I Need Help with Almost 7Yr Old's Behaviour!!

Maybe get her assessed by a Professional.

What grade is she in?

Is this the first time, she has been like this???

Does she have learning disorders?

My initial gut response was: 1)what are the other 3 categories she is assed on? 2) You emptied her room b/c she is struggling to pay attention at school? 3) She isn't allowed out of her room except for dinner unless she performs tasks that you haven't given evidence she is capable of doing?

It all sounds like she is struggling with concentration at school. My son did too. I can't speak for your daughter, but my son's was NOT because he was willful or found it more fun to cut up in class. He is a daydreamer (borderline ADD-inattentive) and very sweet. He is not in any way disruptive in class. All the teachers have always loved him and commented on his sweet personality, BUT: he still has to work really hard to remember to complete assignments. He still struggles to get completed assignments turned in on time (if at all). He still "wastes" time in class because he is distracted by other things --other kids, the window, the ticking clock... whatever. These things are not within their control to the degree that you seem to think they are. For some kids it is no big deal... for others it is. BIG DEAL. Punishing her for something that she cannot master is like punishing her for being low IQ. It isn't her fault and she can't change how she is wired. She needs tools/skills to be taught to help her learn how to manage her time and do her work. It is a huge struggle for a lot of kids, but if you have any hope of helping her get a handle on it, you have to start trying to help her, rather than just punish her. She will give up (if she hasn't already, and it sounds like she might have) and not care. Then her attitude will deteriorate in a rapid spiral.
Would you punish her if she didn't start walking at 9 months old? She wasn't yet able to do that on her own... Doesn't seem much different to me.
Just my opinion. Maybe somewhere there is more justification for punishment than I picked up on .....

Bless your heart, I know how you feel..as my son would get cards pulled all the time for talking! The teacher would move him and he would talk, get distracted and not do his work. He would then blame shift it to other people.
Have you tried diet? I saw some great results, and here is what I did.

1. NO sugar/nada.....
2. no dyes, perservatives, processed foods...
3. all whole foods: chicken, veggies, fruit..healthy healthy...
3. NO Dairy....this is a toughie, however many react to it and get off task
4. No gluten/try gluten free for a month..you can look online.....
5. multi vitamin, b6 caps (add to a smoothie if have to..along with
Flax oil and fish oil)
Book: Doctor Bobs guide to adhd on amazon.

Document what each food does, and how it effects behavior.......
Positive reinforcement/along with strict taking privleges away.........
Food effects everything, one tiny dose of caffeine can send a child
on hyper warp effecting everything.

You are not alone..I know it feels that way/however many are facing the same things...
My son loves to debate. I now say, I love you..I'm not arguing and I leave
the room if he keeps up.
He has to face the consequence. Otherwise we get into an entire battle of wills or full on argument. If he gets a card pulled, he loses a privlege..
(however it usually doesn't bother him/ I stick to it anyway)
just have to keep staying consistent, change the diet, and know this will pass:-)

N.,

As a Certified Parent Coach and Positive Discipline Parent Educator, I can tell you that what you have going on is much deeper than just the ability to pay attention, listen and do what needs to be done. Your daughter isn't responding to being punished or to the rewards because these things typically don't work, or they only work for a short time. Punishment and rewards, and, conversely, the inability to obtain the reward, will cause resentment, rebellion, revenge or even retreat. These are some of the behaviors your daughter is already exhibiting.

It's important to encourage and empower your daughter to better behavior. This is a very different skill than punishing and rewarding for behavior. Encouragement and empowerment put the locus of control back on your daughter. Right now, you are asking her to do something she may not know how to do, or may be trying very hard to do and it's simply too much for her. Finding what motivates her and other strategies that will work in the classroom is very important to her success now and in the future.

As for the grounding, can you think back to time when you were possibly grounded or forbidden to go somewhere or do something. What were you thinking about when you were alone in your room? Who were you thinking about in your empty room, and what were you thinking about them? Were you thinking about what you had done "wrong" or how to change your behavior? Are these the thoughts you want your daughter to have?

I would also like to encourage you look for small improvements in her behavior. It sounds like the teacher is asking her to be perfect in all areas everyday, and that may be too much to ask right now. The old saying, "You can't eat an elephant in one bite" might apply here. Can she consistently get a 4 or 5 in one area for a week, maintain that and work towards improving that to a 6? This way she can focus on one thing at a time, and feel incremental success.

I would also like to discourage you from taking your daughters birthday party away from her or from keeping her in her room all evening. What she needs is to be in relationship with those who love her the most. She needs to know that she has the unconditional support and encouragement of her parents and that they believe in her and her ability to make improvements in school.

I appreciate that you are doing the best that you can for your daughter with the tools and support you have. There is evidence that you are doing many things right because of her behavior with her little brother.

If you are interested in learning more about how I work to help parents with the challenges with their children please check out my website and blog at www.acoach4parents.com or email me at ____@____.com

Wishing you joy in parenting,
M.

I have a 6 and a half year old girl too, and I am trained in cognitive psychology. I know you are frustrated with her right now, and I am sure that her behavior/effort is a part of this issue. However, I feel like your reaction is way out of proportion to the situation. Stripping her room? Not letting her play? That can only make things worse. She must be miserable. Kids NEED downtime = free imaginative play time. It actually helps their concentration!

If I were her mom, the first thing I would be doing is asking the school what THEY are doing to improve this?? You need ot be her advocate, not just the disciplinarian. The school should be moving the desks to foster a better working atmosphere, Further, they should be giving her concrete strategies for coming up with a work plan and break her work into managble pieces - a way to manage her work. Next, thery should be assessing whether she has any processing difficulties slowing her down. The school counseler shoul be all over her.

First grade is really hard for some kids, a big transition to traditional highly structured school classrooms. Not all kids are developmentally capable of the concentration they are being asked to have. And all the criticism and punishment is likely to make her HATE school which will help nothing. Home should be a safe haven where you help her work on the problems she is haivng, be it impulse control, concentration and attention, or academic proficiency. I think you are forcing her and yourself into a corner. At best she will get with the program but lose all intrinsic satisfaction with intellectual work because she feels defeated - and at worst it simply won't work and she will fall more and more behind.

Now, I am all about just "pay attention, listen, and do." I tell my daughter that all the time. Six year olds can be infuriating in that respect. But I I think your instict to blame and punish and take the teacher's word without any evidence (that you share anyway) that they are trying to help her is not helpful.

At a minimum, I would focus on telling her that you want to see she is trying and work on a plan with the school for assessing this. Seperate from that, the adults need to figure out a way to help her in the classroom instead of labeling her a bad kid.

As for the toy, thing... if you really think she is acting out of anger because she wants a toy desparately? First don't ge ther the toy, she clearly overvalues it. Seocnd, punishing you over something like that on a long term basis smacks of something more serious going on. A seven year old shouldn't hold that kind of grudge. She is putting way too much value into a material object at the expense of peace and calmness. Ther eis something really off with that.

I really do wish you luck. Six is hard, first grade is hard, and I feel really bad for her. What a sad way to start school.

take your daughter to see a psychologist. something is going on. remember - no child wants to fail or be in trouble. you need to get to the root cause. is she depressed? is she being bullied at school? does she have undiagnosed learning or attention issues?

this is one unhappy kid - help her figure out why.

I agree. Time for an evaluation. She has some red flags for ADHD and may not be acting out on purpose. She may actually have a harder time focusing, tuning out distractions, following directions and controlling her impulses. If this is the case, you won't be able to "punish" or "reward" the negative behavior out of her. Good luck!

I think you should speak to her pediatrician about your concerns. It sounds like she has some ADHD symptoms that you should have evaluated. I have a daughter that just turned 7 also. She has had some major attitude issues and swings between being nasty with us and being super sensitive. My ped told me this kind of behavior was normal for 7 year olds that are wanting to be big kids but still have some need to be babies. We struggle with attitude, but only at home. She sometimes gets distracted at school, but not any more than other kids in the class. What concerns me about what you wrote is it doesn't sound like she can control herself at school and no matter what she does she is going to fail. Please talk to her doctor. She can recommend how to proceed.

While I do believe that ADD is often over diagnosed nowadays, there are plenty of children who do have it. And, even if not ADD may just have difficulty in school. 7 years old, is that 2nd grade? That's when stuff really starts to get serious, and perhaps she is having a difficult time. You sound like an excellent parent when it comes to discipline, and follow-through, but perhaps you're missing the real issue here. Based on your description, this sounds less like a behavioral issue and more like a learning issue. Telling her it's easy is not very motivational, in fact, considering it is not easy for her, it could be very disheartening for her to hear that you think it's so easy. Telling her that only undermines her confidence and doesn't help either of you in the long run. Perhaps get her tested or start her in a program like Sylvan where they actually teach a child how to learn. I once had a step-son who was rightfully diagnosed as ADHD and sylvan helped him tremendously. When I was young, I didn't have ADD per se, but I did have a tough time tuning out all the classroom noise and just couldn't pay attention. My Mom put into a learning program that basically taught a child how to learn and study productively. From then on, I was an A & B student.

Obviously, the discipline course of action isn't working and it seems like she doesn't care, but really she's probably just given up thinking that this is just the way she is. No amount of taking things away will fix this because she has no idea how to fix the problem. She's probably very frustrated, but doesn't even know how to communicate her issues.

Good luck!
S.

Your daughter sounds like my son in 2nd grade. He was so worried about making sure that the other kids did their work that he didn't do HIS work. I was tempted to send him to school with horse blinders on!!

You are also right in that the way you are punishing her by taking things away and making her stay in her room all night has lost its effect. She's 7 and yet she's being expected to have the school behavior of a 12y old. What does she have to look forward to at home if she nows that all she can do is sit in her room and read? A few years down the road when someone asks her about her favorite childhood memory, what will she tell them?

We worked with the teacher to put 5 things into effect.
1. 7y don't have a concept of time. So instead of telling them that they had 15m to complete a paper, we got them to say, when the clock says '10:15, the big hand is on the 3' you need to be done.
2. Build a little 3 sided cardboard wall for the edge of the desk. Then when they are head down working on the paper and look up all they see is wall, not kids.
3. Its my son's job to get his work done first, then he can be the supervisor and make sure that the other kids are working, but he can't do that until his work is done.
4. Any work that isn't finished that day, and can be finished at home is sent home and finished that night, sent back the next day.
5. Having the teacher give directions with the important part first. My son loves to draw and is a very detailed artist. He is also very literally in following directions. When the teacher says to take 20m to draw a picture and then write 3 sentences about the picture, he'll spend 18m drawing the picture and then only get one sentence out before times up. So since the important part, the graded part is the sentences, the teacher now says, you have 20m to write 3 sentences and then draw a picture to support the sentences. 7 out of 10 times he's now able to finish those on time.

If you think that all of this is because she wants a toy, then make her earn it. Bribe her. For each day that she comes with a 5 or a 6 give her a quarter. For the days that she gets a one she has to give you back a quarter. Getting a 2-4 she doesn't get or give. Then when she's earned $6 take her to the store for her to buy it with her earned money.

Good luck
M.

I must say that this is the second question today that I have read and most of the responces are pointing to ADD or ADHD. With the fact that ONLY
3%-5% of children ACTUALLY have it, there is a good chance she doesn't. It's also sad that in my particular school district that I was told by the mayor that about 75% of children going to school there are MEDICATED for ADD.
And also knowing that almost ALL of the children involved in school shootings were medicated, I would say look at ADD or ADHD very LAST. I said this on the other question. I babysit other children and one particular boy has been 'diagnosed' with ADD. I have heard all about how he acts at school and at home, however at my home he doesn't act that way. He knows the rules in my home, he knows that I follow thru with consequences, and we go over the situation, if there is one, and go over what he should do differently next time. Also, one summer I watched him his parents took him off the medication for the summer and he was full of life and fun to be around. The next summer they kept him medicated, he was more like a zombie and would rather watch my WALLS that play with my kids. I also had more problems with him acting out while on medication than before.
I would STRONGLY suggest get a book TO TRAIN UP A CHILD by Michael Pearle. What it showed me was that you cannot punish a child, no matter the kind of punishment, to act the way you want them to. You have to TRAIN them, teach them, go over the situations and role play and show her how she should handle the situations. Think of your punishments like this. Being a new employee and being put infront of the computer with no training at all, and everytime you hit a wrong key, being written up. Are you understanding. One of the best statements I read in this book is "Train the actions, dicipline the attitude". If she is having a bad attitude, you need to get that out of her NOW. If not, it will get worse, much worse. I know of a little girl who is 4 1/2. She throws bigger fits than I have seen any other child do. She never asks for anything, She wines and says she wants it, she constantly takes toys out of other childrens hands, She threw such a big fit over a toy that my daughter had that they drove an hour just to find that toy so she would stop fussing. I have watched her continuiously get worse over time because her parents and grandparents just believe that it is a kid thing and that she will grow out of it, she hasn't. However, again, when she is at my house, she listens to me and is one of the biggest helpers when it's time to clean up. You must get this book!!!!!
Also, if it is a possiblity, I would pull her out of school and homeschool. I do, and even my mother has noticed how the other children I babysit is in dyer need of attention. I had an almost teenager get jelous over my own children because she needed attention that she doesn't get spending only 30 mins to an hour with her parents in a day. That is all the time they have with each other after school, homework, taking showers, chores ect. That is all the time they have in 1 day to spend with each other.
Sorry so long, hope it helps.

Updated

I must say that this is the second question today that I have read and most of the responces are pointing to ADD or ADHD. With the fact that ONLY
3%-5% of children ACTUALLY have it, there is a good chance she doesn't. It's also sad that in my particular school district that I was told by the mayor that about 75% of children going to school there are MEDICATED for ADD.
And also knowing that almost ALL of the children involved in school shootings were medicated, I would say look at ADD or ADHD very LAST. I said this on the other question. I babysit other children and one particular boy has been 'diagnosed' with ADD. I have heard all about how he acts at school and at home, however at my home he doesn't act that way. He knows the rules in my home, he knows that I follow thru with consequences, and we go over the situation, if there is one, and go over what he should do differently next time. Also, one summer I watched him his parents took him off the medication for the summer and he was full of life and fun to be around. The next summer they kept him medicated, he was more like a zombie and would rather watch my WALLS that play with my kids. I also had more problems with him acting out while on medication than before.
I would STRONGLY suggest get a book TO TRAIN UP A CHILD by Michael Pearle. What it showed me was that you cannot punish a child, no matter the kind of punishment, to act the way you want them to. You have to TRAIN them, teach them, go over the situations and role play and show her how she should handle the situations. Think of your punishments like this. Being a new employee and being put infront of the computer with no training at all, and everytime you hit a wrong key, being written up. Are you understanding. One of the best statements I read in this book is "Train the actions, dicipline the attitude". If she is having a bad attitude, you need to get that out of her NOW. If not, it will get worse, much worse. I know of a little girl who is 4 1/2. She throws bigger fits than I have seen any other child do. She never asks for anything, She wines and says she wants it, she constantly takes toys out of other childrens hands, She threw such a big fit over a toy that my daughter had that they drove an hour just to find that toy so she would stop fussing. I have watched her continuiously get worse over time because her parents and grandparents just believe that it is a kid thing and that she will grow out of it, she hasn't. However, again, when she is at my house, she listens to me and is one of the biggest helpers when it's time to clean up. You must get this book!!!!!
Also, if it is a possiblity, I would pull her out of school and homeschool. I do, and even my mother has noticed how the other children I babysit is in dyer need of attention. I had an almost teenager get jelous over my own children because she needed attention that she doesn't get spending only 30 mins to an hour with her parents in a day. That is all the time they have with each other after school, homework, taking showers, chores ect. That is all the time they have in 1 day to spend with each other.
Sorry so long, hope it helps.

I have a son with attention issues as well. I just want to echo what some other parents have said -- get her evaluated. Don't assume she's doing this on purpose. It very well could be signs of emotional issues, or she may very well have a learning disability and she is struggling with it, not even knowing that she has it. If you suspect a learning disability, I would encourage you to read The Mislabeled Child. It's an excellent book that goes through all possible issues and lists out the symptoms as well as what can be done.

I have a son with ADHD and urge you to have your daughter evaluated. It very well could be ADHD-inattentive type. The inability to focus could be entirely out of her control. No amount of rewards or guidance will make a difference if she has this condition, but medical help can make a world of difference.

I agree with the Mamas who are suggesting evaluation. Your daughter sounds a lot like mine. She was tested for everything under the sun and it was finally determined that she's Highly Gifted. BTW, I did a lot of the same things, stripping her room, reward systems, etc. I know it sounds awful to others, but I understand how desperate a situation like this can make you feel. "Parenting With Love and Logic" has helped some. That and knowing that my kid is HG and they just come with certain behaviors. Good luck!

Maybe she has a learning disorder or she's trying to get attention. Maybe you should try therapy with you, your husband, and her or you and her. Maybe there is something bad going on that has caused her to regress... she sounds like she's depressed about something (not caring about anything). I'd try and create an unconditional talking time with you and her where she won't get punished for anything she wants to tell you. Try and show her some extra love and have mother daughter time and see if she'll open up to you after a little while... something just doesn't sound right. It's either a learning thing or something bad.

I would look into having her tested or at least talk to the school counselor. Being easily distracted and struggling with the work may be ADD or a learning disorder or just immaturity--hard to know if it's not investigated. She may be bright and capable in some areas but have some areas where she is lagging a little. I was like that in early elementary school--reading didn't come easy to me and I was often last to finish my assignments but then something clicked around 3rd or 4th grade and I was put in the gifted program and was one of the best readers in the class by 5th grade.

Even if the school evaluation doesn't find anything consider family counseling so you can find a less punitive way to handle things. It seems like you are punishing her and she has give up trying because she doesn't not think there is any way she can succeed. I have seen this with other families when I was working as a family counselor. But as a parent with a 4.5 year old who is a real handful I can empathize with being angry and frustrated with your child. I find myself totally out of patience and angry sometimes--which is not a good frame of mind for thinking clearly and making decisions. Anyway, I think you need an approach where she can succeed at least a little and counseling might be a good place to vent your feelings.

Also, about her birthday. What about just postponing the party? You could do it a month later or do a half birthday in the summer. Both my birthday and my daughter's are between Christmas and New Years and it is just too much at the same time of year. We sometimes have a combined party in early January (right in time for my husband's birthday too).

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Have you considered a learning disability? They crop up around that age, because in K and 1st grade, the work is not dependent on reading, but when you hit 2nd and 3rd grade, they are expected to comprehend and read directions, etc. My daughter was having problems with her eyes. We got her glasses, but things were still not right, so we discovered (at our own cost, insurance did not cover) that she needed vision therapy. Now she LOVES reading where before it was always a fight to get her to read. Her eyes can transition from reading the whiteboard to writing on her paper easily now, whereas before, she could not write down the assigments on the board because her eyes did not transition from far to near easily.

Kids don't know why they have problems, they just know that they are always getting into trouble but they can't help it (even if they try). It may be that she has a problem that she can't fix on her own. It is worth a try. I'm surprised the teacher did not suggest that she be tested for a learning disability. Good luck.