I am used to the misbehavior of my boys. With the mental disabilities and social difficulties, one grows accustomed to certain "bad" behaviors. My daughter on the other hand, has always been the shining ray of normalcy in an otherwise turbulent existence. Until recently...
She will be 10 in a month, and I don't know if it is typical for a girl her age to develop an attitude and behavior issues or not, but these new "quirks" are taking a tole on my clarity of thought. I took her last week to get new shoes for school. Something practical that she can use to look cute and still wear for PE. Every time I suggested a pair of shoes, she would huff and roll her eyes. One of the times, I picked a pair of shoes I would have worn if I was her age and she proceeded to put her hand on her hip, flip her hair, roll her eyes, bob her neck and say, "I actually CARE how I look, mom." Yesterday I got an e-mail from her teacher regarding atypical behavior at school:
Hi!
Krysta is having a VERY rough morning. She is off task, spinning in her seat and kicking the clipboards that are beside her desk. She was verbally warned twice. When we started independent work time, she was digging and emptying and cleaning out her desk. I found her with a bunch of papers at her backpack and when I asked her what she was doing she stated she was "looking for her spare pencil."
Can you speak with her please? I'm not sure what's going on today.
Thank you.
Of course when she got home, I sat down to talk with her about this and she started making up things that were nothing to do with the topic. Then I read her the email and she looked at me and acted confused like she didn't understand what the teacher was talking about. The only part she acknowledged was that she needed another pencil because hers broke. She has increasingly been disregarding rules and directions. I don't know what to do. In addition to the attitude, she has been lying and manipulating the situations around her and then cocks her head and bats her eyelashes at the problem. Sigh.
Sounds normal to me, I raised two girls and grew up with two sisters. ;-) I hit puberty at 11 and there was *nothing* my mother could do to please me, I did the opposite of just about everything she tried. I was also cantankerous with teachers. I think what worked best for me was telling my girls we at least had to have a code of some kind so I wouldn't stomp through trying to fix everything. Finger hugs worked when nothing else did. A finger hug acknowledged that yeah, I'm still ok, I'll come to you when I really need help. And I told them they're big girls and on their own if they don't come get real hugs and real help. I think girls are real territorial that way sometimes. Good luck! =S
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