Reply to 7 Year Old DD: Controlling Behavior?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My DD is bright and fairly reasonable, but lately we seem to be struggling with her, and it seems that it all comes down to her trying to control her environment. For example, she'll test me to see if I carry out her requests, and it seems like it's for the sake of confirming she has control over me, rather than any actual need for help (so, she'll leave her backpack on the floor, then ask me to pick it up). She's gotten very particular about her eating. She also won't eat school lunch because you have to go up and tell the lunch lady what you want, so the one time we couldn't pack her lunch, she chose to skip eating rather than get her food. She gets really angry with her younger brother over any perceived unfairness, and will sometimes say that she hates him.

I'm biased, of course, but it doesn't seem like she's mean spirited. It seems, rather, like she needs to feel like she's in control of the situation, and when she gets anxious, she acts out, and then the meanness results. I don't want to enable her bad behaviors, but I do want to put her at ease so that she trusts me more and, hopefully, relaxes.

Any advice from parents who have been able to work through this? At which point should I consider getting help? I feel like at this point the behaviors aren't disruptive, but creeping toward that tipping point. [/quote]

The second two examples are normal. My DD absolutely would have starved rather than talk to the lunch lady (it was a phase, we were patient, she's fine). While it's not great, siblings say nasty things to each other sometimes. The backpack thing is a little weird, but I would need more context. My DD needs a lot of alone time and a lot of sleep. It took every ounce of her strength to shine at school, and she was at the end of her rope every day when she got home. For her mental health, she really needed everyone to back off. We didn't yell or punish, because she was holding it together as much as she was capable. She got sent to her room a lot to collect herself. [/quote]

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