I don’t like my granddaughter

[SiliconHeaven]

Hello, as the title says, I don’t like her and it’s (obviously) affecting my relationships, I feel guilty and I’m trying my best to not think about that, and to re-frame the relationship in my mind. Does anyone have any tips or experiences? I feel like such a twat.

She’s nine, I love her, she was a lovely baby, the problems have developed over the years. I find that I don’t really want to visit like I used to and babysitting is a chore, I used to enjoy it so much.
I’m disabled, a wheelchair user. When I’m at my DDs house and I need to go to the toilet my DGD races every time to get in there before me if she sees me heading there. Any request to let me go first is met with sneers and refusal. She will then sit on the toilet for 20 minutes saying she hasn’t finished. I’ve wet myself a couple of times.

She is unpleasant about other people, things like saying she doesn’t want to be friends with the new girl at school because she’s too ugly, doesn’t want to watch a tv show because the actor is too fat, that sort of thing. No longer friends with so and so because they are poor. I’ve spent quite a lot of time trying to talk to her about not commenting on people’s appearance and not being judgemental but she doesn’t care.

They have pet cats, DGD clearly doesn’t like them, shouts at them and pushes them away if they are within reach, they know not to go anywhere near her because she’s been unpleasant to them since she was a baby.

DD says she’s ’spoken to her’ about the toilet thing. DGD just smiles and nods, every time it’s just ‘don’t do it again’

Again, I wonder how many of those sanctions OP can actually carry out?

If her GD can beat her to the toilet, I imagine that she can beat her to the TV remote or the tablet. Or even physically wrest them from her.

I'm getting a 'mean girls' vibe about her here.
Your DD is making (has made?) a rod for her own back here. Your DGD isn't even a teenager yet, her mum will have real problems is she doesn't address this now.

This child needs to experience consequences of her poor choices, for her own sake, otherwise she could end up as a very unhappy adult.
Your DD needs to step up and take action now. DD is presumably indulging the child. Does DD ever say 'no' to her?
As an interim suggestion - how about going to the toilet 20 minutes before you need to, then by the time the child has become bored of sitting on the loo, you are ready to use it? Not ideal but one way round it for now?

The ' not going to be parenting her ' attitude is odd. If you are looking after her then you get to discipline her. When teachers discipline a child it isn't parenting it's setting expectations and enforcing consequences.

I agree that filming her awful behaviour and showing it to her is one good idea as she might be totally unaware of how awful she is being. My 7 year old races me to the toilet and laughs. It does sound like this is one step beyond that though.
Also, what is your relationship like outside of this behaviour? Do you chat? Share any interests? Are there things you could teach her that she'd like to learn? Positive redirection before she turns horrible.

If that happened to me, unless my daughter was uncontactable, she'd be getting a call to come home right now and I would absolutely never babysit again

She sounds very difficult and this is awful for you. Maybe try though to keep showing her love in case it helps her to come out of this one day.

She may even be trying to get your attention because she trusts you to give her some boundaries. She probably deep down hates living in a lonely vacuum of nastiness at home.

I am not sure what you can do though except try to engage with her on some non-TV activities that would be feasible for you in your wheelchair. Make a cake? Do a puzzle? Play a boardgame? If she won’t engage just get on with cake/puzzle ( for example) and see if she shows a glimmer of curiosity you can use. Or go to the cinema together if that is possible for you?

while you cannot parent her you can let your daughter know that these things need to be addressed. What is causing this little girl to be so angry as to lash out at you, the cat, her friends and even actors on TV?

I disagree, I was in a wheelchair when ds was younger yet still managed to parent him just as millions of wheel chair users. Parenting is done with your voice not physically especially at age 9.

Saying that,strong words do need to be had with the OP's daughter.

she sounds like an indulged little shit.

ineffectual parenting, where the worst they're ever told is a half-hearted 'that's enough, dear' leads to this.

I've got older teenage girls and the way your GD is behaving is not in any way normal for her age (or any age really.)
She has either been badly brought up with no boundaries or encouragement to show empathy to others or has some sort of SEN.
She is being very unkind to you and unkind to others. Even if she's popular at school.

Completely agree with PP who advise that you have to tell your DD that you can't come over/can't babysit as the toilet issue is just too unpleasant, upsetting, and humiliating for you. Don't issue it as an ultimatum, but rather with regret, "I'd love to come over but I just feel so uncomfortable that if I need the toilet I won't be able to get there in time. You know what DGD is like and I just can't be in that situation again, it made me feel really awful. Perhaps we can try again in the summer if DGD is better able to control herself."

Or a slightly firmer version could be, "I would love to spend more time with you but I'm afraid until DGD stops restricting my access to the toilet, I can't. It's happened 3 times in a row now and I can't do it any more. It's too upsetting and uncomfortable to be in a situation where I can't use the bathroom."

Unfortunately, we have a similar situation with FIL and nephews. He doesn't like them and he's annoyingly vocal about it. But it's also not unreasonable - the last time he visited their behaviour was appalling. Yes, there were some mitigating factors and I feel strongly that FIL should be a bit more understanding of that, but he was literally hounded and verbally attacked by his DGSs constantly.

100%

I do feel for you, OP. But have you or her mother never simply ordered her off the toilet? In the face of such obviously provocative behaviour, discernible anger from the pair of you is called for.

I probably should clarify that what she is doing is not in anyway normal for a child who has been brought up with boundaries and to show empathy Obviously it's normal if parents haven't bothered with that.

Stop babysitting and tell your dad and your dgd why

I don’t agree at all. Physical force is not necessary, particularly for a 9 year old. I can see if it’s a toddler but this is a school child.

This. The fact she has made you wet yourself multiple time is way ott. If I were one of her parents I'd come down on her like a ton of bricks. Stop babysitting

I think it's very important that this girl knows exactly why granny isn't babysitting her anymore.

I often think that 9 is a difficult age, especially now when pre-puberty strikes earlier and earlier. My 9 year old GD went through a funny phase. She was monosyllabic to the point of rudeness. It passed.

I just ignored it, found excuses to praise her, sneaked in the odd hug and just made sure she knew that I was her gran and was always rooting for her. She is a lovely girl now.

During that difficult phase she grew massively - suddenly shot up and filled out.

I am sorry that you are having to deal with this at the moment.

Bloody hell op, this sounds horrible!

However, she is a child . . . How have her parents allowed this behaviour to develop and continue? As this will become worse as she gets older and she will be damaged as a result (and of course she will hurt others in the process too).

Has your daughter recognised how bad this behaviour is?

The deliberate cruelty to animals and her GM is way beyond normal preteen development. The cats shouldn’t be in the house with her either.

Pretty and popular frequently go hand in hand with bitchy in my experience. Your daughter definitely needs to take a hard line here or granddaughter will just get worse and worse as she gets older.

In my school days pretty and popular were the mean girls/bully’s.

The no access to the toilet is disgusting behaviour I’m not surprised you don’t want to babysit. Your daughter should have nipped that in the bud the first time that ever happened. If my son had done that to anyone let alone a beloved grandparent I’d have been mortified.

I have no advice I’m afraid but I certainly would not want to visit until she treats people nicely.

If I was you then next time as soon as your DD leaves I'd head for the loo. When she's sat in there for 20 minutes she can come out and find you watching TV/reading a book or whatever. Wait half an hour and do it again, and again. When she's spent most of the evening sitting in the loo the game will soon lose it's attraction.

Obviously you need to make sure you don't need the loo so a visit to the loo just before DD leaves.