Reply to Everything is Difficult with my Seven Year Old Daughter

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. Thank you for the kind and helpful replies. I was worried I was going to get slammed for bad parenting.

We have spoken with the psychologist who runs her social skills group for regular parent sessions. She makes a lot of suggestions and has had some insight, but nothing that has brought significant change.

We have considered ADHD which definitely explains her impulsivity, but the unkindness is really exhausting. I have read up on ODD but it seems that that is really the result of trauma in childhood, and our daughter has has a pretty great childhood.

This behavior started when she was 5 and has slowly worsened. At 2/3/4 we would have never thought that she had any behavioral issues.

She is so intense. At bedtime, for example, she might start screeching and flailing her limbs while I try to give her a hug, just to annoy me (or at least it feels that way). She might pretend to tell secrets to one friend just to bother another friend. When asked about this, she has no answer.

She does well in her social skills group, likes playing with others and makes friend easily. The difficulty comes in maintaining these friendships. She gets along fairly well with her younger sibling, although she behaves best when she is alone with one of both parents.

I think I'm most concerned about her being a jerk. I want to know why she is like that. We're a fairly happy and normal family and I think we are nice people. Kindness in children is always (rightfully) boasted and praised, and it's nowhere on her radar.[/quote]

Your fear that your child 'could' be a jerk is a totally understandable parental fear and concern because you sound thoughtful and connected to your family.  But you do not sound or seem like a jerk.  : )  Your child also sounds very thoughtful and connected to her family and aware of her surroundings.  Have you researched how general anxiety or social anxiety is expressed through behavior and indirect words, and how these types of normal anxieties, outwardly, will look different to the beholder at different ages (for both parties involved; the kids AND the parents)?  In the context of different external factors (such as the arrival, and age spread with, her younger sibling(s))?  The clue is her being most socially/emotionally comfortable with one of her parents.  She knows she needs to share her security (her parent) with her sibling but she still needs one of you to feel safest.  She wants to be good, it sounds like she's just overwhelmed by some aspect of her life that she has not reconciled with the reality that she is 'safe' and that she 'continues to be safe' even though she's growing older (and into a different version of herself from how she has previously known herself).  For example, she knew she had two parents, and that she was safe, but now she realizes ____________(this blank reflects the part of her life that you can best observe and recognize, since you, ideally, are more objective about what all is going on with her), and thus, because her life as she has known it, is now different bcs of ___(ditto, as you would objectively identify)_____________, she is not sure that she's safe so she's not emotionally calm except for she when feels safe (with one of her parents next to her in person, vs knowing she's safe when she's older and her parents are not with her in person).

The question is why does she feel unsettled, but the clues are when she IS unsettled and is signaling to other people that she 'obviously' feels overwhelmed even though the reason why she feels overwhelmed is 'not obvious'.  She's still very trusting and she still trusts you which is why after holding herself together emotionally all day that she then loses her 'cool' and her emotional control at the end of the day.

Perhaps (fwiw, it sounds like) she may be over tired at bedtime.  And/or something she's eating may be over-stimulating her central nervous system, too.  The combo of both triggers (adrenaline spike from being over tired and foods that irritate her central nervous system) can be totally too much to handle and dramatically overwhelming emotionally and physically at the end of the day, and especially at a transition point of letting go of you (her parent) in person.  For example, she may be able to 'hold it together' late in the day in the presence of extended family for a special occasion but then she would fall apart in the car on the way home because emotionally she can and needs to let you know that she's overwhelmed.

It's a fallacy that staying up later will 'make' someone more tired.  Staying up later only signals to your body that you need an adrenaline spike to continue functioning.  Once that adrenaline spike is generated it can't be 'stopped' or 'slowed'; the result is extra energy to give voice (and fight) to being overwhelmed, but for kids who have limited 'rational' decision making skills at that point because developmentally their brains and central nervous systems have not matured to 'adult-level capacity',

7-8 is a cornerstone developmental milestone period for kids (as evidenced by how dramatically different your child will be in contrast to the starting point of the previous seven years; eg birth vs age 7; age 7 vs age 14; age 14 vs age 21, etc, etc)

Is she your first, oldest child?  It's often hard to see the subtlety and obviousness of the developmental changes with some kids, and typical to not know those emotional phases, objectively, for a first child.  You and your child are building trust with each other, and with your individual selves.

Fwiw, some kids (people) are rarely 'overwhelmed' emotionally and/or physically.  Some kids (people) are easily 'overwhelmed' emotionally and/or physically.  Both of those realities, and all the points in between, are normal.  Perhaps, look to yourself and your partner for your best sense of a realistic emotional baseline, and then extrapolate how you might have felt when you were seven when you were overwhelmed.  Usually, by the time we are adults we have some clues about how much anxiety we navigate internally (some adults don't have any knowledge of their anxiety because those kinds of feelings were not allowed at home when they were kids).  For context, the types of comments that 'I never felt anxious as a kid' are generally not helpful or truthful.  Almost all adults have navigated many life transitions and also had multiple feelings about those transitions.  Becoming an adult is about navigating those many feelings when encountering transitions and major life events, and being in control of how to emotionally address the situation and physically express their feelings about the life transition in a way that, ideally, is not emotionally or physically explosive (destructive) to anyone or a normal life process (going to bed, going to school, going to work, getting married; the sand box gets bigger but the pattern remains the same), directly or indirectly.

Hugs to you both and your whole family.

https://feingold.org/

Marguerite Kelly writes concisely and beautifully about navigating these types of developmental milestones, as well.  Lying can be an appropriate coping mechanism at early developmental milestones (bcs the human brain is not capable of abstract thought yet, and lying can reflect an emerging ability to comprehend, and safely explore, abstract thought), but lying will become, and is, an inappropriate coping mechanism once/when the human brain has matured enough to know and comprehend abstract thought (and this ability waxes and wanes depending on the developmental phase of the person).  Your child may very well be more rational in sixth grade than s/he will be in eighth grade.  As we grow physically and emotionally, our bodies, including our brains, have to make space to do so and then re-establish (calm*) emotionally.  Tragically, 'calm' can become a curated state of chaos for adults who do not have emotionally safe homes (or some type of emotionally reliable and safe physical space with other emotionally reliable and safe adults who co-exist with the kid(s) with integrity and respect)

Gossip also reflects developmental maturity, or the lack thereof; it 'comes and goes' as kids explore how to get closer to individual people.  Thus this behavior can be normal (in younger children who do not know better ways to cultivate relationships with peers or, said another way, kids are learning about how best to be 'close' to someone whose attention they want--gossip usually does not work long term, and the consequences typically do not create the desired closeness) to being a tool that is very corrosive and destructive and a HUGE cry for help when utilized by adults (who cannot share attention or closeness with other adults without feeling like they need to 'tear' down the emotional walls of relationships that they 'feel' are out of their specter of influence and/or control).

Living life = playing house = building house = keeping house

Take care & be good to yourself everyday!  And, don't ghost yourself.  You're right to admit how uncomfortable unkindness is; unkindness is painful for everyone involved.[/quote]

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