Our 5 year old daughters attitude is terrible!
I don’t know if it is normal or not. We have tried gentle parenting, not so gentle parenting, rewards, positive re enforcement, I’m so lost.
She is usually really well behaved in public but not at home. She complains about legitimately everything, nothing is ever right, food, what’s on tv, what activities we are doing (even if it’s something she wanted to do) if everything’s not exactly how she wants it and everyone attending to her every want and needs that second she screams and cries. She throws a tantrum and the shop and demands to stay till we buy her something (we don’t!) she speaks to us like her slaves, we are constantly correcting her manners and getting her to do things for herself (for example she wants us to spoon feed her or bring her something she can easily reach herself)
She’s happy when she makes us sad, she even told me she likes making us sad. Even things like Christmas lights or fun stuff “I’ve already seen them, I hate them” “I’m not lucky” “my drawing is terrible” so negative about everything! We have been really aware of how we speak and it’s not like this I don’t know where it’s coming from.
I make sure we all use positive language, she gets one on one time with no siblings/phones/ diet is good, sleep is ok (could be better!)
Please point me in the right direction, books, ideas podcasts, advice I’ll take it all. She’s beautiful girl and I want her to reach her full potential and actually enjoy life!
3 Replies
Very spoiled and attention seeking. Just skip the nonsense, no reward charts or anything just tell her no and take things away from her if she tries to tell the adults in the house what to do. You're the boss, this shouldn't be a problem at 5!
Firm but kind.
She may be acting spoilt, she may be having problems - anxiety can come out as rigidity (bossiness and epic tantrums over the most minute things, tears before things have even started, huge overreactions) one thing our psych said to me when I said ‘I’m not sure if I’m handling it right or encouraging it’ was ‘if it turns out that she has something going on, that she can’t handle this and needs your help in those moments, you can look back and in hindsight you won’t regret that you were kind and present in those moments’ and really that’s true for all five year olds having these behaviours - they are out of their depth and can’t handle their own emotions, they need you to help them.
It’s called co-regulation. We all do it for our kids but we aren’t taught how, even though there is lots and lots of research and information out there on how to.
Just remember you can be kind and present without pandering. You can be firm and also support their feelings/reactions in that moment.
It’s impossible to give specific advice without knowing the workings but if it’s gone on for longer than a phase then it’s time to seek a psychologist/GO/ parenting class for specific help. It’s hard on them being this highly strung and emotional as well, she needs help to work it out.
Child psychologist asap. They are amazing and they’ll get to the bottom of why she is doing it and offer you advice on how to cope with the situations and how to respond. I would actually lose my shit at my kids if they were like this. I understand your frustration it must be awful. Question her about things also, if anything has ever happened to her. She may be acting out for good reason so don’t dismiss anything and get a referal for a child psych. She will turn people against her and especially at school.