Overly confident 13yr old – help needed

[thedeepend]

About a year ago my partner and I began fostering our 11yr old niece on a permanent basis after her mother was no longer able to care for her.
When she arrived she was a very overweight child who had low self esteem and no confidence but at the same time she was polite and had impeccable manners.
Over the past 12 months we have worked on improving her social skills and she?s enrolled in several clubs such as Brownies, Dance etc. She has also lost around 2 stone in weight and generally become a happier and more secure child.
The problem we have is this new found confidence has now crossed a line and she?s now all of a sudden become very over confident. This includes answering back, being a know it all, speaking to adults on their level, challenging teachers and even making catty comments about other children in her class.
We desperately need to reign this back in but don?t know how. Prior to taking on our niece, neither my partner or I have had children so the past year has been a huge learning curve therefore any advice from you guys (the experts) would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers

I don't think it's an issue of reining it back - she sounds like a lot of thirteen year olds.

Given the changes her life has gone through in the last couple of years, I think teenage hormones are highly likely to exacerbate any tendencies to be lippy.

Do you have a SW/support worker?

I'm afraid to say that this is absolutely normal teenage behaviour, and tbh it sounds like she's much happier now that she has confidence and has lost all that weight.

You need to pick your battles. So if she's being cocky and answering back, think first whether what she's saying is intrinsically rude, or is just her finding and expressing her own opinions about things. You can't and shouldn't expect her to agree with you on lots (maybe most) topics, however she should know that she should express her opinions without putting your opinions down.

DS is older than your dn, he's 16, but we had quite a heated discussion for an hour last night over whether we should put ground troops into Libya. Because he puts forward a reasoned argument, and doesn't disrespect my point of view, we didn't fall out of it.
So whether you're talking about Libya or whether your dn should be allowed out to the shopping mall with her friends on Saturday afternoon, be prepared to listen to her point of view in the expectation that she'll listen to yours as well.

No experience in this area (fostering or teenagers), but perhaps she is now feeling secure enough with you to test the boundaries.
From what I hear this is fairly standard behaviour for teenagers and the vast majority of them turn into reasonable human beings! As long as you remain consistent in what behaviour you expect from her then she will most likely move through this stage.

I don't know why I put she's 13 in the thread, she's actually just turned 11 (it's been a stressful day) which is why we're a little concerned - This was then reinforced when her teacher told us this evening that the over confidence and backchat is now too full on in the classroom.

In regards to a SW Clarnico, we've had 3 and they're all on long term sick so no support from that side!