Upset by daughter's behaviour: update

looneyleo

Hi OP! We are sooo similar! I have an 8 year old daughter who has always been physical with her younger 5 year old brother. She can do some really nasty things which honestly makes me cry in despair when she goes to sleep. However, i have learnt that my son is very quietly very irritating to her saying things to deliberately wind her up and get her in trouble! So, the best advice I can give to you is always remember that there are two sides to every story. Try not to assume that she is always wrong, use discipline where it is necessary BUT try to be positive as much as possible. Treat every day as a new day with a clean sheet and give as much praise as possible. I use confiscation of her favourite toy if she is really naughty and she has to get three "stars" for good behaviour to get it back. I give a star is she is kind, or goes for an hour without getting into trouble. If she does something wrong she loses a star. etc... I have learned to accept that my daughters behaviour is only one aspect of her personality that I don't like, she has some fantastic other aspects including, grit and determination and a sense of humour so think about her good qualities too and maximise the opportunities to express those. Good luck and chin up. Tomorrow is a new sunny day. xxx

adea

devildog wrote: »

Obviously(because of history) I am going to be looking at this from your eldests point of view but it appears that your youngest is very much the little angel who does nothing wrong and the eldest is lashing out. How are you going to teach her things are wrong if you turn around and do the very same thing back to her??

Oh I know the younger one is no angel, far from it! I got her a teddy that says angel born devil when she was little and it is appropriate.
We always do our best to get both sides of the story and eldest will often admit when she has done wrong, youngest tries to lie her way out of things but it's often when you've seen her do it.
My eldest is a lot less hassle normally than her sister and doesn't get the blame for everything all the time.
I do feel bad about what I did to her and was upset about doing it but at the time I wasn't thinking clearly and had a bad mummy moment.
I sat snuggled up with her at bedtime and read to her and we are all fine again and both girls are friends again - for now!

devildog

Hope you didn't take offence(not intended) it still brings to the surface a lot of hurt-no longer have anything to do with mum or middle sister. I finally accepted some things will never change and have cut my losses(and try not to dwell)

I do hope that things resolve themselves and that you can enjoy life as a family

Gingham_Ribbon

LittleTinker wrote: »

Lifting up the eldests dress to humiliate her will make the problem much worse.....not only will she resent her little sister and be jealous of her, she will also being to resent you and realise that her parents are not to be trusted as they make her feel bad.....and a parent should not ever do that.

I agree with this.

Adea, I can appreciate why you did this and am not judging you or trying to be critical. However, I do feel that the situation is unlikely to have improved by this. It risks building resentment of the younger girl and possibly losing trust in you for humiliating her.

If you're interested in looking at things from a different perspective, consider reading 'Siblings without Rivalry'. It's worth a try, since this has been going on for so long without improvement.

Good luck! These things are not easy but most siblings go through it to one extent or another. :beer:

adea

no offence taken whatsoever devildog
I understand where you're coming from as my older brother (who I now get on really well) was the middle out of 3 of us and he could seemingly do no wrong.

Gingham Ribbon, I fully accept I was wrong in what I did to my eldest.
Thankfully she does not hold a grudge against me.
I intend to apologise to her tomorrow, but I will make it clear that I was very angry at what she did to her sister and what she did was wrong but also what I did was wrong.
Her sister is off to a friends 7th birthday party tomorrow, so I shall take the time to do something with just my eldest (who doesn't like it when her sister is invited to a party and she isn't, when they both know the girl in question).

adea

Thank you all for your support and advice.
I had a chat with dd1 and it turns out she is a little jealous of her sister - or rather what she perceives to be the time we spend with dd2 instead of her.
I didn't think we paid more attention to dd2 but obviously her big sister does.:(
She wants more one on one time with either my husband or myself whilst the other parent spends time with dd2.

She got to go to the mutual friends party at the cinema and McDonalds after and was a very happy girl:)
DD2 is going to a Rainbows overnighter saturday afternoon til sunday morning, so we will be able to spend time with DD1

Thanks once again for all your advice

lauren_1

delain wrote: »

Apparently my uncle hit my mum with a 3 pin plug! :eek: and I remember pushing my brother into a patch of stinging nettles as tall as him. I'd have been 7 ish he'd have been 5 ish.

It happens in all families, just keep telling your eldest it's wrong!

my brother broke my arm twice by throwing long sticks in my bike tyres and pushed me out a window, my mum threw him down the stairs after the window incident and he landed on a hoover plug. watching him waddle in to A&E crying like a baby with a plug stuck in his !!!! was worthwhile.

best day of my life.

he never did anything more than a dead arm after that.

trickytrolleys

my brothers and I would attack each other with anything close by, my poor parents - they'd have had more luck brokering a peace deal between the israelis and the palestinians than getting us to to stop hitting each other :D

i remember my best friend once attacking her sister with a spatula, it was a classic :rotfl:

We're all friends now though, its just growing up - they will laugh about this one day !

SugarSpun

I never hit my little brother, but when he and I were alone in a room he'd sit on the other side of it from me and shout, OWWWW!! Stop it!!!!! You're HURTING MEEEEEEEE!!!!!! and I'd be punished for it.

We have a terrible relationship even now. I'm glad you got it sorted out OP, I'm sure it'll be a relief for all of you.

Alikay

My boys went through a phase where I couldn't trust them to be nice to each other - shoving, pulling faces, silly "na na nana naaa!" stuff etc. DS1 being older was craftier and knew exactly which buttons to press to wind DS2 up. Sometimes I'd plan things like trips to the park on the proviso that "you both behave and are kind to each other" which was a tall order but tended to work....if they were vile to each other and failed, at least they then shared solidarity in deprivation!!

I didn't have the same problems between DD and DS1, but the 2 boys were much more competitive. Being an only child myself, I didn't understand this sibling rivalry thing and felt pretty upset about it:o