My Daughter Has Her Own Version of Reality

[Anonymous]

Mom to an eleven year-old girl who is strong-willed and has some emotional problems. Her father and I have grown increasingly frustrated with her sense of reality. She always sees or remembers things in ways that are totally off base and usually favorable to her. If we challenge her on it she won't have it, accuses us of lying or not on her side because we don't believe her.

It seems as though I often hear her say "I didn't do/say that" or "that's not how it happened"

She sort of reminds me of Steve Jobs as he was described in Walter Isaacson's book- there was "Steve's world" and then reality. This is a similar situation. Like Jobs, she is very creative and tempermental.

Anyone else have a child or family member like this? It's not only that she is frustrating to deal with but I fear it hurts her relationships with other.

[Anonymous]

I have one like this. Drives me nuts. One thing I've noticed is these comments often come out when she feels cornered or angry. If she calms down she is less likely to make them. So the solution seems to be for me to stop making her feel cornered. It is very much a work in progress.

[Anonymous]

You are really comparing your kid to Steve Jobs. Wow.

[Anonymous]

I also deal with this with my 16yo DD. Very frustrating!! I often say that I need to have a video camera or audio recorder anytime we have a conversation. She often accuses me of "getting old and losing my memory". I do fear that it will cause her problems in life later, but I don't know how to fix it. She also will fight you to the end when she is wrong about something and will try to find all sorts of ways to make her point or reality to be fact. She will NEVER admit she was wrong and always has to have the last word. I worry about her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are really comparing your kid to Steve Jobs. Wow.

You clearly have problems with simile. Do you also have problems with other metahpors and analogies?.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are really comparing your kid to Steve Jobs. Wow.

You clearly have problems with simile. Do you also have problems with other metahpors and analogies?.

I'm so sorry for your loss. Did your daughter have the exact same cancer too?!?

[Anonymous]

I have the same problem with my nine year old, so glad to see I'm not alone. I find it's definitely worse when she has not slept well so we've been working on fixing the sleep problems. It's really troubling to me...I can't tell if she's just a convincing liar or if she honestly believes that's what happened.

[Anonymous]

Hi OP,

Just wanted to bring up this possibility if you are looking for why this can be happening.
Sure it could be because she's a tween and then she'll be a teen.
I'm reading a book now about adult ADD and one of the things that they mention is what you describe- forgotten conversations, agreements, a completely different perception of what actually happened.

My 13 year old DD is creative and temperamental too, and she has ADHD. Your description sounds familiar to me.
I am afraid it's going to cause her problems later in life, that's why I'm reading a book about Adult ADD. These kinds of traits just don't go away.

[Anonymous]

My child thinks he is amazing athlete, he is not. He will say I scored 15 points when it is more like 5.roblems only arise when hid older brother bursts his reality. Why do you feel the need to challenge or correct her. Just let it be.

She has her reality, you have yours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child thinks he is amazing athlete, he is not. He will say I scored 15 points when it is more like 5.roblems only arise when hid older brother bursts his reality. Why do you feel the need to challenge or correct her. Just let it be.

She has her reality, you have yours.

mom: We agreed you'd be home at 10pm.
daughter: No, we didn't. You said I could come home at midnight.

Yeah, not problems down the road...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child thinks he is amazing athlete, he is not. He will say I scored 15 points when it is more like 5.roblems only arise when hid older brother bursts his reality. Why do you feel the need to challenge or correct her. Just let it be.

She has her reality, you have yours.

mom: We agreed you'd be home at 10pm.
daughter: No, we didn't. You said I could come home at midnight.

Yeah, not problems down the road...

So write it down. Text her. But I suspect the parents use lots of general language. Don't stay out late, come in at dinner time, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child thinks he is amazing athlete, he is not. He will say I scored 15 points when it is more like 5.roblems only arise when hid older brother bursts his reality. Why do you feel the need to challenge or correct her. Just let it be.

She has her reality, you have yours.

This is one of the most idiotic statements I have ever read in regards to parenting on DCUM, and that is saying a lot.

Your child is NOT an amazing basketball player. What's wrong with recognizing that his 5 points are a nice, but minimal contribution to the team and that perhaps his talents lie elsewhere and no, in fact, he is not going to play in the NBA?

Do you want your kid to grow up in LaLa land? In a "reality" that no one lives in but him? Why can't you teach him to face hard facts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mom to an eleven year-old girl who is strong-willed and has some emotional problems. Her father and I have grown increasingly frustrated with her sense of reality. She always sees or remembers things in ways that are totally off base and usually favorable to her.

This is called "lying", not "having her own reality".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child thinks he is amazing athlete, he is not. He will say I scored 15 points when it is more like 5.roblems only arise when hid older brother bursts his reality. Why do you feel the need to challenge or correct her. Just let it be.

She has her reality, you have yours.

This is one of the most idiotic statements I have ever read in regards to parenting on DCUM, and that is saying a lot.

Your child is NOT an amazing basketball player. What's wrong with recognizing that his 5 points are a nice, but minimal contribution to the team and that perhaps his talents lie elsewhere and no, in fact, he is not going to play in the NBA?

Do you want your kid to grow up in LaLa land? In a "reality" that no one lives in but him? Why can't you teach him to face hard facts?

I am sure you h has a different reality too when you disagree.

The point is everybody's reality is just that, their own. I actually told a coach for a travel team we were not interested because my son was not that good and he said "actually he is really good" ... Maybe I am comparing him to his older brother, maybe my "reality" is just an opinion. The travel coach had no interest in getting him for his team so there was no reason for him to lie to me.

I don't really care to correct every single reality of a 10 year old. If you educate yourself on child development, it is common for middle schoolers to have distorted reality. That is why you don't believe their stories about what goes on in school.

Sometimes their reality is over confident, sometimes it lacks confidence, eventually we hope to end up somewhere in the middle. It is unrealistic to expect a middle school student to have a clear reality.

[Anonymous]

Make an appointment with a teen psychologist. I would take this seriously, because your daughter needs to acknowledge there is a problem, then understand that this is hurting her in the long-term, and then needs to have strategies to control herself.