Relationship with 8 year old daughter just so strained and I don’t know what to do.

[Darkdaysout]

I’m at a loss of what to do with my 8 year old daughter. The household is so down with the behaviour and I don’t know how to make it any better.

It started at a young age 4/5. Every time we went away she would run off and find another family to sit with and say she prefers this mummy. She will never do as she is asked and every time she is asked it’s met with anger and refusal. She used to hurt the pets. She swung the gerbil round by its tail and laughed, its tail fell off. We gave her another chance but she did it again so the pets went.

It’s got to a point now where being around her is just so draining. Every morning for school she refuses to get ready and causes arguments. She won’t help pick toys up before dinner. When I speak to her she will often say “oi snap out of talking to me like this” or “you can’t talk to me like this” , “ I hate it here it’s the worse house”, “ I hate you” etc etc. The school have started giving her extra support as her behaviour was deteriorating. She distracts everyone. Her dance teacher has said she doesn’t want her attending anymore as she spends too much of the lesson stopping her from messing around.

The other day she cut her sisters birthday decorations up because she said she had too many. She steals from people and she lies. She cheats at games and she doesn’t have any friends. She will make one and then suddenly they are too rude to her or boss her around and they aren’t friends. She stole lots of girls things because she said she bossed her around….it wasn’t the case, she just messed around and they wanted her to focus.

I don’t know what to do anymore. This morning I asked her how would she like to be spoken to so that she will respond with respect. She just gave me a dirty look and said I just don’t like you.

And what discipline and consequences are put in place? There is no way a four year old would dare to speak to me like that. Why does she think it’s ok?

So she is obviously expressing with her behaviour that there are some problems,

You say that this started when she was 4 or 5 - was there anything that happened that might be linked with the change?

How did she behave before?

Honestly I’ve tried everything, going to room, taking stuff away, reward charts, treats….nothing works. She doesn’t care what gets taken, she isn’t interested in rewards. She wants what she wants and that’s that. She doesn’t seem to care what she says or how it makes people feel.

I’d speak to the school about getting her assessed. Or alternatively go through your Gp. I think you need some professional help as it would appear to be very extreme.

She is having support at the school and the gp wasn’t interested. She is lovely when she gets absolutely everything her own way. I hate to say she manipulates people also. Its only directed at anyone who tells her to do something.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/oppositional-defiant-disorder

I just don’t know how to speak to her or how to make the home happy again. We are all so so run down by it. She went swimming last night and I asked her to come over and get dry, she ran off and ignored me. Then just says I didn’t want to come over to you I don’t like you…I mean could she really just not like me?? She is so young.

It does sound like there could be something else going on here. I agree that it might be good to get her assessed? You'll have lots of responses on here about how it's all down to bad parenting and boundaries and I'd never let my child behave like that etc, mostly from people with little or no experience and understanding of neurodivergence. Being an ND parent is fucking hard and you will have to fight to get the help she needs if that's what's going on here. First step is to find out for sure.

Eh I'm really sorry to hear this but cmon be a parent asking how she wants to be spoken to, letting her dictate etc ridiculous. If you know there's no medical reasons for this absurd behaviour then you need to put your foot down both parents and take control. Sounds like she rules the roost and knows she can with no serious consequences. If you don't get a hold then your going to end up with a teenage who is just one big heap of trouble

I agree with PPs, you need to take her back to GP and not take no for an answer. Ask for something from school, a letter or email to take with you from her teacher, expressing their concerns also.
You say you have tried rewards, punishments etc..how consistent have they been? If you're using time out, for example, is she being placed there for every incident that's unacceptable? Or the most extreme? Are they being followed through? So the full 8 mins of time out etc...consistency is key. Ignoring any demands is also vital. Your daughter behaves this way because she is getting something from it..even if that's negative attention. So you need to try to stop feeding that attention seeking. Only respond to the postive. I can't imagine how hard it is for all of you..sending strength

I really feel for you, this is a very difficult situation.

Can you afford private support?

We had a similar experience with our DS from age 4- around 9, CAMHS were useless, GP couldn't help (although we did eventually get a referall to a paediatrician), but found a service like the link below which was super helpful with putting in boundaries and behviour management strategies - it was very hard work, but he's now a very well behaved 12 year old.

Have you looked at any kind of diagnosis? We were told that DS likely had ADHD at age 4 (too early to officially diagnose apparently), he was later diagnosed with ADHD & Autism, these labels really helped with getting the right support inside and outside of school.

He was kicked out of 2 schools, went to the PRU twice so it was a handful for most 'normal' folk. But now he's a great, well behaved kid.

https://www.everlief.co.uk/services/clinical-psychology/

ODD is often comorbid with ASD. I would ask for a referral to CAMHS for an assessment.
Do you have savings? If so I would be paying for a family therapist who has significant experience of working with children with ASD and book in some sessions ASAP.
I would also look at some resources on low demand parenting.
I would try to spend some on on one time every day work on connecting with her.
I've been where you are and it is so tough. At times we were spiralling. It took a lot of effort on our part as parents and we had to learn new stratergies but my son is now 13 and mostly an absolute joy to be around, he still has his moments but they are few and far between.

You need professional help.
Your child sounds off the realm of normal and you need help from people who really know what you are dealing with.

Sounds to me like additional needs going on. What happens if you just sat by the poolside waiting for her to come over and get dry?

I too thought of ODD, and as well as suggestions upthread which are good, will recommend reading The Explosive Child by Dr Ross Greene. I hope it might help in the meantime.

I'd look into ODD and PDA (pathologicsl demand avoidance) which can be considered a subset of Autism or comorbid with Autism.

If she thinks you hate her, and she wants to live with a different family she will see your attempts to get her to behave as proof that you hate her.

Eg
Mummy takes away my pocket money because she hates me
Rather than
Mummy takes away my pocket money because I didn't do my chores.

In order for time out, taking away money etc to work, she has to basically want to please you.

These work in most kids because most kids want to please their parents.

She doesn't.

So you need other levers to modify her behaviour.

Some obvious ones - if there are particular places she is very difficult eg swimming etc don't go there. If she asks, don't say it was because you are too difficult, say I couldn't keep you safe.

Start to try to build a relationship so that even if she doesn't yet want to please you, she at least doesn't hate you as much - so try to find some positive things to do or praise her for.

You might find the book the explosive child helpful.

You need professional help here with a full assessment of her needs.

It was listening to advice like this that really caused my sons behaviour to spiral and deteriorate even further. The harder I came down the worse his behaviour came. Using time out was the worst possible consequence in our case.
It was after working with child psychotherapists, psychologists and family therapists with significant experience in neurodiversity who advised working on our connection and only using consequences sparingly that our situation improved.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers we were in the changing room. She will come when she wants to. When I said please can you come here as your friends mum is trying to dry so and so and I need to get you dry she doesn’t even acknowledge that I’m there.

It was weird the other week. She had been on a camp for 2 nights. As she dragged her suitcase back I walked to her like all the other mums and bent down and tried to hug her and take her suitcase and she just kept on walking like I wasn’t even there, didn’t even look at me. It was so strange.

I think it would be worth meeting with the teacher and the SENCO and talking about all this behaviour and your concerns. Ask about her behaviour at school and if they can get someone in to observe her. DS had a lady in from SEND who was really good and was the beginning of getting him assessed for ASD.

Does she form any relationships- a grandma, a sibling, an aunt- anything loving?

PDA and ODD often come hand in hand with ADHD too, which is what I thought about when reading your post.

Really sorry you’re going through this. It sounds beyond tough.

First of all: children aren’t born bad. And it sounds like this isn’t the result of a lack of discipline and consequences (although god knows MN likes to get the parent blaming jibes in as early as possible) but there might be something underlying.

ODD is often comorbid with ASD.

Not true! ODD is not associated with autism, whereas PDA is. Although having said that, they can present in similar ways.

I can definitely see a lot of demand avoidance, right down to a refusal to show love and affection.

I recommend doing some research around how ODD and PDA present before going back to the GP.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers she forms relationships with whoever let her do what she wants. Those relationships can change instantly. When we lived with my mum she and my mums relationship was awful, she often made my mum cry. Now that we don’t live with her and my mum no longer makes requests from her the relationship is better. She loves anyone else’s mum who is nice to her for 5 mins. She will love someone one week then hate the next if they tell her off or make a request.

She has one friend who has ADHD and she bosses and drags her around and it’s all what my daughter wants to do. All the other friends she makes will be with 4/5 years old whom she can be in charge of.

All her relationships are dependent on getting her own way.