7 year old rude to Grandmother

[bomi]

My 7 year old can be quite rude to her Grandma. She's a bit sassy at times, but she's never this rude to anyone else.

Grandma has a very close relationship with my youngest. Youngest is very sweet, affectionate, loving, never plays up. My eldest is absolutely wonderful but is not particularly loving, not affectionate and has quite a dark sense of humour. I absolutely love her humour but her Grandma doesn't. She looks at her with disgust when she says some things and then my Daughter plays on it and tries to say things that will annoy her more.

I don't know if it's because she senses the close relationship my youngest has with her, or if she just doesn't like her because she's so serious about her dark sense of humour.

Does anyone have any tips about how to resolve this, and what sort of punishment might be suitable? I really need to reign this behaviour in.

At 7 years old where is she picking up this stuff?

Yes she sings about death, but she's joking. She's laughing her head off and making up little songs. She's not a horrible child, she just has a good sense of humour.
I've never came across a 7yr old who behaves like this, she sounds obnoxious and more-so with a mother who thinks she's funny.
It's easy to see why your younger is preferred to your nasty attention seeker.
You as a parent teach her what is inappropriate and what is acceptable behaviour.

Daughter will be rude and not listen to her, she will have a full on meltdown in the middle of town with her (she is not like this at all with anyone else), she doesn't say please or thank you to her. Her tone can be pretty bad with her and she snaps at her.

This is unacceptable behaviour. You need to be telling her off every time she does it.

You also need to talk to your mother and tell her if she can’t treat your children equally she can see a hell of a lot less of them!!

ps having lots of friends doesn’t mean she’s nice, she could be queen bee and her friends keep in with her because they don’t want to be against her.

Dark sense of humour in that she sings about death, talks about people hurting themselves in the worst ways she can think of etc. She ramps this up in front of Grandma

Who does she sing about dying/hurting themself? Not GM I hope 😳

The irony here about appropriate and acceptable behaviour and then calling a 7 yr old child ‘nasty’ is interesting. Out of interest, do you think you’re displaying kind and appropriate behaviour in your response?

I'm in the ignore camp with my grandchildren unless they're doing something that will hurt them or a sibling.

Assuming the 7 year olds behaviour is dealt with appropriately, I'd encourage grandmother to spend one-on-one time with each of the girls.

Without the distraction of her younger sibling perhaps the 7 year old wouldn't feel like she had to act out to get her grandmother's attention?

I know we're not supposed to have favorites, but it's human nature to be drawn to a fun and loving child with a sweet disposition vs a child that acts out and says weird/upsetting things. But Grandma has to treat them equally; that's non negotiable.

Op I've only read your comments.

I have one child everyone loves and another who is challenging and he knows it and can feel the difference in peoples responses to him. For a while it definitely impacted his behaviour. He's got special needs so I can't get him to stop much of his behaviours but getting him to understand I love him just as much and that he has his own talents and skills and comparing to sister isn't good idea as they have different strengths.

Then I don't know if this is the case for your family but in mine we had to do slot of work with my 'perfect' child because she is not modest and loves praise so will reference good things she's done to make sure that I've noticed. It's hard because my girl doesn't get enough attention because my boy needs me more and taking her praise would devastate her. That's why you make sure you praise both kids and I mostly praise my girl after the fact and when son not around if it's something he just couldn't do. We are still not there yet but getting my dd to understand how her brother feels when she's always complimented and isn't modest.

I'd also have strong words with your mum. Tell her the favouritism is obvious and you cannot allow it. I've told my family I will do the discipline they must not- come tell me and I will hand it but I won't have my child feeling they hate him because all they say to him is negative. The people who have followed my wishes with my kids have much better relationships with them.

And finally we are talking about a 7 year old who is aware they are different to a sibling and picking up on the favouritism of adults. All behaviour is communication. People judging a child they don't know based on the information you gave us would be being to harsh. The child is 7. This is the age full empathy and understanding of others feelings fully click into place- but in this case the behaviours have been reinforced by grandmothers reactions. This is not the child fault. Absolutely correct the child behaviour when it happens you need to change the behaviour but I would not be judging a 7 year old in this situation x

I think people might be a bit harsh about the death songs - there's a whole lot of those in, for example Horrible Histories - gory but witty and educational.

Good luck OP

Why shouldn't your youngest get praise? I think you need to encourage your eldest to behave better presumably when she was little and the only one she and Grandma got along?

Jesus Christ yet another thread where people think the OP is finding her child's behaviour hilarious and the "where is she picking that up from" I was an annoying little shit to any family members who showed any sort of favouritism to my perfect brother 🤨 I have always had a dark sense of humour and yes I would purposely do this as a child, especially to my grandmother who in my opinion (as a child) deserved everything I said because it hurts to feel sneered at and not good enough so yeah be a bitch to me and I will sing a song about you dying.

We need the context of the songs, if they are just like this then yes that’s witty/funny but if they are implying granny will be dying or getting hurt then not so much.

Also OP, when did this start? I’m guessing after she’s noticed the favouritism?

Favouritsm is the issue here- it is clear your eldest is behaving the way she is due to that. It is pretty obvious. My husband and his brother were treated differently by a grandparent and it was awful. His brother hated his grandmother due to it and continued to hate her into adult hood. It carried on when they went onto have there own kids. Your child isn’t awful- she only acts like this with her grandmother - you as parents need to stop allowing the obvious favouritism- it isn’t acceptable

Honestly I don’t think some of the Horrible Histories songs are appropriate for a seven year old! And I definitely wouldn’t want mine singing them in public.

OP is your DD being exposed to age-inappropriate stuff that she is then repeating because she can’t contextualise it? One of DS’s friends was allowed to watch Wednesday aged 6, and then spouted some inappropriately gory stuff at school because she was too young to understand that just because it was on TV that didn’t mean it was ok to say it at school.

I don’t necessarily mean 18 films or anything, but even stuff like Horrible Histories might not be ok for her to watch if she doesn’t understand she can’t then go around repeating it. Especially if you are then laughing when she does repeat it.

This is why I don’t expose mine to swearing - honestly I couldn’t care less if he says “bloody” or “crap” at home (I’d care about stronger words), but aged 7 he doesn’t have the sophistication to reliably not say it at school, so easier for everyone to just avoid it.

It's a bit unfair to ask how to punish the grandmother, but a word about having such obvious favouritism would-be out of place. And then you need to be on duty to distract and redirect your daughter's behaviour so the relationship ship between you all is more balanced.

Dd is being punished for her bad behaviour, which is fine and think you are doing ok op

what punishment is grandma for her open favouritism? Because surely she understands that by doing this her granddaughter is reacting to her and showing she doesn’t care? It’s a defence reaction. If grandma changes I strongly suspect dd will too

It sounds like your DM obviously favours your youngest and your eldest is reacting to this. Quite reasonably.

If the grandmother has one DGD who's rude to her, and one who's a pleasure to be with, I can see how one has become favourite, frankly.

There's no indication that the favouritism came before the behaviour. The seven year old is the eldest so will have had a sole relationship with her grandmother before the younger one became old enough to develop a personality and relationship with her GM.

In an ideal world she wouldn't show it, but that would mean putting up with rude behaviour from a seven year old. It's hard to manage behaviour as a grandparent at the best of times. But if the 7 year old isn't recognising that a) she's behaving unkindly and b) if she wants a positive response from GM she needs to do something to warrant it, then it's going to be difficult.

Presumably you're explaining to DD that she needs to not be rude to her GM, and encouraging her to do something nice for/with her?

Singing about death and people harming themselves would seriously concern me - It’s not what a happy well adjusted child would do.

People are naturally drawn to sweet and sunny kind children- who in turn get a lot of positive interactions from others-

Dark and morbid subjects and rudeness is not going to do a child any favours whatsoever.

Good idea to split them up have one to one time.. I've grandchildren one family two girls and a younger boy. We tend to either take the girls who get along or the little boy who frankly appreciates the extra attention.

Why is death on a 7 year olds mind 😕 I don’t understand how she’s come up with making jokes and songs about people getting hurt/dying. Is she watching things on a phone or tablet? Or picking things up from people at school?

Suggest you watch Horrible Histories or read the books which are very good.

Why should a child be interested in death and pain?
Plenty of time for that later on in life.

It’s not very wholesome to be singing about such things especially not at seven.

Death Metal at 17 is slightly more understandable.

Morbid 7 yr olds

Kids are morbid because they can't comprehend death

Has she been watching Horrible histories ?
For those saying it's unusual for a child to be singing about death all my 3 did at similar age & was definitely inspired by stupid deaths song on HH & they thought it was hilarious. I can assure you they are all normal young adults/teens!
As PP have suggested it sounds like she's playing up to gramdmas disgust & clear favouritism to make it on her terms. Poor child.