Dealing with a strong willed 7 yr old

[Pulirula]

My daughter for the most part is a good kid but she has her moments. She refused to eat anything she doesn't like. Which is a huge problem because she has very bad stomach issues and sugar/processed food makes her very sick. Dinner is always a fight and never ends well. We are getting. Dry stressed. Even a dr told her to eat her dinner.

Another thing that is driving me crazy and I have no idea how to deal with is this. She's a liar!! She buys ice cream at school and tells me she doesn't. We have a deal that if she doesn't fight dinner all week she can buy ice cream on Friday's. (Drs orders she can't have it often) but she came home from school today and told me she bought white milk with the lunch she took. Well her lunch account says she didn't buy any milk and she got ice cream. I'm furious that she's lying to me. And to make it worse she tells me that to buy ice cream on Friday she needs a dollar or they won't let her get it, so I've been sending her with a dollar. Which is another bold face like and somewhat of a scam to trick me.

Lies like this have been going on for a while now and we don't know how to deal with this. We've told her how important it is to do right and tell the truth. The only thing I can think of is to come up with a lie of our own to tell her so she gets a taste of her own medicine. Not what I want to do but I have no other ideas. Im open to suggestions of anyone has any!

 

[pinkstarbinks]

Our 7 year old is strong willed also, only thing I tell myself is meet them with the same resistance, have to be firm as if we don't they'll walk all over us battle of the wills testing us, turn it back to you being the adult no money on Fridays, send her with food during the week if possible no cash ever, or pay the school directly etc or whatever you can do to reduce her control, until she stops abusing it and goes by your guidelines and respects you. Just ban the sugary stuff you don't want her eating, if it's not an option it's not an option to her. Eat diner or go hungry. She'll soon eat dinner when she realises she's not discreetly in charge anymore. Good luck! It's so hard! They are seeing where the power balance is, we've gotta show them we will stand firm consistently against them calling the shots, strip things back to the bare bones privileges etc until they take heed that the way they behave is not acceptable

 

[Pulirula]

That's the dinner rule. Eat or go hungry. It's the lying I can't deal with. She has a lunch account that tells me what she gets and for the past 10 or so school days she's been buying ice cream when she knows she's wrong. I asked her today before school and she said she got milk. So I showed her that it's all being tracked and she started crying because she was caught. I told my sister what happened and then my sis gets mad at me for punishing her. Upset she went to school with tears in her eyes. We can't be soft with my Daughter because she's so stubborn.
My parents hate us being hard on her because they weren't like that with me. I won't deny I was spoiled rotten and o grew up expecting life handed to me. Took me s long time to realize how coddled I was. I won't do that to my kid she will have boundaries and punishments. When she's good and follows the rules she gets rewarded. It's not like she's always locked away in some prison cell in the basement. She makes her choices and that's it.
It's hard when my sis and mom tell me I'm being to hard on her and I deserve her for acting this way because I was a bad teenager. I was the way I was cause I could get away with it. I learned from the way I was raised.
My husband on the other hand was raised very different. He was beaten and abused by his step father for not behaving. We are trying our best to love and protect her while letting her learn from her mistakes. It's just very hard. Especially with another baby on the way.

 

[pinkstarbinks]

Sounds like you are doing all the right things, easy to say especially when you're pregnant and meeting judgement from your family but stick with it, you're doing so well, you're side of the family sound just like mine. To break the mound with how we raise our children is the best way to demonstrate our love for them. It's in their absolute best interests.. Congratulations on baby

 

[Pulirula]

Well my husband and I talked about punishment all day and we decided that we would make her write "I will not lie" her letters and numbers. She came home from achool, we talked to her, did her homework, ate dinner and made her spend the rest of her evening writing until bedtime. She didn't like it much but I hope we got our message across. Hopefully next time she'll think about it when she tries to trick us.

 

[AngelUK]

She lies to you because she feels she cannot tell you the truth and there is a lack of trust. She is a child and not capable of reasoning before the event and buys icecream cause the pull is too strong to reason in that moment. It is not that unusual even in adults or why would so many people make obvious wrong choices. And she lies cause she hopes to evade punishment.
I don't think that she learnt anything from writing lines. One doesn't learn from punishments, only from natural consequences. If ice-cream makes her sick and that is the reason she cannot have it, then why not let her learn that lesson through her being sick?
But when you know already that she bought ice cream and see it in her account, why set her up for failure and ask her about it? Don't trick her, you would not like that done to you either.
On the other hand I do agree with the pp that if she lies and cannot be trusted with money, then she cannot have money.
I would recommend Janet Lansbury's No Bad Kids and How to Talk so Kids Will Listen by Adele Faber.

Good luck.

 

[Pulirula]

Sorry but I don't believe she's not cApable of reasoning. She knew exactly what she was doing wrong which is why she lied. She didn't know I had a way to know if she was telling the truth. But now that she knows she won't do it again. I can't let her eat ice cream to the point it mkes her sick because it's not just a stomach ache that is the issue. There is no lack of trust between us. She knows she can tell me anything that's bothering her. She was trying to trick us and that's it. Thanks for the book suggestion but we aren't those kind of parents.

 

[SarahBear]

No, I don't think "giving her a taste of her own medicine" will work. The problem is she's tempted by sweets and she's being sent into a situation where she can either get the sweet you won't give her at home, or she can have the less enticing milk. I would just not send her to school with money. Have her drink water at school. At home, just don't have foods around that she can't have. If it's not there, she'll have to eat something else.

 

[jd83]

As parents, you need to teach by example. You don't teach her not to lie by lying to her to prove a point. What point exactly is that teaching her? That you can lie to her, but she shouldn't lie to her? No. Give consequences for the lying that you have proof of, and move on. A good consequence would be that since she has lied about how she spent her lunch money, and has lied about needing extra money, she no longer needs extra money, period. And you will be tracking her lunch spending, period. I don't think it needs to go beyond that, because those consequences completely encompass the issue. Talk with her about why being honest is important, and why lying hurts others and breaks their trust when it happens. Trust can be earned back, though, which is also important to make sure she understands. I don't think writing sentences, letter, and numbers really address the issue very well.

You can always offer ice cream or whatever treat at home as incentive for doing well with dinners throughout the week. I think making dinner a fight ever night is very counterproductive. My older son was very, very picky for a few years from around 2-4 yrs old. It was awful. He refused almost everything. The main thing I learned from that entire experience was that the more we fought him about eating/trying new things, the more he resisted, and the more of a fight it became. Things really improved over time the more we relaxed about it, and just came to the understanding that what was on his plate was what was being offered. He could choose to eat it, or not eat it, but we weren't going to fight him about it. I put small portions of the foods on his plate, so it wasn't overwhelming to him if he decided to try things. I also always made at least one thing that he liked to be served on his plate, so if he refused everything else, he at least ate that one thing and didn't go hungry. It was a slow process. He's almost 7 now, and eats a TON of variety of foods. He even likes to try NEW foods when offered. If anyone had said he'd change this much over the course of a few years, I'd have thought they were nuts. So, point being, try not to fight her so much over this. That really only makes it that much more of a battle of wills.

One last thing to maybe try regarding the food incentive issue: I think making her wait until the very end of the week for an incentive is still a long time at her age. A whole entire week to a 7 yr old seems like a month to an adult. I know, because my nearly 7 yr old acts like a week is forever when he has to wait a week for something. What about some type of smaller incentive twice a week if she starts doing better with her meals? Like a smaller portion of ice cream than what she'd get once a week.

 

[.Mrs.B.]

Thanks for the book suggestion but we aren't those kind of parents.

You mean the kind of parents that want to understand their children better?