a 4 minute time out and having all your toys removed and no TV for a week is HUGE. It might have been better to buy the cat a "special tea", make a huge fuss of him as he was hurt, and have her draw a card to say sorry.

By all means have a chat with the GP but you are talking about impulse control and the development of empathy, not whether your daughter might be a psychopath. Hugs.

@MintMatchmaker

I’m sorry to ask so bluntly OP, but is there any chance that somebody is hurting your daughter?

Her behaviour is unusual and would indicate, to me, that she is emotionally troubled.

I would ask your GP to do an urgent referral. Speak to nursery as well, they may have access to other sources of hell that may be quicker than your GP.

To my knowledge, I don't think so. She very rarely spends time away from us unless she's at nursery or the odd sleepover at her nanas.

I've been sat analysing this for hours and when she was 2, me and her dad split up for a year and parented 50/50. I had aggressive PND and a horrendous birth/after birth experience and our relationship really suffered for it. We were apart for a year, working on things and mending our relationship. Ultimately its made us better parents but now I worry about the aftermath effect on DD and if this could be somehow related?

After another long discussion with DP, a GP discussion is on the cards and an alteration in our parenting style.

Someone up thread asked about what behaviour warrants the 3 warning system - a recent example - DD was nagging her grandad to play when he visited, he had asked for 5 minutes to sit down and catch his breath and she carried on nagging. Over the course of 20 mins she got two warnings for this, then grandad went to dance with her. She put Alexa on then when she played the wrong song, had a meltdown and sat on the floor crying. When I changed the song to what she'd actually asked for she started shouting at me, so I sent her to her bedroom for 10 mins to calm down.

Other examples are rudeness or treating her possessions badly or refusing to do what she's asked, for example, tidying toys up.

Also for the PP that asked, she was remorseful over the cat and the chickens. I explained to her this afternoon that she wasn't allowed now to be alone with the animals and couldn't play in the part of the garden where the chickens are - and her swing/slide - unless one of us was outside. She was sad about this too. She was also sad when I told her if we couldn't trust her with the animals they'd have to go.

Time will tell.

I am wondering how strict you are.

I had 2 very close together and apart from a few explanations about why they shouldn’t do something I don’t think I ever punished them. Certainly never sent to their room or time outs. They certainly weren’t perfect children but an explanation about why we don’t do something would have been enough.
I certainly wouldn’t have punished them for anything at 3 or 4 years old as that is too young.

They are older teens now and are nice people.

Definitely rehome the animals.
The best indicator or future behaviour is past behaviour. She will hurt them again in the future. I don't think it is worth the risk of her hurting them again.
I would also take her to see a doctor.

My plan would be;

1. Re home all animals ASAP
2. Call Nursery and ask for their observations
3. Call GP and tell them what’s going on
4. Never leave her alone with a living animal or even another child

@WyldStallions

OP I am a child psychologist

There are some ridiculously irresponsible posts here. It is completely inappropriate to speculate that a 4 year old might be a sociopath or have a personality disorder. There are good reasons why we don't diagnose such conditions in childhood.

There is a difference in what your dd has done and, say, putting a firework on a puppy's tail. She has not undertaken a mindful action to hurt an animal, knowing it would be hurt. I am a bit concerned at the leading nature of your questioning as well; this would not be allowed by a professional as such young children can be easily led or answer in a way that they think will make their parent happy. If you ask her "did you pull these feathers out of the chickens" a) you are communicating that this is possible and you think she did it and b) you are potentially leading her. What answer is she meant to give? How do you prove a negative?

I am confused as to how she could possibly have snipped both ears on the cat. It makes no sense that the cat would stay there. You said as soon as you saw it you knew what happened and again you led her in your questioning. Is there no other explanation?

I also think that you need to be more realistic in your punishments. 4 is so very young. We would normally recommend 4 mins of time out for a standard transgression. Now this is obviously more serious but the gulf between a 4 minute time out and having all your toys removed and no TV for a week is HUGE. It might have been better to buy the cat a "special tea", make a huge fuss of him as he was hurt, and have her draw a card to say sorry.

By all means have a chat with the GP but you are talking about impulse control and the development of empathy, not whether your daughter might be a psychopath. Hugs.

I have a degree in psychology myself and worked for a long time as a mental health support worker. I think I find this more scary having a deeper understanding of things.

However, you're right, I did use leading questions. I didn't start out with them. I asked where she got the chicken feathers from today and she said that one of them was sitting on them in the chicken House. However, I simply know this not to be true, least of all because I closed the door to the house before the incident so they couldn't do any more poos in there before I swapped out the bedding.

The same with the cat, I asked her first what happened to his ears. There's no chance anything else could have happened. If there was a cat fight I would have heard it - seriously noisy cat - and there's nothing in the house he could get that kind of injury from.

I was trying to get her to admit her wrong doing on both occasions. In these situations though, you don't think clearly. It's so easy to be objective when you've no emotional or familial involvement with the person, when it's your own child and your own animals rhyme and reason go out of the window. I really csnt express just how devastated I am by this. I love my child dearly but also my animals and up until recently we've all cohabited wonderfully.

If you've read above about my parenting style, would you mind offering some advice RE how we can alter things? I accept I can be too strict and hold her to high standards. I grew up in a physically and emotionally abusive home, so I've tried to find a balance between raising a well rounded, polite and caring girl as opposed to ruling with an iron fist and violence. But maybe I'm too harsh? And advice would be great fully received

I’m sure the cat would rather not have his ears mutilated than have the child write a card to say sorry! What on earth is the point of that. I can understand why you’d do that if you’d hurt another child, but a cat?! ‘Here cat, sorry I snipped your ears and made you bleed, and that in the past I’ve loved stones at you, but here’s a nice card!’

*lobbed not loved

@Onceuponatime1818

My plan would be;

1. Re home all animals ASAP
2. Call Nursery and ask for their observations
3. Call GP and tell them what’s going on
4. Never leave her alone with a living animal or even another child

Good lord

You expect a lot of a 4 year old. And sending a small child to their room on their own as a punishment seems very unkind to me. I would never send a small child away like that.

Surprised the cat stayed to have its other ear cut...

The incidents with the animals aside, I think you need to lower your expectations as to what four year olds are capable of and learn to manage their behaviour rather than expect them to manage it themselves.

@Tooshytoshine

This is a hard situation and as an obvious animal lover must be very distressing for you.

Four year olds aren't always over burdened with empathy and some with social learning delays or differences may not link consequences with actions. But something here is going amiss and perhaps a conversation with your HV or GP would be helpful. This may not (read almost definitely won't) lead to a clinical diagnosis of any sort but may highlight other areas of need.

Your parenting style sounds quite punitive and your daughter may be rebelling against this and trying to take back control. I really enjoy Dan Hughes, Sarah Naish and Kim Holdings therapeutic or reward driven parenting styles. It works well for our kids who have strong personalities that will see them well in life but make them challenging to parent.

This is not your fault, but don't be scared about changing your approach

I agree with this.

OP, this comment of yours really stood out to me:
"We're quite strict with DD and hold her to a high standard with behaviours and manners. We won't tolerate rudeness or back chat. She's never physically punished, we operate on a 3 warning system then she's sent to her bedroom. Maybe we're too strict? Is this a power play? But then it feels ridiculous to react to bad behaviour by being less strict?"

If you "don't tolerate rudeness and back chat", how can she express negative thoughts and emotions? If she can't be cheeky or angry or rebellious without being punished, what's she supposed to do with those impulses? Our role as parents is to show/teach our children to express negativity appropriately and to work through negative emotions. Not to silence and repress them I wonder if you are so authoritative that she feels that in the hierarchy, she cannot be angry/aggressive towards you (above her in the hierarchy) so instead she's taking it out on the animals (below her in the hierarchy).

Her behaviour is obviously not acceptable, and she might benefit from play therapy or similar, but don't put all the blame on her. I think you need to rethink your parenting. Do lots of reading, maybe do a parenting course, family therapy type stuff?

One book I've recently started reading that was recommended and is good so far is "the book you wish your parents had read".

@SmidgenofaPigeon

I’m sure the cat would rather not have his ears mutilated than have the child write a card to say sorry! What on earth is the point of that. I can understand why you’d do that if you’d hurt another child, but a cat?! ‘Here cat, sorry I snipped your ears and made you bleed, and that in the past I’ve loved stones at you, but here’s a nice card!’

The stones thing doesnt concern me now, or didn't until recent events , she was only around 2 or 2. 5 when this happened and ignorant to the feelings of other things.

But she’s not ignorant at 4, presumably, and here we have the cat being hurt again.

@SmidgenofaPigeon

I’m sure the cat would rather not have his ears mutilated than have the child write a card to say sorry! What on earth is the point of that. I can understand why you’d do that if you’d hurt another child, but a cat?! ‘Here cat, sorry I snipped your ears and made you bleed, and that in the past I’ve loved stones at you, but here’s a nice card!’

The point is for the child to make amends for the behaviour in a way that relates directly to the transgression itself, rather than taking away all toys and screens then giving them back piecemeal as rewards for unrelated 'good' behaviours. Also to show that she understands why what she did was wrong. That the cat doesn't understand is immaterial.

"DD was nagging her grandad to play when he visited, he had asked for 5 minutes to sit down and catch his breath and she carried on nagging. Over the course of 20 mins she got two warnings for this, then grandad went to dance with her."

Let's look at this through a different lens.
4 year old's grandad comes to play. Of course she wants to play with him. This is normal. Of course she will be vocal about it. You have framed it as "nagging" which is interesting. Of course she won't necessarily understand what it is to be old and need a bit of a rest so from her point of view she doesn't really get that. But it doesn't need a warning. It needs a distraction or a cuddle or a "go get a book to read with grandpa while he is resting". Plus you say 5 min rest but she was warned over 20 min. So he had a longer rest so the rules were changed, which is a bit unfair. I just don't feel like it needed turning into a warning type situation. It's a bit heavy handed. It would be worse if she was uninterested or rejecting when grandpa visits. I feel like she probably felt rejected. "I just wanted to play with grandpa and I got told off."

Try not to feel like you have to rebuke her for situations where she isn't really doing anything "wrong", it's just that she needs to adapt what she's doing. It's much much easier to use distraction, adaptation, redirection than laying down the law.

@KurtWilde

Glad to see some more sanity has started to seep into this thread. Not sure how anyone could call a 4yo a psychopath/sociopath

I agree, but I actually expected to see far worse (and strongly suspect there would have been a lot more comments writing the child off as a psychopath if it had been a little boy not a girl - I've seen horrendous comments when little boys have done far lesser things than this on MN). Any thread about animals always tends towards the hysterical on MN, and I say that as an animal lover and a vegetarian.

Of course she's redeemable - she's 4 years old.

@SnappyMcSnapface

OP, mumsnet is not a place to come for any kind of nuance or common sense. The replies on this thread aren’t helpful to you.

I totally understand why you’re so concerned about this behaviour, but you don’t need to brand your daughter a sociopath. 4/5 is when children are developing empathy, not when they’re masters in it. It’s actually developmentally normal for children to have huge empathy blind spots which they eventually overcome, and they grow into perfectly normal children.

There is lots you can do to work on a child’s empathy skills. A child psychologist can help you with this if you can afford to, but if not there are books, websites and online courses which can assist you. This isn’t a sign that you’re a bad parent or that your daughter is an irredeemable animal torturer. She just needs help with the development of this specific skill, and that’s ok.

As for rehoming your animals - you can decide for yourself if that’s actually necessary. If you can e sure your daughter isn’t left alone with them and that they are therefore safe, there’s no reason not to keep them. I expect you can find practical solutions to ensure their safety without rehoming them.

Please ignore the nastiness and hysteria of other posters. This is a very upsetting and distressing situation, but there is so much you can do to help your daughter and no reason to believe she can’t be taught to treat animals properly.

Well said, refreshing to read this after all the other posts!

Hi OP, I saw you had asked about your parenting style. The system you are using with counting to 3 and a time out is really similar to the system set out in the book 123 magic. Half the book is about this discipline method, half is about the other side of the coin, how to promote good behaviour and have a good relationship with your kids. I've found it a useful book! A cool down /time out whatever you want to call it should be 1 minute for every minute of age, so 4 mins for your dd. Incidentally what led me to this book was some of my Dd's behaviour at age 4. Not to do with animals but she was seriously horrible to her dad and her grandparents for a long long period of time. Very linked to empathy and emotional intelligence. Her preschool really struggled with her too. I have been on here many times asking for help and have been told to look into diagnosis for things. However she's nearly 7 now and much more reasonable and at the mo I don't have any concerns. I can't think of a better way to put it right now. Good luck I really hope this resolves itself positively.

@SmidgenofaPigeon

I’m sure the cat would rather not have his ears mutilated than have the child write a card to say sorry! What on earth is the point of that. I can understand why you’d do that if you’d hurt another child, but a cat?! ‘Here cat, sorry I snipped your ears and made you bleed, and that in the past I’ve loved stones at you, but here’s a nice card!’

Ha ha ha! Talk about missing the point!

My mumsnet cat can actually read in several languages, can't yours?

FFS it's about making relevant amends. A reparation that is related to the transgression. And teaching the demonstration of empathy, kindness and effort.

Get it now?

"DD was nagging her grandad to play when he visited, he had asked for 5 minutes to sit down and catch his breath and she carried on nagging. Over the course of 20 mins she got two warnings for this, then grandad went to dance with her. She put Alexa on then when she played the wrong song, had a meltdown and sat on the floor crying. When I changed the song to what she'd actually asked for she started shouting at me, so I sent her to her bedroom for 10 mins to calm down.

Other examples are rudeness or treating her possessions badly or refusing to do what she's asked, for example, tidying toys up."

The poor girl. She is 4, behaving like a normal 4 year old. I feel sorry for her

Have you had any therapy to discuss your own abusive upbringing in relation to your experience of parenting? Becoming a parent can stir up childhood trauma. It can be so difficult to navigate when you don't have a positive experience to build on.

I do get it yes but if the kid is at the point of mutilating the family pets, I may well think it’s gone past the point of a twee little ‘sorry’ card, and also be thinking how I could help the cat, and a card isn’t really going to cut it...