Trying to Understand Miss 8 - Beverly Hills,CA

I have a son that you described perfectly. My husband and I got counseling. we learned better ways to deal w/him. and now he is on meds for ADD. it isn;t a miracle, but, life is better.

She is who she is. You cannot change her. You can teach her so that she is easier to get along with but first you have to accept and love her where she's at at the moment.

Have you ever been around someone who wanted you to be different than who you are? I have. I was very uncomfortable and either spent as little time as possible with them or wanted to please them to the point of being a nuisance. It sounds like your daughter is responding to you in the latter way. She wants you to love and approve of her. She follows you around. She becomes upset when you're with her brothers. She knows you like them better. She doesn't know how to get your approval. She's inept and ends up irritating you even more.

There is some thought that some parents and children are not a good fit which means it takes an extra effort to parent those children. It doesn't mean that you're lacking. As you've noted, you get along with your other children. It just means that you don't understand your daughter and would benefit from some help in learning how to relate with her. I'm glad you posted this question.

A clue to how this started is in your statement, "disrupting your life." That's what babies do. Disrupt our lives. I suggest that you didn't accept her when she was a baby and you don't accept her now. I suggest that she was a high needs baby and perhaps your other children weren't. It's very understandable that you weren't able to figure out how to relate to her. That's common for parents with high needs babies.

I suggest she acts in a similar way at school because she's trying to get love and approval there too. Her personality is such that she irritates people. I urge you to get into some counseling with her. She's become this way over 8 years and won't be able to quickly change. Both of you need professional help to figure out how the two of you can relate and feel good with each other.

I suggest you get started with some professional help soon. The longer this goes on the harder it will be to change the pattern. She will be really difficult as a teen.

I'm not a professional but my initial thought is this:
1) Make sure she gets mommy time for a few minutes every day...a couple times a day. Play a game or help her get into a game she can play alone or with the boys.
2) I would suggest reading Love and Logic and implement the techniques. I pasted information from the website. It seems that setting some boundaries with your daughter is what you need and you can do that with Love and Logic and avoid getting overly frustrated. This technique puts more responsibility on the child....I highly recommend it. There are classes you can take too.

http://www.loveandlogic.com

What is Love and Logic® for Parents?

"I don't understand it. The techniques my parents used so effectively just don't seem to work with kids today." Does this statement sound familiar to you? A lot of parents today are wondering what to do with their kids and are frustrated because the old techniques just don't seem to get the job done.

Parents want to enjoy their kids, have fun with them, and enjoy a less stressful family life. But even if their kids are trouble-free right now, they fear what the coming teenage years will bring.

At no time in history have parents been more unsure of their parental role. Even the best are not all that sure about whether they are using the best techniques. They say that their kids don't appear to be much like the ones they knew in years past.

A lot of conflicting philosophies have been presented over the last 30 years. Many of these sound good, but don't seem to do the job of helping children become respectful, responsible, and a joy to be around.

Many ideas, offered with the best of intentions, center around making sure that kids are comfortable and feeling good about themselves in order to have a good self- concept. However, we have discovered that self-confidence is achieved through struggle and achievement, not through someone telling you that you are number one. Self-confidence is not developed when kids are robbed of the opportunity to discover that they can indeed solve their own problems with caring adult guidance.

There is, however, an approach to raising kids that provides loving support from parents while at the same time expecting kids to be respectful and responsible.

This program is known as Parenting with Love and Logic, a philosophy founded by Jim Fay and Foster W. Cline, M.D., and based on the experience of a combined total of over 75 years working with and raising kids.

Many parents want their kids to be well prepared for life, and they know this means kids will make mistakes and must be held accountable for those mistakes. But these parents often fail to hold the kids accountable for poor decisions because they are afraid the kids will see their parents as being mean. The result is they often excuse bad behavior, finding it easier to hold others, including themselves, accountable for their children's irresponsibility.

Jim Fay teaches us that we should "lock in our empathy, love, and understanding" prior to telling kids what the consequences of their actions will be. The parenting course Becoming a Love and Logic Parent teaches parents how to hold their kids accountable in this special way. This Love and Logic method causes the child to see their parent as the "good guy" and the child's poor decision as the "bad guy." When done on a regular basis, kids develop an internal voice that says, "I wonder how much pain I'm going to cause for myself with my next decision?" Kids who develop this internal voice become more capable of standing up to peer pressure.

What more could a parent want? Isn't that a great gift to give your child? Parent child relationships are enhanced, family life becomes less strained, and we have time to enjoy our kids instead of either feeling used by them or being transformed from parent to policeman.

The Love and Logic technique in action sounds like this:

Dad: "Oh, no. You left your bike unlocked and it was stolen. What a bummer. I bet you feel awful. Well, I understand how easy it is to make a mistake like that." (Notice that the parent is not leading with anger, intimidation, or threats.)

Dad then adds, "And you'll have another bike as soon as you can earn enough money to pay for it. I paid for the first one. You can pay for the additional ones."

Love and Logic parents know that no child is going to accept this without an argument, but Love and Logic parents can handle arguments. Jim Fay advises "just go brain dead." This means that parents don't try to argue or match wits with the child. They simply repeat, as many times as necessary, "I love you too much to argue." No matter what argument the child uses, the parent responds "I love you too much to argue." Parents who learn how to use these techniques completely change, for the better, their relationships with kids and take control of the home in loving ways.

My daughter is currently 7.5, but up until she was 6.5, we also had trouble with tantrums. Some of it was undoubtedly due to not providing her enough time to get ready for school (she hates being rushed), some due to a sensitivity to noise and commotion (her twin brother can be a chatterer), and some undoubtedly due to her age. Simply waking her up earlier and allowing her to declare a daily 10 minutes of no talking around her when she needed it (her brother was allowed the same) helped a lot. And as she grows older, she relies less and less on these 2 accommodations.

However, we also needed to find the right consequences to the tantrums, as it had become habituated. We tried ignoring her, stern rebukes, reminding her that she was going to be late, temporarily removing belongings associated with a tantrum - nothing much worked UNTIL, at last, we discovered the one consequence that she consistently cared about - canceling scheduled playdates. We simply said that tantrums were not the proper way to express anger (talking was), she needed to treat us as nicely as she treated her friends, and that if she continued (or ideally before the tantrum started), the next playdate would be canceled. And then we followed through with it. Wow, did she get angry then! :-) But within a month or two of consistent follow-through, the tantrums decreased markedly and we had a whole different girl. Yes, we had to apologize to other families for canceling, but they all said they understood.

Of course, your mileage may vary. What triggers my daughter will not be the same for yours. The key is to try and figure out the possible causes for her (I mentioned 3 for mine) and address them one by one in a logical, loving, and firmly consistent manner. There are numerous books on this - I also liked "Raising the Spirited Child".

I do not accept the fatalism implied by "this is just the way she is and she won't change". While your daughter was born unique and will remain so, I believe every inborn tendency can be constructively guided. For some kids, it does takes more thoughtful analysis, patience, creativity, and, as discussed in another response - a different parental mindset.

Further example - as for thinking for herself, my girl had similar tendencies. I'm an artist and when she was around 4, she started asking me to draw things for her instead of her drawing something herself. Finally, I just had to start saying no. Fortunately it did pay off and now she draws mostly on her own. When she does ask me to draw something, I draw it on a separate piece of scrap and show her step-by-step so that she learns how to do it herself. Her imagination is active otherwise, so again it's not exactly your same situation.

However, you might try playing games that require imagination to play, such as Madlibs or Pictionary - especially multi-player games that the whole family can play. Just last week, we started a story where I began with a couple of sentences, then she had to supply the next 2 or 3, then I continued with the next 2 or 3, then it was her turn, etc. It exercised both of our imaginations! Cooking can be creative too, since you do that with her already. Creative presentation is especially age-appropriate. Many family/parenting magazines are full of ideas of how to make food look fun - if you've got the time for it :-) And read, read, read books with her!

Good luck!

Try the book Raising The Spirited Child--has some good techniques in it and helps parents understand the positive of all the negatives they dwell on in their spirited children. I have one:) Its hard not to dwell on the negative but changing your family's attitude will make a huge diff.

It sounds to me like she's been a little spoiled. If she complains or cries or whines, she gets what she wants. She learned, very young, that if she wants something she just has to act out until she gets it.
I think it's time to set some rules, be consistent, and stick to it no matter what.
We have a sibling constitution and house rules. Sit all the kids down and have them list some rules for them and some house rules. Make sure that no yelling, whining, and hitting are on that list. Set the consequences. Those can be set for each child independently because each child has a different currency. If your daughter likes TV, take it away. If your son likes to play with friends, take that away... you know?

Our sibling constitution has items including: No going in each other's room without asking. If you borrow something, return it in the same condition. Knock before entering. Respect each other's space and privacy. The list goes on.

Be firm. Be consistent.
It's going to get worse before it gets better.
You'd best get a handle on her now before she's a teen and totally out of control.
YMMV
LBC

Hi T.-
When I first read your request, my fist instinct was ths poor daughter! She can feel your frustration! She can feel her disuption to the family. She may feel unwanted, and so acting out and craving your attention, even if its negative attention. I also read the other responses and can see that maybe she is a little spoiled and needs to have some new consistant boundries. Which ever the case, you and hubby need to sit down as a family and show her the love and support that she is cravin (maybe get professional/medical help if needed) yes tell her that things have to be different to have a unified family. And that even when she acts out YOU LOVE HER NO MATTER WHAT! Talk to her and ask what she may want to see different in the family?? How maybe you can act different when she misbehaves?? How she may want hubby to react different. She is old enough to have a voice but not make decisions. Have a family meeting once a week to have a free pass to say what ever is on their minds with no punishment. You might learn something from your kids and from their perspective??
Good luck with what ever you choose to do, its not easy raising kids!!

This is going to seem like an odd response....I too have an 8 year old daughter and she has these same attention tendencies, except mine loves art and draw beautifully.

We recently moved to a heavily populated Chinese community, about 50%, and they all agree and nod their heads and chalk these personality traits up to being born the year of the Horse in the Chinese Zodiac. good, bad or indifferent as I learn more about the Horse, she seems destined to be this way.