Hi,
I’m looking for advice about my DD behaviour and how to tackle it. Please be kind, this keeps me up at night and I’m so worried, and apologies for the length.
My DD is highly intelligent (reading age of 13 at age 6, flies through maths, can do complex Lego in a couple of hours etc) and her school thinks she is wonderful. They’ve described her as bubbly, helpful, and kind but we’re having a lot of problems at home and have been since she was 2.
She tends to fly in to uncontrollable rages, screams, throws things, attacks us (me usually) and she’s increasingly not doing anything she’s told to do. For example if she’s told to go upstairs and get ready for bed you can guarantee she’s not doing it despite promises to. I have to go up after 10-15 minutes whereby she’ll quickly scoot in to her room and start but I have to keep checking. If you tell her to tidy her room she’ll barely do any of it. I won’t go in to the long history of events but they include destroying her room because we told her we were all going on holiday, attacking me on holiday because I insisted she brush her teeth, breaking doors through slamming them, throwing a full pot of e45 cream on a carpet in a rage etc.
I told her and her younger sister to help me fold washing the other week and she was balling her fists and flinging it about. I got fed up and sent her to her room to calm down but she was screaming and throwing things for about an hour before eventually she calmed down (whereby I had her fold and put away the rest of the washing).
She occasionally is incredibly helpful but it’s rare. She can also be very loving and caring if her sister but then really mean to her as well.
She goes through fads of defiance such as refusing to brush her teeth (the toothpaste is too strong, brushing hurts etc), it’s a huge drama and then suddenly it’s not a problem anymore and she enjoys it. Currently she’s not changing her underwear daily. I caught this by chance and now I’m finding I have to check every day. She’s 10 and I can’t see this is normal, is it?
My parents think she’s attention seeking from what they’ve seen (and also a bit lazy) as this all started after her sister arrived when she was 2. Trying to get to the bottom of it I calmly observed her yesterday, didn’t get angry when she acted badly. There were 8 times she kicked off or got upset!
Not going through all of them, her sister wouldn’t let her play with her toy. This resulted in DD getting upset and asking me to make her. I said no as her it belongs to her sister and she’d only just started playing with it. She loudly cried in her room and ranted about it, but when her sister gave her the toy 10 minutes later she didn’t want it, was back to normal like nothing happened.
We were hanging pictures in her room but it was a mess so I told her we’d do it after she’d made her bed. She did a half arsed job hiding blankets under her duvet. I told her to do it properly and she flew in to a crying, ranting rage. Trying not to get annoyed we carried on with other jobs but she gets louder to try to get us to go to her (if we did she’d get even louder or prolong it from experience) and when that didn’t work she came out and did it on the landing near us. It’s hardly ever real crying and she eventually calmed down and made
At other points in the day she would sit near me looking sad but wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. Like switch had been flicked she’s suddenly back normal like nothing had happened.
She tends to mess about at bed time (it’s been worse recently) and will secretly read after being told to go to sleep. We spend our evenings going up to check because we’ve caught her reading until midnight in the past. She’s taken torches, head lamps, toys that light up, anything she can get her hands on so she can secretly read. I check her bed and drawers but she then sneaks out to find something or cracks her door to let light in. When we talk to her she’s very sorry and will “definitely go to sleep” but you can guarantee that 10 minutes later you’ll find her door open again.
We’ve tried letting her stay up an extra half an hour to read on the understanding that she then goes straight to sleep but she never does.
Tiredness could be a factor but even when she’s slept she’s like this.
Behaviour is worse in the mornings and evenings. Clothes and the feeling of clothes is usually a problem. She won’t get uniform on with someone standing over her. You’ll instead catch her reading or playing but often loud games, she’s trying to tell us she’s not doing as she’s told which again leads us to the attention seeking.
I would say I’m strict, there are always consequences and I can get cross, but I’ve also tried be patient, ignoring it, talking to her, trying to understand. I’ve run out of ideas.
When we get cross I find her reaction is odd. Her sister would look guilty and sorry or upset but DD10 gets angry even when she’s done something really bad and she knows it. The angrier we are the angrier she is. She can be quite cutting with the things she says when this going on.
We’ve considered whether this is autism (there are other small indicators such as emotions or reactions often seem staged like it’s something she’s seen and is trying out, lack of empathy, the intelligence, extreme emotions (very angry or very sad, extreme excitement) that often seem misplaced.) She went through a short stage out of the blue at 18 months of banging her head on the cot in the middle of the night when she woke up. She’s always needs to be constantly stimulated with activities. Her cousin has autism (non verbal).
I’ve also considered whether she wants more attention from me so I’m trying to do more 1:1 with both children. Following one afternoon with her last week she kicked off again so it’s not working yet.
For people looking in she’s articulate, intelligent, great at making friends, well behaved etc, but we’re struggling at home. Any advice?