Very overstimulated by upbeat daughter

[Therootunderground]

I have a 9 year old daughter who is the most special, sweet, positive, well behaved, adorable child. Every teacher she has ever had has loved her, she has loads of friends and is unbelievably kind and thoughtful. She is bubbly, bouncy, and full of joy and ideas all the time.

I absolutely adore her, we all do, but she is incredibly intense. From morning to night she wants to talk, talk about saving the planet, helping the homeless, help the animals, save the world, help children with no friends etc etc. She likes to talk about her own emotions in some detail, extensively, quite a lot. She writes plays and books and draws pictures, invents dances and generally is always trying to combine her creativity with her passion to make the world a better place. She shares all of these with me and wants intensive feedback and I try very hard to ensure that I am being very positive and thoughtful in responses. She deserves a very kind and nurturing mother, and that's what I think I am most of the time (to all my kids).

Her behaviour is excellent, as I said, but I am finding her incessant need for attention very demanding. I create lots and lots of opportunities for quality time together (I've other children) and no matter how much of myself I give her, she wants more. MUM, mum, mum mum mum mum muuuuum muuuuuuum all day long when she isnt at school. Look at this, listen to this, look at me, look, look, read this.

I am so proud of the kind, creative, positive ray of light that she is. She is so upbeat and just bursting with thoughts and ideas but I am increasingly finding it more and more difficult. I cannot give her the feedback she wants. She wants me to be absolutely bowled over by every little thing she does and faking the enthusiasm is having an impact on me.

I believe that she is a very confident child and constantly tells me how lucky she feels to have me and her dad as parents (and we tell her we feel the same, because we are!) I never let her see that I'm struggling to muster the intense enthusiasm she requires and ive started to have a put of anxiety in my stomach when she says 'mum'. Lately i've been feeling nauseous on and off and I've noticed it gets worse when she wants to show me the latest dance/song/story/poster/poem about world peace/kindness etc. I am a very sensory person and get overwhelmed easily so I know I'm part of the problem.

I've an active toddler and a moody tween and don't find them as triggering. I feel like ive become very sensitive to noise lately and don't know what's happening but I hate it!

I adore my daughter and am confident she has no idea how I feel as I really do act the engaged, interested mother. I work with children too so maybe ive just been over saturated. I know how absolutely blessed I am to have such a happy, healthy child but this response I am feeling is involuntary and I don't know what to do. My beautiful little girl is such a special child with a huge heart. Her kindness and sweetness is so rare but lately it's just been too much. Please don't judge too harshly as I DO NOT want to feel like this.

My dd was like this. I used to tell her my ears were bleeding and I needed 20 mins to let them feel better.
By 14 she was monosyllabic.
She's now 18, calmed down and is a confident young lady. These days I get prior warnings, ' you'll need to turn the tv off because I shall be talking for 10 mins' 😁

My daughter went to bed 2 hours ago and I had some chill time without any kids and feel restored and back to normal. I will put some limits in place going forward from now on though. Thanks everyone.

My dd was like this. I did sometimes say ‘right I need some headspace now and just some quiet time, go play with X or do Y’ and eventually it worked. FWIW she’s 15 now and pretty much the same but it’s fine now because she goes out with her friends and I get a break 😂

Shes still super positive and friendly and helpful, she’s not long back from volunteering abroad over summer, she does regular volunteering, can talk to anyone and is genuinely interested and tells us all about her life. So there are definitely positives.

(touching all the wood her sullen teenage stage doesn’t kick in late)

Op, I hope you don’t mind me jumping in but as someone who had childhood OCD are you sure your daughter isn’t going through something such as an intensive fear of ‘bad’ things- you say about her constant need to talk about making the world ‘better’, poems about climate change and homelessness was it etc- I don’t think all this is normal fixation for 9 years old? Have you tried to talk to her about what the underlying fear or obsession is with ‘being a better place’ etc? Just because it can be a sign of OCD IE these being rituals for example ‘if I don’t write a poem about XYZ then something bad will happen’ does that make sense?
I’d also ask what topics they’re covering in school and whether they’re actually age appropriate - to me it sounds like she has bad anxiety and is over-masking.

Do you read? I find a book is a very useful visual prop! I say to the kids I'm on a break! They're pretty well trained now and it's a joke in our house they can't talk to me when I'm reading 😆

These very positive qualities can have a flip side, in that expecting others to find all your thoughts and emotions fascinating all the time is obviously unrealistic. You may also not be the only person who finds her very full-on and wearing. As much as she has a full social life its very important that she learns that she has a certain personality type and so she needs to make room for others who interact differently. She could end up losing close friends at some point if she has this energy level and intensity at all times.

She is clearly an intelligent girl, I think you can start helping her understand that people have different personalities and interests and she needs to give others space and quiet. She also seems very extroverted and could completely turn off introverted classmates or future coworkers. I would talk to her about all of this, set boundaries and times when she can't interrupt you (within reason) and help her learn listening skills. Her strong social skills obviously have a blind spot and she needs to be able to not have the urge to tell everyone every thought that comes into her mind.

Young children may be drawn to her behavior but it could get more difficult in middle and high school and be experienced by others as narcissistic. I would encourage some calming hobbies such as painting, ceramics, Journaling and reading.

I had one like this, not only did he wear me out, but he wore out his dad, his grandmother, his teachers. One teacher told me she dreaded his questions and hated doing playground duty because of him! Another teacher told me he had to prepare his lessons twice, once in anticipation of my son’s relentless questions, and again for the rest of the class! I remember his grandmother losing it and saying ‘right, one more magic trick from you then you need to stop!’ It might not just be you it’s affecting..

Theatre school!! Pretty much all the children at my daughter's theatre school are like this. I love my daughter but I do allow her to do a lot of activities and I encourage her to have friends round because she is highly extroverted and I am quite an introvert

Show her the episode of Bluey where Mum needs 20 minutes! My DD has seen that and she knows when to give me space now!

Use a timer, ‘great show me your dance, I’ve 10 minutes and then I need to get on with cleaning’

I think you'd actively be doing her a favour to explain how important it is to have some downtime/give other people downtime, to not be too OTT. If she annoys you like this, she will annoy other people eventually too.