"Real life"?

[fairejour]

Recap: So, my daughter is 7 and deaf and she has a severe language delay. We are working our butts off to get her to understand and use spoken language. She struggles and has therapy 3 nights a week as well as intensive work at school. She also has about an hour of homework every night, including reading. So, in short, she is always being told where to go and what to do.

So, when she is at home she tends to get a little bossy. We want her to know that we love her and want her to have a healthy self worth, and we want to always be her "soft place to fall". We also want her to use the language she is learning.

BUT, when do we draw the line? Not everyone in the real world is willing to play with you by always doing exactly what you want! So, what do we do?? We want to encourage her, but we don't want to baby her or treat her differently. Honestly, her life is tough and she is a real trooper about it and we want her to have a place where she can do whatever she wants.

[sapphire_chan]

Since bossiness is a normal 7 year old thing, maybe ask about it in Childhood years and/or Gentle Discipline and then adjust the advice based on your own experiences with your dd?

For instance, I know that many kids benefit from having some time set aside for them to be to the total boss (barring dangerous/impossible things). It's described in Cohen's "Playful Parenting".

For the language development aspect, how does it go if you reflect back what she's said, explain why it doesn't work, and suggest an alternative? Does she just reiterate her request as though she thinks you just don't get it or does she start negotiating? E.g. "I want icecream" goes to "Icecream, PLEASE." vs "Can I have a really small bowl of icecream?"

ETA: Oh, and it's also totally normal for kids at that age to be extra bossy with the safe adults in their lives. It's a good way to start playing with adult power without taking on the risks of adult responsibility. If you watch her with other kids, you'll probably see more give and take in the power roles. "Mom! They won't play the way I want to!" is a common part of kids playing and a good response is to just ask if your child wants help figuring out what to say to the kids. (e.g. "let's do a pirate ship, but let's be MONKEY pirates.)

EATA: Er, so long story short, you aren't going to mess her up by letting her be the Boss of the House for a time each evening. Personally, I'd feel more comfortable having a set time and actually letting her choose a big fancy title. And then the rest of the time just going along with things as seems reasonable. Kids who have all the power all the time can end up feeling overwhelmed and start pushing boundaries to find out where the walls are.

Heh, sorry, seriously read "Playful Parenting".

[Emmeline II]

I have perfect hearing and I was pretty bossy at that age! Though ds does go to CBT to work on his social skills.

[~cassie]

I have a problem with this as well and Aidan is only 3. He is very strong willed and he has massive fits if he doesn't get his way or things don't go according to "his plan". For example-the other day he was so upset b/c he didn't get to get the shopping cart, so I let him go get a 2nd one, instead of enforcing the fact that it was ds1's turn to get the cart. He does the same with a lot of other things and is very bossy about how things should go. The thing I have noticed--he only does it with me/dh. I learned today that he doesn't do it at school/other kids, so maybe your dd doesn't/won't transfer it over. Of course they can't always get their way, but before I was spending way too much energy in fighting him. Instead I give choices, try to let him know any rules before we do whatever it is, if something he wants to do isn't really a big deal--like getting a shopping cart-then no harm no foul.