Does your child or children drive you insane? I know mine does. As a parent you watch your child(ren) go through and do things that could have been prevented. Whether that's a pain or mistake either way you know it could have been prevented but you let them learn.
For me, I am newer at this parenting thing, but I still know what I did as a child that caused either heartache or discomfort. Like at eighteen, I thought I knew what I wanted and moved in with my mother after living with my dad, my whole life. I am not saying that this was a bad descion but I do believe it made more discomfort than necessary. A lot of feelings got hurt in me making this decision. Do I wish I could have gone back and chose a different path? Yes and no, I say this because if i hadn't chose that path then I possibly wouldn't have met my wife because I might have chosen a different college to go to or a different place to go to school all together. Like I was told recently, we were placed in the paths that we were meant to take even if they aren't easy ones. But I do wish that I had done things differently.
With my daughter, I see her go through pain and I do not always know how to handle it. A lot of her pain is tied to her father. That makes it hard for me because I have been more of parent then he ever has, but yet he is the best. He is her father though, so I try to look the other way and bury the pain I feel in myself. I do not bury her pain though, when she is in pain and it is his fault it infuriates me. But due to not wanting to upset her, we try to just comfort her and help her cope.
Her mother and myself try everyday to insure her happiness, but that does not mean we let her get away with being mean or rude. We strive to make her a honest and underatanding human being. At times, she makes me want to pull my hair out. She does this by being out rightly rude or hateful. Usually all I have to say is how about you lose the attitude but that doesnt always work. We worry that her attitude will increase as she gets older because she is only about to be nine and already has an attitude that can make the nicest person mad. I love her but her attitude towards her mother and myself is way more then I had with my parents. Its hard for me because the way she talks to her mother sometimes makes me madder then fire because when I was growing up I was taught that you do not talk to your parents or any adult in a disrespectful way. When she does it I want to instantly want to punish her because I do not like that she disrespects my wife. But on the other side of the coin I know that we need to get to the root of the problem and the why she feels like she needs to punish us for her pain.
An example of her doing a thing that was a bad decision, a couple years ago, we found out that kiwi made her lips tingle really bad. That was just by her touching to her lips. She came home from school and was like, well, I am not allergic to kiwi because I ate kiwi at school today. Let me back up and say we do not know how bad of allergy that her kiwi allergy is plus it was when she was younger when that allergy came to light, so she could have grown out of it. But that isn't the point, we are happy that she did not have a reaction but we were not happy because if she had been very allergic it could have been a moment where she pass away. That frightened us a lot. We had two emotions that went thru our minds, wanting to punish her for making a very dangerous descision and fear. We ended up talking to her and telling her not to do something like that again. After questioning her we found out that the kiwi she ate was not real kiwi it was flavoring, but its the fact she took that risk. When she was very young, we found out that she had a pretty bad pear allergy, we worry that she will make that rash decision again and that is a huge risk. We asked her why she would do something like that because she could have hurt or even killed herself. She just said I don't know I just wanted some.
We try to let her live independently so she can become her own person. With that in mind we still have to remind her she is a child and will do as she is told. Right now, that is her biggest problem, she wants to do what she wants when she wants and is like screw the consequences. That does not fly with me for many reasons. The first reason would be because she's eight and there are limits. She lives to push those limits, like seeing how much she can get away with. She uses her mom's kindness and sympathy against her. She takes advantage like when her mother is trying to get her something she will skip over options to this object that cost three times what the others do and when her mom says no you can pick from these she says ok, I'll just ask daddy for it. Her mom gets upset because we would love to get her super expensive things but we have bills to pay and we have to make sure she has clothes and food. It is a big pet peeve for me, yes I will admit I would pick expensive things when I was a child but I never did it to see who I could get more from, I just have expensive taste, did then and do now I'm just more reasonable now. With the little it's about what you get her. She believes she is entitled to everything. Why she feels this way is a mystery. Something we have to work through.
These are all things that can be worked through. They are just phases that will pass, hopefully. With my job, I deal with children and I see children that make me proud of my child. This morning is a prime example, a child was being hateful to another and I asked them to knock it off. That child turned around and said how about you knock your mouth off. For me it was hard because if my child said that to me, she would have been punished. It was extremely disrespectful and that child had to have learned it from someone. So it made me super angry but then sad because it makes me wonder what type of things they see at home. With that said, I know that my child would not say something like that to me or any other adult because we have taught her better than that.
Well there is another parenting post, I hope you enjoyed it!
Have you considered counseling for your daughter? I don't know the full situation of course, but I would venture to guess her rudeness and misbehavior stems from her father and, being 8 years old, she doesn't know how to handle the hurt from that. Maybe a counselor could help her better learn to cope with the upset and anger so she isn't so disrespectful toward you and her mother.
Thank you for your suggestion.
I'm not a parent (yet), but I've certainly have been a child. And I don't know where would I be right now if my parents hadn't thought me how okay it is to seek for help if you need it. I've gone to different therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists through the years and it has certainly made me understand things better. Sometimes there's only so much you can do before asking others for help. Maybe you and your daughter need that help. Either way, I hope things get better for you as a family!
We have had her in therepy and counseling but she doesnt open up. Her rudeness comes and goes. Most the attitude happens when her father talks to her or doesn't when he is suppose to. We are hoping with time she'll open up or even talk about it. But we don't wanna push her to hard. So letting her come to us when she feels its time.