My Rude Daughter!

How old is your sister? Did she do or say anythng to which your daughter was responding? There is always two sides to the story. I agree that your daughter should not have slapped your sister. Also that she shouldn't have asked your sister if she's pregnant. Remember, however, that at 8 she may not have realized this was a rude question and was just asking a legitimate question. If she asked it because she wanted to irritate your sister then she was wrong there too.

I suggest that sitting for the rest of the evening is sufficient discipline. The next step is to work on understanding why your daughter is acting this way. I suggest reading the book, How to Talk so your Child will Listen and How to Listen so she Will Talk. You need to open a dialogue with your daughter so that you can focus on teaching her instead of punishing her.

Once your daughter understands that she was wrong she needs to apologize to your sister. You can not make her understand. You have to be an sympathetic listener and find out the entire story from your daughter's viewpoint. I know that is not always easy to do, especially when this happens in a family get together with emotions running high.

Listening does not mean that you agree with what she said. It means hearing how she feels behind what she says and helping her learn how to deal with the feelings in an appropriate way. It means asking her questions that lead to an appropriate answer which in this situation is what would be a better way for her to have acted.

Perhaps your daughter needs more time spent with you doing fun things during which the two of you can talk about what is going on in her life, how she feels about things, and what are appropriate ways of behaving. Perhaps do some out right teaching in a respectful way. Talk about how she might feel if she was a fat girl and someone asked her if she's pregnant. If your sister is young and your daughter feels put down by her talk about what your daughter can do without being rude. Talk about life in general and how to treat other people.

Most important is to build up your daughter's self-esteem. Spend time with her letting her know that you love her and love spending time with her. Praise her every chance you get. My daughter told me that she felt that I didn't praise her enough and she wasn't always sure that I approved of her as being herself.

If being at a family get together is difficult for your daughter,find out why and together brain storm ways that you and she can make it easier. I'm thinking that their is possibly tension with in the family because your sister wanted to leave without telling you about the incident. Not talking about this sort of thing creates tensions within a family. We all need to feel comfortable knowing that we know what is going on within the group. We all need to work out our relationships with each other within the group. An 11 year old child should be be the cause of another member of the group leaving especially if the other member is an adult. If your sister is a teen, then I feel even strongly that there is more to the story.

I grew up in a close family. If such an incident had happened, the aunt would have told the mother who would have quietly taken the 11yo into another room and dealt with it. When the mother and child came out the child would have apologized to the aunt even if she still felt that she had been right to ask the question and slap the aunt. Everyone would have then let the matter drop and continued to be gracious to the child. The child would be allowed to sulk but not in the presence of everyone else. Eventually, the child would have cooled off, regained her composure and rejoined the family. Even in the presence of anger, we would be family and would show love for each other.

Is it possible that this incident is a symptom of something much deeper going on between your sister and your daughter or with other members of the family? I may be hearing wrong but it sounds possible that your daughter is the scape goat. She was definitely wrong. She should always keep her hands to herself. Why did your sister want to leave without talking with you?

I'm not finding the right words to express myself. Although I do think that your daughter needs to be disciplined, I also think that someone needs to listen to her with a sympathetic ear.

After writing this post I went back to look at your other posts. Your daughter is angry and has every right to be angry. She needs help in the form of counseling. Having been molested and then having to go thru three years of court involvement would make anyone unable to function well. Please cut her some slack. She is being rude and not keeping her hands to herself because she is feeling a great deal of pain that is coming out in anger. Sympathize with her as well as provide guidance with appropriate consequences for misbehavior! Please try to understand how she feels! Please get her into counseling! The District Attorney or the police officers who worked on this case can tell you how to get her some help.

Make her right a letter of apology to her aunt and give it to her. She also has to say she is sorry to her aunt while she is giving her the letter. Explain to your daughter before hand that when you do something that is wrong, you are always going to have to do the work to make things right again and, this time, that means telling her aunt that she is sorry.

Also, restriction would definitely be in order. A 24-hour TV restriction or any other kind of restriction from any activity or toy that she loves most in this world and can't stand being without for that long.

Of course you know that you need to get to the bottom of your daughter's tendency for becoming rough or even violent with other people or kids. To me, it doesn't matter whether or not your daughter slapped your sister that hard. The fact is that she slapped her and your 8-year old daughter, taking the attitude that it is okay to hit adults, regardless of whether it is hard or not hard, is very disturbing to me. It's a big red flag. I'm just wondering if your daughter has been able to argue her way out of a lot of trouble using the "I didn't mean to" or "it wasn't that hard" defense and, therefore, is not to concerned about consequences resulting from her aggression. Just something for you to think about.

ADDED: I just clicked on your name and pulled up some of your previous requests and realized that there is more to the story about your daughter than what's let on in your request and there is an explanation why she has been acting out. She's been through a lot and her sense of safety, security and personal boundaries has been erroded. What you are seeing here is possibly a symptom of a bigger problem that needs to be dealt with. If you haven't started getting her some counseling, please do so right away because this is a situation that can and will fester if left unattended to. Also, Marda gave some really great advise on how to improve communication with your daughter and get to the heart of the matter. No doubt she is going through a very tough time and she needs you now to be the loving and consistent one that will help her deal with the fall out from all that went on before. Kids will act out when they are dealing with a lot of emotional pain and trauma. It's up to you to help her through this.

Actions speak louder than words.
There is never any good excuse for hitting someone. It doesn't matter how hard the slap was. If she hits her aunt, she will hit her grandparent or possibly any other elderly person. She needs to learn to respect her elders no matter who they are. And shame on your daughter if this was all about making her aunt feel bad about being overweight. Your daughter needs to learn to respect people no matter how they look.
Yes, she should apologize to her aunt. And a face-to-face apology is a good idea. And she should show her apology through action. I think a better discipline than taking something away from her is to make her offer to do something for her aunt ... pull weeds in her garden, dust her furniture, something that will take time and allow your daughter to think about her actions.
And then afterwards, you might think of an activity that will rekindle a friendly relationship between aunt and niece.

Did she say "are you pregnant or just fat?" Or did she just ask if she was pregnant? I mean of course she needs to be taught not to ask that, but really, even adults say this some times which is a big no no. Did she just haul off and hit her, what led up to it? I say this because I think it is important to find out if she just acted like a mean old bully to her aunt or if there were other factors. The fact your sister wanted to leave over it seems odd, how close are they? Is your sister young? I mean when I got married my youngest sister in law was 8. Let me tell you some of the stuff that would come out of her mouth was so tacky!! My mother in law is the best, she doesn't raise rude people, just this little lady's personality. She is very blunt. I would just call her out about it and tell her that it was rude, I figured how else would she learn? If it was too bad then I would tell my MIL, but usually I could handle it. I think if you told her it was rude, had her sit out for the rest of the time and she said sorry, it's over. Now the hitting is odd, she is old for hitting. Makes me wonder what else happened. I would really ask my sister for all the details, not because you doubt her but because you really need to address what happened. Good luck!

Sorry... this is going to be very blunt... but when are you going to get your daughter some help? In prior posts/answers, mom after mom has suggested that your daughter would benefit from counseling. When are you going to listen? She's acting out because she has some horrible, awful issues she needs to work through. You are the mom... she is the child. For the love of God, please be her mom and get her some help. Again, please don't take this the wrong way. I mean it in the most loving and caring way. I'm telling you this exactly like I would tell my closest and dearest friends. There are some great therapists in the Austin area. Run, don't walk!

Hurt people hurt people. No matter what punishment you do, you need to find out why your daughter is hurting.

I agree with those who say to consider counseling. My daughter also showed some abhorrent behavior during an event that a lot of people were at. It's not the first time she's done this, but it was definitely the worst. It's always been minor before. As an international adoptee, we know that she will have identity issues, and she is now getting to the age where she is understanding things (she's 5). Something makes her crumble inside and lash out at both adults and kids when she's in groups where she doesn't know people well, yet is expected to interact somewhat (i.e., people that I know, but she may not). We had timeouts and DVD/TV taken away, but I don't think punishment is going to improve her feelings and actions. My husband and I talked later (he wasn't there), and we've agreed that it's time for her to start getting counseling. Obviously, something is amiss when kids who should know better act up this way, unprovoked.

Seeing some of the other posters' comments, it seems that your daughter may benefit from counseling for a number of reasons. I'd still have her write the letter of apology; even as she's working out her issues, she needs to know that you just aren't going to let things like this slide. Even if we may understand why she acts out, she still needs to pick up the pieces and help repair other people's feelings when she's hurt them. I hope you are able to find a good counselor who can help her.

I would like to add that your daughter should be taught not to ever hit adults, even in play. As children, my mother made sure that we knew that even playful hitting was not allowed. As soon as we did it--before we could even complete it--the mood changed, and we knew it. She stopped us right in the middle of the moment to tell us not to hit her, even playing. Kids don't always know where the lines are drawn and have to have them taught pretty firmly from the beginning.

Also, it's odd to me that your sister would choose to just leave and not want to tell you what had happened. It sounds like there is more to this story. Don't defend your daughter, but try to get your sister to talk to you about why this affected her in such a way. What the heck really happened?

well i would first off have a talk with her and i would make her call her aunt and say sorry...then i would ground her for quite sometime take what ever she likes the most away.i would also take tv away from her...she is totaly in the wrong for acting that way and messing up the day for the family....im sorry she aint a baby she is old enough to know better:( i wish you the best of luck with things...and im sorry if this sounds rude im not by any means tryin to be but you have to put a stop why u still can:)thanks and happy 4th of july to you and ur family....

Hi L.,

It sounds to me like your daughter could benefit from learning to take responsibility of her own actions. There is a program called, "The Total Transformation". We have it, but have been unable to get through the whole thing at this time. My husband and I are learning to "effectively" discipline our daughter and to teach her to be more responsible. If you'd like to take a look at it, the site is www.thetotaltransformation.com

Good luck! ls

Your daughter needs to see a therapist. She sounds as if she has some anger management issues or perhaps clinical depression. It's not something that punishment will take care of. You seem to be a caring person, otherwise you wouldn't have asked for help. So I think you need help with this. I was just reading an article on depression being more common in kids than we think. And kids who are depressed - which has nothing to do with how we treat them - tend to act out. God bless.

Check out the "love and logic" under "links we like." It should provide some suggestions. Good luck!
http://blogs.goddardsystems.com/Cedar-Park-TX/2009/10/30/...

When my niece was about 6 years old, she had a bad habit of slapping people. She made the mistake of slapping me one day. I slapped her back. She never put her hands on me again. Maybe your daughter should be slapped back when she puts her hands on people. I know a lot of people don't believe in hitting children, and I didn't put my hands on my niece on a normal basis; however, I didn't take kindly to being slapped by a child. My sister-in-law supported me and explained to her that she should keep her hands to herself.

honestly, your sister should have slapped her back (not in the face) punishment most likely will not change her behavior, but discipline will. J.