what do I do with this child?! support needed.

[mystic~mama]

I am feeling helpless with my 8 (in two weeks) year old...

She is grounded to her room right now because she will not stop being a very rude little person. She has called me poo poo head more times already today than I can count.

She talks back, threatens to throw things at me, throws things at me, says she hates me, mocks me, hits and is completely disrespectful some days

and other days she is a very sweet considerate child, which she was yesterday

and now today so far it has been her and I here and she earned time out for behavior that is crossing the line of kindness and respect and she went to her room and played for an hour to avoid it and now she will not sit there and do it, she keeps getting up and saying rude things and trying to hit me...

so now, she is in her room and I am considering keeping her easter basket until she behaves....

I really hope I can get some open advice here and not criticism, for a long time I did not do time outs, I did not want to yet, different children need different things and I'm feeling like this is b.s right now that i am just not going to put up with.

I try the best I can to be the best parent I can and she doesn't have a perfect life but she has it very good in many ways and I am not okay with being disrespected and treated like crap by her...it feels like she takes control of the situation by refusing to cooperate with me

like, after I told her to stay in her room because i see no other alternative, she is in that mode of being rude No Matter What. No matter what attention I give her ect... she will find something to be P.O'd about....

I'm on my way back downstairs and she is standing there on the landing holding something and pretending to throw it at me (she has thrown things in the past) and she knows I am scared when she does this.....she picked up my fear and is exploiting it.

I feel like taking everything from her except her bed and light and let her earn every single thing back.

She does not have a relationship w/her bio dad. I have a partner who she loves but they have difficulties sometimes, she tries to cause fights between us....I can see her doing that. I am working through a lot of healing right now personally and I am doing the best I can.

What the heck do I do?

I am seriously at a loss and I do not feel like I should tolerate this disrespect from her.

thanks for reading

and I do hope I can get support and not flamed for my parenting choices.

m~m

[34me]

I have taken everything out of a child's room. That particular child liked being clutter free so much that the behavior got better and a couple years later many of her things are still in the garage (her choice). I have another that charts worked for and another that running laps when he was getting snarly helped (he didn't think of it as punishment). I'm sorry she is really testing you right now. It would be so nice if they came with directions.

[Encinalien]

I've seen it said several times here that "time outs" because mamma needs a break from the behaviour is different than punishing. *Some mothers here use time-outs, some do not.
I consider it along the lines of natural consequence. *If you're going to act like that no one's going to want to be around you. *So you go to your room or I'm going to my room but I'm not going to sit here and be treated like that.
As another suggestion can your daughter write? *(some can and some can't at that age.). If she can write you can tell her, honey, I see you have a dark side too. *You can either use it to write stories with mean people in it, and maybe sell them and become rich and famous someday like That guy that wrote the Grinch. *Or you can use it to try to be cruel to DH and me and ruin everybody's day, yours and mine included.
She's a little old for sticker charts, but everyone needs to be babies sometimes. Maybe six gold stickers a week earns a trip to baskin robbins. *(mines only 2 and we're doing the m&m PL right now, I'm impressed with the bribery at this time).

[mama2annabelle]

I'm sorry you're going through this with her. I can totally relate as we've had some major issues with our 7 year old daughter. We have found that, for her, there is not any type of discipline or consequence that *works* to quell this behavior in the moment. What we have had sucess with is dietary and supplemental changes and chiropractic treatment. We found that she is very sensitive to certain foods which greatly affects her behavior. We are on the Feingold diet as a family and have seen great improvement.

[missythemom3]

I feel for you.I have no advice because I have a seven and a half year old daughter who has issues controlling her emotions as well and I have yet to find a way to help her with it. Just wanted to let you know you are not alone.Good luck.

[claddaghmom]

Have you tried some form of exercise? When my two brothers, 7 and 12, get crazy in the house and with each other, I send them outside to run laps.

[mamaduck]

Is there any pattern regarding the types of things that trigger her?

What does an average day look like for her?

[rainyday]

What about sleep? How is her sleep? I know that for many kids, including my ds, lack of sleep brings out the nasty, unpleasant side. Sometimes the effects of a lack of sleep are delayed for a day or two with my ds, and sometimes it takes a couple of nights of more sleep for his behavior to improve, but the sleep makes a huge difference for him. I find that my almost 8yo son still needs about 11.5 hours of sleep, which is more than I would have expected for someone his age.

I don't know if that's an issue for your dd, but I thought I'd throw it out there!