Talk to me about 9 year old daughters

[Rose91572]

My 2015 child is hard to feel close to. Shes a mixture of uptight, serious a tad anxious mixed with shy, trying to hard to be miss popular and obsessing over things like money and fashion. In recent months shes become obsessed with being "a queen bee" "miss popular" yet in the kindest way she is the opposite as she cant mix in groups as she gets obsessed with friends taking her other friends. Shes so fussy with clothes now and want want wants.

I try so hard to be good to her. Ahe has her ears pierced. I let her use a tablet now. Ive taken her shopping in another place etc. But nothing makes her relax.

She never seems to laugh and when she talks to me she is bitching about girls at school. I tell her shes lovely and i bought her accesories for her hair she wanted. I try give her a little independance now like leaving her home alone for 15 minutes if i pop to the shop.

She trashes the whole house. Rubbish everywhere. Messes her room up. Lazy with getting dressed. Wont brush her hair. Ill ask her two or 3 times to put her socks on and she will come through without them. Often she will bung on the most lazy footwear completely wrong for the weather. I get greeted with attitude when i tell her what she needs to put on instead.

I feel like she hates me. Shes joyless to be around and ive tried all i can to give her one on one time away from her brother.

Help!

I think this is a bit naive to be honest. Kids mature at different rates and naturally have different interests. I was nine way before the era of social media and was not interested in animals or climbing trees. I'm still not interested in these things as an adult! I like fashion, make up and tech. I did then and do now.

I matured relatively quickly as a child and remember being absolutely furious when I felt like adults were being condescending towards me. Obviously a 'mature' nine year old is still a child and will be immature compared to actual teenagers or adults, but it's important that their growing independence and emotional changes are supported properly rather than quashed.

I imagine your daughter is struggling to navigate a world where she no longer feels like a little kid or wants to do little kid things anymore, but knows she's not yet old and mature enough to access the next stage yet. So instead she is kind of lingering between the two which is so frustrating for you as you see glimpses of maturity and understanding mixed with incompetence and immaturity. This will be exacerbated by the fact that lots of her friends will still be rooted in the 'younger child' phase and this could be adding to her struggle as she can't necessarily connect properly with her peers.

In my experience this should level out over the next few years. She will obviously still have the typical teenage issues to contend with but at least she will be operating in a world where the girls are more at the same level and expectations are clearer and more befitting for her level of development.

That stuff about her shoes and socks. She is possibly going through a brain growth spurt. Kids will often seem to regress for a while over the most basic things because their brains are at that moment stretching to the next step.

Repetition is going to be your friend for some time to come, I’m afraid.

Ive read the comments and so thankful. Yes she feels like shes turning materialistic and entitled. Luckily she does choose the garden alot to play in.

Can i lock down youtube on the tablet and tele?

She has started puberty as she gets BO and does have Discharge now which shes asked me about.

Her friends are all ok but it took her until 8 to truly find a female friend. They have "enemies" which i get sick of her obsessing about on days out etc.

Ive noticed shes always pushing for more than she can get. Its hard.

When she was 4 she was assesessed via school. Found her to be fine. But her serious and anxious side was holding her back.

When she was 3 and under she was so happy and always dancing. But when her brother was born she changed. They have a lovely relationship.

I have a nine year old and it does seem to be very mixed in their class, some of them are definitely obsessed with fashion etc and there is a 'cool' girl gang who already have phones etc which seems ridiculous at their age. My daughter and her friends are less interested in fashion, make up etc and still look and act like children but no doubt that will change. At the moment I just don't enable it at all apart from letting her choose her clothes as long as they are reasonable, she will not be getting her ears pierced til at least 12, she will not be getting a phone until she needs to communicate with us and it def won't have WhatsApp or tik tok on it! It's a difficult age to navigate.

She's not on tik tok according to OP, I saw a lot of comments about it where posters were just assuming she was.

No tik tok. Shes been screen free until march when i bought myself a tablet. She uses it for recording videos mainly. Only thing is youtube she goes on and at times i say turn that off. Its so hard to keep them away from all of it..

It is hard to keep them off it but that’s because I don’t think it’s all bad so the hard part is monitoring it.

Our DD has really got into video making and editing from watching things on YouTube. Not making videos of herself I might add but videos from scratch using different themes and characters, videos to compliment story books her and her dad created when she was younger, so it’s not all bad and we live in a completely different time to when we were growing up and have to make some allowances. Technology has taken over the world and we have to move with the times in a safe and transparent way.

This was my experience from about age 9-12ish too. It passes but in the meantime I would suggest just letting her grow. Keep boundaries reasonable but also allow some autonomy. Try to maintain a good open relationship with her as when this passes, it will be crucial. And try to balance SM with real life!

Oh op this must be so difficult. She sounds like she's struggling with something. Can you get away with asking her for a chat? A heart to heart?

My 9yr old DD has Autism (mildly affected) so is in some ways immature but in others, blows my mind with her wisdom.
She's generally very well behaved and respectful. Loves everybody and has tonnes of empathy. However as I type this, she is having a massive tantrum because I don't allow her to spend £41 of her own money on Minecoins on Minecraft!
School isn't too much of an issue. She has a couple of friends, one of whom is her bestie (they bicker quite a bit!!) but she's def not the popular girl. She was at her old school but it was a much smaller school.

The one thing that sprung out to me from your post was the bitching about other girls. When did this start? How do you respond?

This. I tried not to focus too much on singing my child's praises but if we're discussing what the average 9yr old girl is like, then I'd say my dd is also incredibly loving, kind, hilarious & polite (not particularly gentle!) and generally a happy girl. Always humming & giggling and adores animals. Kisses me & tells me she loves me about a gazillion times a day. Occasionally still partial to a bit of Play-Doh and some leftover Peppa Pig toys. We play Barbie Dreamhouse every night and the stuff she watches is Minecraft videos & Grace's World on YouTube kids

YouTube now has an option to give your child a child's Google account to use on YouTube. This means that ONLY stuff suitable for their age is shown. Also as a parent, you have access to what is watched and what CAN be watched. You can block channels/videos and even genres.