It’s no secret if you’ve been reading here for a while that my oldest is as sassy as they come. Some call it difficult, some say ‘she must keep me busy’, some that she’s high maintenance or spirited. Quite frankly, there are days I want to send her back to bed, and keep her there. I would go so far as to say that she’s borderline oppositional defiant disorder. Every single thing that is required of her is too difficult. Brushing her hair sometimes takes being threatened with staying home instead of going to do something fun. Over BRUSHING HER HAIR. Telling her that she should just put on flip flops to go to town instead of wearing mismatched knee high socks with sneakers (which would take 20 minutes, cause her to scream over the socks, and make us late) causes her to throw a fit.
Now, don’t get me wrong. She’s a polite child. She uses her manners. She plays fairly well with other kids.
She just wants her own way.
She’s frustrated when she doesn’t get it.
She lashes out.
She’s my polar opposite. Now, granted, I’m an adult, but even as a kid, I basically just went along with whatever I was told to do. Boring, perhaps, but it kept me out of trouble. My kid? No such filter.
I do try, very, very hard, not to engage her in battles. Most things I don’t even bother with if they are not important. Some things, though, must be done. She must brush her hair before leaving the house. She must take a rest in the afternoon. She can’t get up at 5 a.m. and then be a brat all day (so she needs to stay in bed until 7:30 a.m.–hopefully to sleep.) She can’t talk back or abuse her younger sister.
She has trouble with these seemingly normal ‘rules’. They don’t suit her. So she does everything she can to make life difficult.
Now, since she really can’t argue against these rules, it really ticks her off. Because obviously those are ‘okay’ things for a parent to expect, even if they don’t fit with what she wants.
She’s not spoiled, she’s NEVER gotten away with any of it. However, it doesn’t stop her. She has a mind of her own. Perhaps one day it will serve her. Until then, her hair will be brushed, she will rest in the afternoon, and she won’t wake up the household with falling wooden block towers at 5 a.m.
