my 9yr old daughter just wont stop being disruptive in all possible ways, rude, mean, arguementive, has to have it her way. fights with her mom nonstop about some of the most basic of things. even just getting dressed or even taking a bath. her behavior is causing problems with her two other brothers an in her making friends becuse its her way are no way. its not as bad at mine an my husbands house when she is here but still not great. what to do?
I would set up a parenting meeting between the two homes if everyone gets along enough to do this. If not, could the bio parents at least talk about what is happening and come up with a plan? It seems important that her parents figure out why she is having trouble. For example, is she mad and stressed about having her parents in different homes, are there parenting issues related to different parenting styles at each home which leave her confused, does she try and control everything because parts of her life feel out of control, is she running the show because her parents are having a hard time being firm…no matter the reasons she needs some help. The longer she acts like this the worse she will feel about herself and then she is more likely to be difficult. It is a vicous circle. Maybe her parents can seek a professional opinion too. Blessings!
We went through the same thing with one of our 9 yr olds. What we did, was take away his TV time (even family TV time, when we watch TV, he had to read a book, or play with a toy where we can see him, but he can’t watch) and video game time. I told him he had to earn them back be being “nice” to his brothers, and me and his dad. When he did something that was rude, mean, argumentitive, I would ask him “Do you think that was nice? Would you like it if someone said/did that to you? Do you think this behavior is going to earn your stuff back?” The first few days, he acted like he didn’t care. But after about 4 or 5 days, he started “catching” himself when he would start to say something mean, get ready to smack one of his brothers, or say something snotty to me or his dad. And, of course, he wanted to know when he would earn his stuff back. I told him when he can show me he can be nice consistantly, he will have earned his stuff back. Now, he’s gotten his stuff back by this time (he had it taken away for about 2-3 weeks), but if he starts to slip up, I remind him to be nice, or he’ll have to earn it back again. He usually straightens up. I have had to taken it away a few times, but for shorter amounts of time. As a bonus, he has more of an interest in playing board games now, since we played a lot of them, when he was earning back his TV and video games.