what's up with 8 year old girls?

[meemee]

Can you help me figure out what goes on with 8 year old girls.

dd has been very very moody - hormonal lately. continuously for days. 

she has been thru prepuberty. meaning body odor and extreme behaviour at 6, breast buds a few months ago and now i am afraid that maybe she might be getting ready to start her periods? i started at 10 so it wouldnt surprise me if she started now. i am soo NOT ready for her to start it though. hopeing we have a few more years. 

however she is SO not ready to emotionally do it. and put with all that having periods entail.

but i am wondering is going thru moodiness a part of this age?

NOTHING is going her way. she is totally frustrated. i dont understand what she says, she accuses me off. she is either sad, or angry or hyper happy - so much so that she sometimes loooses it in her excitement. its either one extreme or another. or she is just like an adult. buried in a book and not really wanting to do anything or be anywhere. just be home and read. 

what is going on? is this typical of an 8 year old? or 'within normal range' of 8 year olds. 

i havent laid my hands on Louis Aimes YOur 8 Year Old so not sure what to expect. 

[Tigerchild]

Maybe she's gearing up for more fun puberty things but...

Most of the 8/9 year old boys that I know seem to be moody too.  I don't know if your DD goes to school or not, but if she is in 3rd or 4th grade this year, this is the time when many kids who are used to everything coming easily to them start to run up against needing to do their own time management for the first time, dealing with an increasingly complex social structure (it's not that anything mean has to happen, though it frequently does, but even just internal stuff, lots of thinking, lots of relating to friends...), finding that they may not even have the physical coordination stuff (athletics, arts, even just tumbling around on the playground) down like they used to because of their body changes and growth--it's very frustrating.

Add to that MAYBE her body is gearing up for menstruation (I'm sure it's probably awhile of gearing up before it happens, too, so just because it's gearing up doesn't mean that she's going to start soon, KWIM?), I can understand why a lot of kids (and girls) that age might be a little moody/snarly/wanting solitude one minute, and all over you the next.

[Tamsin]

It is totally normal in my experience. I have a just turned 9 year old, and between her and her friends 7 and 8 has been such an emotional time.

I started giving my daughter Rescue Remedy to help calm her emotions, even if it was just mind over matter. Someone I know mentioned to me to actually mark it on a calender when her moody and emotional days were as she claimed that I would likely notice a monthly pattern.

I also believe sleep is still a major factor at this age, and notice that my daughter will start to melt down when she is tired, or has had a few days of late nights.

[velochic]

My dd is 8 and isn't showing any signs of puberty, but she does have her moods.  Nothing extreme like you are talking about, but she gets quiet at times when she's usually very up-beat.  It still works to just sit down and talk with her.  Sometimes about nothing, which leads to why she might be upset.  It's always something that has happened at school.  Once the words start, she is eager to tell what has happened.  I know that soon she will not want to talk about anything, so I try to keep the communication lines open and we work to establish a mutually respectable relationship.  Talking a lot.  That seems to be the key for us, although, as I said, we don't have the moodiness you describe.  I'm sure it will come, though!!

Best of luck!

[meemee]

aaaaaaah tigerchild what you say makes total sense. yeah dd is in 3rd grade. yeah i saw this same thing in K at 5 when she first realised the world does not revolve around her. 

its an emotional growth spurt. lots of moodiness and sadness and then in time she is back to her own self. 

velochic thankfully dd and i talk a lot or rather v. little. we still cosleep which i think is HUGELY helpful to dd. lately though i can tell she has not really wanted to talk to me. we still talk but i can see she wants to talk to others - and thankfully i have a couple of friends who dd talks to and who would come and tell me something if they thought i should know about it. 

right now she is unable to share what's going on. so we do a lot of silences together and sometimes, sometimes she might let me in as to what is creating her emotion. 

aah this gives me a lot of peace. there is nothing deeper than usual happening. 

on friday she was sooo unusual that even one of my friends noticed. dd didnt want to talk or know what was going on. after we got home from school and my roommate got home, dd went grocery shopping with him and got a couple of treats and she came back a different child - that little trip got her out of her funk she had been in for the last few days. fascinating. 

[One_Girl]

My dd was like this a few weeks ago then she came down with mono.  I think she just wasn't feeling that well for a while before the symptoms hit her.  She is also sometimes moody and it seems like puberty is taking its toll but then she will swing out of that and be her normal self.  I find that a lot of the moodiness is affected by me though and that has always been the case.  When I am in a grumpy state it rubs off on her and we both work each other up.  When I make myself act as though I am not feeling as irritated by things as I am feeling she comes around.  Getting her out of the house and away from me for a little while also helps sometimes because we both get a breather and some perspecitive, and I am able to go with the flow and not let her emotions affect me once I get that time to be alone and think (I empathize but I don't get sucked in to her grumpy spiral).  I think that sometimes we all need a break from the people we live with no matter how much we love them or where we are in our development.  I think it is good that you still co-sleep so you can keep the communication flowing at night.  My dd and I don't co-sleep any more, but we do have that night time snuggle after we read and we talk and reconnect then.  I think a peaceful bedtime routine really helps because once she listens to a few stories she is always ready to have a nice talk no matter how our day went.

[velochic]

I wanted to ask this before, but didn't quite know how to word it (and may still not state it very well).  I don't mean it offensively at all, so I hope it is a valid question to ask.

Could there be some emotional confusion because she's still breastfeeding?  I don't know anything about breastfeeding an 8 year old, in spite of being a LLL for many years, but it seems that it could be causing some questions for her, when she, herself, is in the process of becoming a woman.   She is learning more about the process of growing to womanhood (and that her body will be capable of lactating once she has started her monthly cycles) and  she's feeling new things.  It could be confusing sorting it all out.  But like I said, my dd shows not a single sign of puberty and has been self-weaned since she was about 4 years old. You know your dd best.  It was just something I was thinking about.

[meemee]

awwww velochic no i dont take offence at your question at all. its a learning curve for all of us.

she breastfeeds soooo rarely - like once a month or once in two months for like 5 seconds - that i think its all about knowing she has that choice if she needs it. she knows bfeeding at 8 is not the norm, more aware of it now. i think its a test to check and see if i am still ok with it even if society says otherwise. its also a clue for me to know when she is at her absolute lowest. 

so kinda in a sense i dont feel like she is nursing - ya know what i mean? but everytime i think we are done she asks for it. 

she feels she doesnt fit in - in the world. she has felt like that since she was 3 and it IS true. she makes herself fit in. and being in school with her age mates when she is maturity wise older than them (always been that way) i think takes a toll on her - which is why i feel bf and cosleeping really, really helps her out. its her 'play therapy'. 

so to answer your question - i am not sure. i mean she really gets and understands 'sex'. she may not have the urges herself (at least to my knowledge) but she has the 'adult comprehension' of what it is and that its something grown ups do. she has never tried to experiment about it or even been curious what it feels like by asking me questions. but she knows its something that happens between boyfriends and girlfriends. 

but this is definitely another 'maturing' stage. after reading tiger's comments i recalled she was kinda like this at age 5 when she hit her first pre puberty stage. she was either too hyper - sad or happy or just mellow and relaxed like an adult just being and not wanting any interaction. she just was not her normal self and she was sooooooo frustrated. i recall before any growth spurt she goes thru a really 'bad/hard' phase and then 'changes' in a way that is so subtle that i cant really describe it. at 5 the biggest change i saw was her reaction to 'no'. no more frustration and tantrums but more like ok or another option. i have always explained why i say no. so then she understood why i would say no and actually made the decision herself. she would actually think it out aloud.

that is why i think this is what is happening now. and this time around i am dealing really badly with it, because she is reacting without thinking in public and it is bad manners which i know she didnt mean but i get really defensive and put her down badly. and again as she has told me its not what i say, but how i say it. so i am having to work on this myself.  

oh and one more thing. she gets her physical growth spurt in summer and emotional growth spurt in winter - kinda after school starts and she is back to the usual life again. i just noticed the coincidence on time. 

[mum5]

meemee,think I remember you from my 8 year old post a week ago!

 I am right there with you on everything.

My 8 year old seems to suddenly be getting much worse, not better.

Dh kind of talked to her in a loud tone, not angry, just louder than normal, and she just started crying. He was kind of stumped for a moment, then realised, oh, so this is what my dear wifey has been talking about :)

Also, school has suddenly become no fun for her, at all. We are in the middle of a very snowy cold winter here, so no outdoor play at school, makes an energetic 8 year old very grumpy.

we are looking into joining the YMCA with a family swim time, so that she can get some of that tension and energy out.