I am after some advice on how to repair my relationship with my daughter. She is 7 years old and has two siblings aged 3.5 and 8 weeks. I am worried about my relationship with her and I feel we are lacking the bond I share with her younger siblings. I don't believe in having favourites and I don't like feeling this way. But I think I am resent her because of her behaviour and now I am frustrated when I look at her.
I believe in strong values, such as family first, be polite, use your manners and try hard at school and she doesn't seem to care about any of this. She puts her TV shows ahead of family time (TV is now strictly limited but every time I turn my back she is in front of the screen, I have even used parent lock on her favourite channels), she does not use good manners (especially at the dinner table - even though I remind/nag her every night) and she puts minimal effort in at school. She tries to bully/control/overpower her younger brother. I try to talk to her and she just answers me with "yes mum" without listening to a word I have said or how I feel. Five minutes later she is back to bad behaviour. I feel that she lacks maturity for a 7 year old, which is the main cause of her behavioural problems.
I feel like she is the exact opposite of me, and while I can work on her behaviour issues, how do I overcome my feelings and create that special bond with her. I don't want her to hate me or feel like she is treated differently. But I don't know where to start... how do I re-create this bond? I feel so lost towards her and I don't want to let her down.... please help
3 Replies
Firstly I would start telling her what she is doing right and reassess my expectations of her. What you are describing is pretty normal 7 year old behaviour. Most kids would rather watch tv than do there homework. And most kids that age would need to be told to do there homework and be monitored doing it. What about pointing out to her her good qualities. Every child has some. I work with kids with extreme behaviour issues and they have a lot of lovely qualities in between. Once you've started doing that organising time to really get to know her, by bonding over a special outing. You've got to remember she is a child and will go through stages if boundary pushing and needing to be re taught about manners etc, don't expect her to be a little adult because she is only 7 not 17.
My daughter is also 7 and she loves to boss her little brother around which always causes conflict between them. Have u tried a reward chart ?? We have this in our house my kids are very motivated by stickers so I bought some gold stars and printed a picture of their fav character and then put squares onto it each time they do something good they get a star for their chart after the line is full they can choose something to do we have a list of activities, like bike riding, park, swings, movie time, computer time. I have found this is a great way to reward good behaviour and they then start to try really hard to be good and helpful. I have also found I try and make an effort to do something singularly with each child each week even if it's them just coming to the shops to help with the shopping sometimes the one on one time really helps created a good bond.
Maybe try to think of it less how her behaviour affects you and try and put yourself in her shoes a bit. She has two younger siblings who probably need a lot more time from you than she does, there is also a lot more expected of her and she mighg feel a bit hard done by. And not to assume but I know that things can start to change hormonally in little girls even this early, she might be really struggling with some big feelings.
Why not try to plan some special time, just you and her (I know with a brand newbie it might be hard), google Love Bombing and see if that's something you can try. Just time where you reconnect, do something you both like, if possible and spend some time.