I don't know what to do with my daughter

amother

Sun, Aug 21 2011, 12:58 am

My DD, who is 6 years old, is sometimes too much. She is the only one of our children that screams at us (her parents), defies us/ignores us when we tell her 'no'. It seems she is always in trouble. She has happy moments but she is very high strung. She is like a toddler amplified! We've tried time outs, we tried the 1-2-3 book, we tried spanking. Nothing gets through. She makes life unbearable sometimes. I don't know what to do. She is very bright but somehow seems very insecure. She is jealous of her brothers and sisters. She is a middle child. She is always competing.
And she is defeating me. I feel like a horrible parent because I'm always punishing her. I'm always in a bad mood or upset because I just can't take her attitude anymore. And she has younger siblings who need attention to. I feel like if I lighten up on her then she is getting away with her unacceptable behavior. I want her to be better so I can reward her but it seems there is hardly an opportunity.
She went to a counselor last year because she had irrational fears and would seem to worry excessively. After a couple of visits she turned right around.
I need some help.

mom22qts

Sun, Aug 21 2011, 1:08 am

It seems like you may need some helping dealing with her. Maybe going to a therapist yourself will help you put her actions into perspective and help you deal with her better. For self help I love the book "How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk" It has lots of great ideas that you can try.

mandksima

Sun, Aug 21 2011, 11:30 am

amother wrote:

She went to a counselor last year because she had irrational fears and would seem to worry excessively. After a couple of visits she turned right around.
I need some help.

Sounds like that helped her a lot. Any chance of continuing? If she is ODD and/or has anxieties, you and her both need to know how to deal with them. What works for other kids won't necessarily work for her. Parental guidance classes are often offered in conjunction with therapy for your dd.

leomom

Mon, Aug 22 2011, 8:45 am

I think there's a negative cycle you can get into with a child, which starts with some challenging behavior that is definitely difficult to deal with... but is still in the range of normal behavior for a kid. You try to address it in various ways, to get the child to behave better, but from the child's perspective (especially a sensitive child), she's being loved less and criticized more, and that only leads to more challenging behavior.

It's very hard, because the difficult behavior is real, and it sometimes affects the other kids in the house. But in my experience (barring a specific psychiatric disorder), the only thing that works is a combination of ignoring as much of the "bad" behavior as possible and just lavishing love on the kid. Lots of unconditional affection and kindness and saying "I love you so much and you are so special to me."

Six-year-olds have such a strong need to feel connected to their mother and loved for who they are. Of course all children do - but 6-year-olds still see mommy as someone who never makes mistakes and pretty much knows everything. So if they feel judged or criticized by mommy, especially if it's most of the time, they really take it to heart as a reflection of how "bad" they must be.

It gets complicated, because a challenging 6-year-old can drive you crazy, and sometimes you do have to correct their behavior. What I try to say to my own 6-year-old is something like this: "I really want to hear you. I hear that you have strong feelings about this. I love you and I always try to understand you and help you, but I need you to try to talk and not scream." (And then I try to loosen my definition of what constitutes screaming if she makes any effort at all so we can move on and get to the hug, kiss, stroke cheeks, eye contact, reconnect.)