I have a friend who has been a single mom for several years and has a preteen daughter.
The mom is the daughter of an alcoholic, and like many children of alcoholics, has difficulty forming positive male and female relationships. What is worrying me is that the relationship she has with her daughter is not just close, it is so intense it borders on the obsessive.
The child has been mom’s confidante and best friend for years, and mom seems to need or want this companionship so badly that it interferes with the child’s ability to form friendships among her peers.
A. It seems likely that the mom and child need professional counseling or family therapy, but if you attempt to steer them in that direction, you put your friendship at risk.
You might consider sharing your concerns with someone else that the mother trusts, be it family or friends. I also suggest that you read the book “The Emotional Incest Syndrome: What to Do When a Parent’s Love Rules Your Life,” by Dr. Patricia Love (Bantam, $9.95).
We have trouble disciplining our 8-year-old daughter. My husband does not believe in spanking; we have tried time-outs from play with friends and many other things, but nothing works.
A. If you are experiencing really unusual misbehavior, consider what possible changes in your own lives may be affecting her. You also might consider a checkup to be sure nothing is physically wrong.
More than likely, she is just demonstrating the normal, often exasperating behavior of 8-year-olds, who are usually less cooperative than they were at 7. Eights are becoming independent thinkers, they can think abstractly (what might happen if I try this or say that), they are curious, and they like testing the rules. They interrupt; they love to talk and show off. Sometimes, they make jokes that are only funny to themselves.
Remember that the 8-year-old’s misbehavior, as well as good behavior, is the result of a tremendous drive for adult attention. Put that drive for attention to work for you in terms of behaviors you WANT to see. Right now she is getting your negative attention, but it is still attention. Give her lots more positive attention for the behaviors you like and that you want her to repeat.
Stop trying so many different things. Devise strategies that are consistent, and in which she has had some input. Just as kids will eat the vegetable soup if they help to cook it, kids keep the rules best when they help make them.
