This is a family with major, major problems, I can tell you that right away. “Daughter sleeping in parental bed” is only the tip of the iceberg here.
There is no rational explanation outside of whatever dysfunction happens to be going on in that particular family this particular month. Tolstoy said, “Happy families are all alike; but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own unique way”, or words to that effect. It would take a trained family counselor to winkle out the particular reason why this particular 10-year-old girl, this particular month, has decided to start sleeping in her parents’ bed.
The most obvious reason that pops into my head is simply that she’s afraid they’re getting a divorce, and she hopes to keep them together by reminding them forcibly of her presence, like, “Hey, don’t forget about me.”
No, it’s a very specific type of co-sleeping, where the two parents sleep with the baby/child between them - they’re the banks of the “river”, you see, and the child is the “water”.
Does she go to sleep in their bed or come join them in the middle of the night? The latter is harder to control. When you wake up at 3 am and find a kid in your bed it’s hard to remember your sensible rules of discipline that seem so obvious during the day.
But I agree that finding the reason for the change is the real issue here.
You all just reminded me that yes, in fact, said daughter has been acting very nervous since the beginning of the school year and the mother can not figure out why. But I also agree with Duck Duck Goose. There are many other problems here and it irks me to see it all playing out and being unable to change things. Just for starters, she calls her mom at work about 10 times in the morning before going to school. Half the time she is crying and screaming at the top of her lungs about something silly like not being able to find her left shoe. <-- This behavior is not new. :dubious: And I’m NOT exaggerating.
I agree with you. I didn’t even understand why it was such a big deal. The kid is scared about something, she feels comforted with Mom and Dad and Mom hates it. Well, kid will get over it and that’s that. It isn’t a discipline issue. A ten year old needs to feel safe and loved sometimes too. Hell, I am 42 and sometimes crawl in with my 9 year old daughter. Your normal Litoris seems perfectly normal to me as well. I think getting angry at the kid is more abnormal.
This sounds like pre-period pms. My daughter was hormonal as all get-out for about a year before her period started. The mom might want to check on this. The kid sounds like she just really needs to be hugged more. Of course, that’s coming from someone who would rather curl up with her kids and snuggle than go out with adults.
Of course, at age 10, a lot of her classmates have probably already started and the school very likely has given them the “don’t flush your pads or stick them to the walls” talk, which could have made her very nervous/scared/freaked-the-fuck-out, especially if her mother has never gone over that stuff with her before.
Thanks everyone for reminding me that there are other people in the world who actually like their kids. It seems that I am the mom that all the other kids latch onto immediately, because they don’t get treated like people in their own homes. Many of my daughter’s friends are shocked and amazed that I make a hot breakfast every morning before school and dinner every night after school. And we gasp talk during dinner. It’s all very normal for us, but I have begun to feel like the freak of the week hearing other people gasp, drop their chins to the floor and say “wait, you get up and make breakfast every morning? Aren’t your kids old enough to make their own cereal?”
Back to the OP – the kid definitely has something going on and if the mother wants it to stop, she needs to figure out what is going on by either (now, this is the really confusing part) talking to the kid or sending her to a shrink. Either option is valid, but based on what you have said in this thread, I am betting that the shrink would do the kid more good than anything else. If the mother actually gave a shit, IM(oh, so very)HO, she would be talking to the kid instead of complaining about her.
