Daughter personality really changing (10 year old)
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Anonymous
| My beautiful, highly intelligent and creative daughter is becoming so difficult to live with. I know that I am partly to blame as I have really been struggling since Covid in a variety of ways. I have been quick tempered, unkind and dissconnected and am seeking help for myself for depression(mild) but I am mostly concerned with my daughter who has really been fixated on being in contact with friends to the point of no longer doing the things she would have been doing otherwise, ignoring me and seemingly uninterested in hanging out with me. We have had a wonderful relationship up to this point and I feel heart broken. I need help finding ways to connect with her and re-establish the bond we once had. (this has been a problem over the past few months but especially the past couple weeks.) |
Anonymous
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I'm sorry you're struggling. How much contact does she actually have with friends?
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Anonymous
+1 curious too. I would not tolerate rudeness, sarcasm, chore-shirking....but...if she has nice friends and she enjoys spending time with them, what’s the issue? |
Anonymous
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It may be her starting puberty and nothing to do with you.
Or maybe you won’t let her socialize at all... which is not doing her a favor. |
Anonymous
Gee, what could it be? Hmmm, let's see..... hmmmm... nope, can't think of anything. Definitely can't think of anything pandemic related. |
Anonymous
| It sounds to me like your daughter is becoming a teenager. COVID may being exacerbating things, but this kind of thing is not uncommon starting at around age 10. |
Anonymous
| Due to her age it sounds like puberty hormones to me. |
Anonymous
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You can't force her to hang out with you. Why would she want to? You said yourself you're unkind and short-tempered. You can't use your depression as an excuse - you have to change.
If you force her to spend time with you by saying she CAN'T spend time with friends she will just pull away from you more. Become a nicer person and then she will want to be around you. It's that simple. |
Anonymous
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You should probably read this other thread and the book recommendation in it as well.
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/908399.page |
Anonymous
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It’s great that you are getting help and that you realize you need to reset your relationship. I think you can tell her that, and talk about it with her, when you are both calm and relaxed. You need to find out what SHE feels like, though, once you’ve had a chance to explain about depression and apologize. She should talk and you should listen, and then try again another day. Little bits at a time. She needs to know that puberty starts affecting her hormone-wise before she realizes it. You need to set out your boundaries and she needs to know what they are, because you’re the parent.
It’s hard to be the child of a parent who has struggled, and kids think it is all about them, and she likely has sadness and guilt and anger and anxiety. I would look into some family counseling sessions and/or a parenting class. This can be fixed. |
Anonymous
| The SAME thing is happening here op - even the age. I just got the book pp suggested. |
Anonymous
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Poor kid. Could just be puberty but with the info about your depression and knowing there is a pandemic messing up life, it could be those. If you can find a counselor/therapist she can talk to alone I think that would be good.
Our 11 yr old would rather play video games or watch tv shows while on video calls with his friends right now - only social interaction he gets - than hang out with us so we are upping the ante. We do a movie night where he gets to watch something and special snacks etc to make it an event. |
Anonymous
| She'll be fine in 20 years or so. |
Anonymous
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I would suggest starting with some "time in" where she gets a period of time each day where she sets the agenda, you have no distractions, and you really focus on positive stuff-even if it's just watching tv together. How to Talk so Kids will Listen or any of the other positive parenting books could also be helpful in recognizing your problem spots and developing strategies.
I had similar issues at the beginning of the pandemic. I didn't realize how negative I was being and unlike the pp, when I really cracked down on rude behavior everything would escalate to WWIII. Going out of my way to be positive (I'll write a nice note and slip in under my daughter's door, give her time everyday when she gets to pick the agenda, be appreciative of good behavior and attitude) and have appropriate but not harsh consequences for rudeness or bad behavior. My kid has gone from hiding in her room and coming out occasionally to have a tantrum to being a pretty decent human being. |
Anonymous
| My 10 year old daughter is going through the exact same thing. She's hit puberty, including getting her period, which freaked me out because it came so early. I was 13 when i got mine. I know it's within the range of normal, but still...Anyway, her emotions go from 0-60 in seconds and she gets furious when we ask her to do almost anything. Before school started, she was on Facetime with her best friend non-stop. Before anyone points it out, I will cop to not being strict enough in limiting her time on the phone. But thanks to Covid, she couldn't see her friends in school or on weekends, and then the summer came and there wasn't even school to occupy her. I hope we can look back on this time as an unpleasant blip in our lives and our kids won't be scarred too much by it. |