If You Don’t Have Anything Nice To Say...

My daughter doesn’t like me.   I can’t figure it out.   Coincidentally my daughter and I had gone to see her play therapist, Dhruti, who asked me to come back for a few minutes before she started the session with my daughter.   She said, “because she’s going to push back on you more than anyone else,” which I didn’t expect her to say, because I hadn’t talked to her about my recent challenges with my daughter, but somehow she knew.

My daughter tells me I’m rude, I’m mean and other negative phrases when I’m asking her to do things she needs to do.  Now granted, she doesn’t want to brush her teeth, get her pajamas on, brush her hair or do drops, but I’m only one parent who asks her to do these things.   My husband has a different approach than I do, but he also loses his patience with her when she ignores his requests, refuses to respond to him when he asks her things and avoids requests to do things or doesn’t stop when requested.  

So I don’t know.   I don’t understand.   This morning she pushed back on just about everything she could with the morning routine.  She was playing dumb, dawdling and acting like she had no idea it was time to do drops, or that we were running out of time.   When I lost my temper at her she said, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

I told her I thought that was an excellent family rule and we should all adopt it.   We could add it to our family rules when you get home this afternoon and tell your brother when he’s back from visiting with Nana and Papa.   She didn’t like that.   She didn’t want the rule to apply to her, only to me.

This afternoon she got home and insulted me fairly straight off because I told her I was ready to do drops when she was.   She wanted to go to play with friends and asked if she could.   When I told her she could absolutely, that all we needed to do was a pink drop in her left eye first.   She didn’t have to do her homework until later if she wanted to play with friends.   I was told I was “so mean” in response.  

I waited until she was ready, thinking letting her do things on her own timeframe when we weren’t on a time crunch might make things easier for her since she was in control of things more.   But it seemed to do nothing for her mood or her feelings towards me.  

Is it how I approach her?  Is it my tone of voice?  Are we too similar in personality?   I really don’t know, but I need to figure it out because we’re butting heads all the time and it’s not making either of us happy.  

The Big Boy Update:  I’ve gotten my son’s paperwork, including allergy plan, ready to turn into school for the beginning of the school year.   With the addition of his fish allergies I’ve had to get additional information from his pediatrician for the school.   He’s old enough to not eat anything he’s allergic to, and fortunately his reaction isn’t that bad.   But we need to have it documented for the school just in case.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has to read fifteen minutes every day.   She’s been reading some books from the state library for the blind that are fully contracted.   It’s been challenging for her and she’s getting a little frustrated, but she knows enough contractions she can guess a lot of the words.   She’s going to be able to read fully contracted braille by the end of the year I suspect and then she’ll be able to read anything.