Help! My 8 Year Old Thinks Shes 18!!!

Time out it works great especially with older children. Find a place (not her room either) that is quiet chair rug etc. and have her sit there for 8 minutes you get the time by age. Reinforce it anytime she does something you have told her not to it time out for her.

Well lets see I really do not know about your rules of discipline but as the old saying goes "spare the rod spoil the child. I also have an eight year old daughter so I know what you are feeling right now. My advice to you if you don't want to go that route is to try to see what is causing this behavior. Maybe she is trying to get more attention. Negative or positive attention it doesn't matter any attention is better than no attention at all to them. Try spending more time with your daughter without the three year old and see what happens. Do not let her run your household. Put your foot down. Try to ignore her outbursts and sassy behavior. Also reward her only when she does good. And talk to her and ask her why she behaves the way she does. You might be surprised after a while you'll probably get a truthful answer that makes sense. You may find out she is competing for attention...Hey it's worth a try. Please write me back and tell me how it goes.
Remember you are not alone. I will keep your sanity in my prayers:-)

Girl I hear you!!!! I too have an 8 year old daughter who thinks she is awfully grown. Besides taking away her things and grounding her try letting her do some of the grown up things you do on a daily basis like cleaning, washing clothes and dishes. Try that for a while and see how grown she wants to be. When she wants to play tell her no there are things that to be done around the house first before you can play. I have done some of these things with my own daughter and I find that she doesn't really like doing them and it calms her down from "being so grown". You may have to try this a couple of times but it doesn't hurt to.

I think this might be a stage but all i can say is have her do everything for her self.Like her laundry,get her own food, do dishes, get her self up for school of course you will be up. Just give her grown up things to do like you do on a daily bases.I think eventually she will see its too much. She will want to go back to being a kid.

I HAVE 2 GIRLS,ONE ACTUALLY GREW UP AND IS 20 THE OTHER IS 4,BOTH WERE LIKE THAT AND SOMETIMES STILL ARE,AND AT TIMES TRY TO TELL ME HOW THINGS ARE GOING TO BE(THE LITTLE ONE)AT TIMES I IGNORE HER AND OTHER TIMES IT HITS ALL MY BUTTONS AND TEMPER,BUT I ALSO REMIND HER THAT SHES 4 AND IM 43 AND SHE GETS TO BE BOSS WHEN SHE MOVES OUT ON HER OWN,AND WHATS EVEN FUNNIER IS WHEN THE 2 GIRLS ARE TOGETHER AND THE YOUNGEST BOSSES THE OLDEST AND THEY BICKER,THEY ARE VERY CLOSE,BUT THE GIRLS ALWAYS SEEM TO BE THE BOSSY ONES LIKE THEY ARE TRYING TO BE LIKE MOM,YOU CAN REMIND HER THAT HER BUSSINESS IS WHAT SHE NEEDS TO WORRY ABOUT AND NOT EVERYBODY ELSES,THATS YOUR JOB.

My daughter is 10 going to be 11 & we went through the same thing. But like someone said....its hormones. It starts a few yrs earlier then they start their period. My daugher is not "afraid" of me but she knows that u do not talk to me like that. U have respect for me. If u want me to respect u, u respect me. I agree have her do chores & have responsiblities & when its time to play say oh no honey we have things to get done around here. U want to act like a big girl u can work like a big girl. Involve her in things u do though too. like making dinner even if she stirs the meat. i think part of it too is she needs attention. but i also understand that when u do give them all your attention they want it 24/7 after that. Sometimes it use to feel like if i spent 2 hrs devoted to her when i would get up to clean up she would get mad. What i have been doing lately is on the weekends after my youngest goes to sleep i will go in my oldest rm & lay w/ her in her bed & watch tv, talk & then we would fall asleep. sometimes even that helps. i hope this helps out a little bit. let us know how everything goes. good luck.

S. I am a single mom also. I have a 7 year old. I believe because we are single moms our children have to be more independent then childern who have both parents in the household. Try to make your daughter feel like she is part of a team along with you. Give her some grown up responsibilites and tell her that you are counting on her. Since she is acting grown anyway go with that.
Discipline has to start early. I assume that you don't believe in spankings. That may also work for some of your problems.

HI S..
I have a son, now 11, that was the same way at your daughters age. I tried everything you have and nothing was working. One day I decided he was going to write sentences for his wrong doings. The first week he wrote sentences probably 10 times! But as time went on it got less and less. He did have to write some the other day for not running the dishwasher (I have had to hand wash dishes 3 mornings in the past 2 weeks and wouldn't had to if he'd ran it after dinner the night before like he's suppose to). That was the first time in months. I found it really works. When he starts getting sassy and not listening I just mention having to write them and he cleans up his act. I usually didn't set a number when he was 7 and 8 just an amount of time that I kept secret. At that age they write slow and I didn't want him to be overwelmed. Usually about 20 minutes depending on the offence. The other day he had to write "My mom gets very upset when I forget to run the dishwasher". Having him write sentences has been really effective and it helped with his penminship too. Good Luck! Rachelle

My suggestions is to write out a list of rules and consquenses. Post it. Everytime she breaks a rule - she will know the consequence. Most times we punish when we are angry and then we do not follow thru with the punishment because we made it unrealistic. Do things like:

Hitting - no TV for 2 days
Not doing chores - no computer the next day
Disrepectful behavior - no friends over

You need to figure out what punishment she hates the most and save that for the worse offenses. We have gone thru counseling recently with our 15 year old and this is what we were advise to do. It has had a good impact. Before our groundings were hit or miss. We did not follow thru on them. After my son ended up grounded for 3 weeks for 2 seperate offenses - he realized that we were going to begin following the punishments set up on the rule list.

Hormones or not - bad behavior should not be tolerated!
Good luck!

It's hormones. My daughter started her period at 9 years old and for at least 2 years before that, she was the most sassiest, meanest, and terroristic child ever. I didn't know at the time what was wrong but girls going through hormonal changes early in life don't know how to handle it. They are extremely irritated all the time, angry for no apparent reason and hates everyone they see. Take her to the doctor and ask questions about that. Talk to her about how she feels when she is being mean and terroristic. Let her know that some of those feelings are normal and at 8 years old, she is old enough to know about periods, to a point. But at the same time, keep up the discipline and don't give up, it will eventually pay off. My oldest daughter is now 12 and she has a handle on her moods and feelings now and knows that it must be that time when she starts feeling that way. Just don't give up, being a mother is so stressful. Just remember one thing, eventually your kids will have kids and you get to spoil their kids and send them home to be dealt with.
NOTE: Tell your daughter that one day she will have her own kids and the ways she acts reflects on how hers will be. Every thing she gives (good or bad) will be put upon her 10 worst or 10 times better.

Hi S., My grandson is like that with his mom. He would never think of sassing me or papa. My daughter became so frustrated she said nana and papa made him that way. I said wait a minute. We give him respsonsiblity and he owns up to his mistakes and takes his punishment like a man.

I told her to Give him responsibility not all chores. My grandson answers the phone for us and takes messages. This makes him feel important. We feed the birds together and lots of times we clean house together. We also go to movies and parks, theme parks, vacations together. He will load the car, pay for dinner with our money of course.

I guess what I am trying to say is instead of telling the child how wrong and bad he is we Nana and Papa praise him for good things and talk out the other habits or things that are not so good. Yes we have more time than most grandparents but this little guy will be taking care of us one day he needs to learn to be patient and compassionate.

NOw Mommy, daddy and son are on the road to fun times and son does not like to be sent to his room or asked to explain himself but he will. When he is talked to in a civil tongue and not belittled. Good lUck B.