My 8 yr. old is lying and destroying my house....HELP!!!!!!!

Annette - posted on 02/17/2012

thats how my 9 years old girl is being hititng and liying and ager problems

Deidre - posted on 02/16/2012

I'm not trying to be funny or anything. Have you tried beating her to the punch? What would happen if you thrashed the kitchen just for fun? How do you think she would react? Sometimes it's all about the shock factor. She's getting a "RISE" out of you. Attention is still attention even if it's negative.



Another idea may be to start Mommy and Me cooking time. She is obviously desperate to spend quality time with mom. I only say obviously, now, because I found it out the hard way myself. Now I can actually spot it. My 12 year old was acting out so BADLY I actually considered dumping him off at childrens services or foster home. I called the children's abuse hotline and got some great "talk me down off the cliff advice". We ended up going to counselling. Our therapist taught me some great skills to cope with my anger as well as for us both how to really communicate. My son was so angry in the beginning. More angry with me than I would EVER have imagined. And by the end it was revealed he really wanted and NEEDED some one on one time with mom. I'm a single parent with also 2 more sons way younger than him, so it was hard to see for myself. We figured it out in therapy. See what happens and please keep me updated. I'm anxious to see your results. :)

Patricia - posted on 02/14/2012

talk to your family doctor about referring you to a counselor or behavior specialist. I've used both for behavior problems that I have with my sons and it was helpful. the current counselor helped me come up with a behavior management plan for home that is so helpful. it's taking a lot of stress off of me and making the boys responsible for their behavior (good or bad).



something that helps me is to pray and stay calm during my boys' chaos. i tell my boys that their bad decisions are not going to disrupt my day.



our first consequence is putting them in a timeout with a worksheet. they have to fill out the worksheet without talking. then we talk about what happened and what the consequences will be (depending on what they did it might just be a timeout or if its more serious its loss of privileges also). if they are out of control, i tell them to go outside or to their room until they are calm. when they are calm they can come back to me and we will continue our talk. remember to use few words as possible and use a calm tone of voice. after they are calm we talk about ways to control anger and what is acceptable and not acceptable.



i also have my oldest wear a wristband to help him to remember to work on his behavior and my youngest uses a picture of a stop sign. sometimes something visual helps more than just talking about it.



and when you are trying to change a bad behavior have a good behavior to replace it with (if she can go two days without trashing the kitchen she can have an extra snack, or if she tells the truth she gets some alone time with mom). catch your daughter doing something good and praise her for it. get her to want good praise more than bad consequences.



good luck :). oh, and the counselor told me something last week that was valuable to me so i'll pass it along... remember the end result is changing behavior so don't get caught up in the moments, remember to think about what you want the end result to be and how you want you and your child to get there.