How serious is this? (Child behaving badly)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have two nieces, and 8 year old and a 4 year old (sisters). The 8 yo has been a difficult child since she was a toddler, and the 4 yo is just your normal, cute little kid. The 8 yo has been spoiled relentlessly, and at 8 is still having vicious temper tantrums, screaming until she pukes, throwing things, breaking things, slamming doors, etc.

On Friday night, her little sister accidentally spilled a little water on the 8 yo’s sock, and she went ballistic - yelling at her, kicking and punching her, telling her to get off her couch. While getting off the couch, the 4 yo spilled a little more water on her sock. The 8 yo went even more nuts, then - she took off her sock and threw it at her sister, yelling that it was hers now because it was ruined, hit and kicked at her sister some more, and yelled at her “I hate you! I’m going to kill you!”

I realize at 8 that she doesn’t completely grasp the seriousness of what she said, but the whole situation seems really bad to me. I don’t have kids, so I don’t know if all kids go through a “death threat” phase.

How serious is this? Is there any advice I should be giving my sister and brother-in-law regarding this situation? (My sister is too weak to discipline properly, and my bil doesn’t think there’s any problem.) I know I don’t have very much (if any) say in what goes on in their house, but I don’t want to do nothing and regret it later if my niece seriously messes up her life, or, God forbid, hurts her little sister.

2

I think they need some form of therapy. The psychiatric social workers I’ve known have been very helpful. In addition, it may turn out that the 8-year-old has a mental illness, but it’s too soon to conclude that. The therapist should be able to guide you in the right direction, and if the 8-year-old needs psychiatric treatment, the therapist will help you find one.

3

I forgot to mention that the 8 yo behaves like an angel at babysitters and at school; her atrocious behaviour is reserved for her parents. I don’t know if this precludes a possible mental condition, but it does make it seem like she knows exactly what she’s doing (she’s also extremely intelligent).

4

I wouldn’t accept this in a child of any age. The girl is out of control. I would recomend, as Rat did, that the mom & dad seek counseling to learn how to regain discipline over her.

If they don’t, what are they going to do when she’s as tall as they are, and they’re the ones getting slapped and kicked?

5

IANA child psychologist but my common-sense-o-meter is saying this kid is just begging for some rules or boundaries.

It sounds like her parents need to get off their butts and take some parenting classes or something.

The little sister will continue to pay the price until the adults start acting like adults and take control of their household. They don’t have to be Nazis, just set some basic rules and figure out how to enforce them. Figure out how to actually guide their kids, set limits, that sort of thing.

In reality, both of those kids are probably suffering, not just the little one.

I could, of course, be completely wrong, maybe the kid is suffering from some form of mental illness. But usually the simplest solution is the correct one, and if she behaves just fine elsewhere, it seems likely it’s the parents behaviour that’s really at the root of the problem.

IMHO.

6

I don’t know how you could fix this now, especially since you are the aunt and not the mom. There are certain things my kids aren’t allowed to say: I hate you, I’ll kill you, shut up." They are allowed to say “I’m mad at you, I’ll get you, be quiet.”

I think kids behave around other kids because of a herd effect. Acting up around the guests looks like a bid for attention.

The other thing I’ve noticed is that when other adults are visiting, (aunts uncles, grandparents) my kids act up, particularly when it’s some sort of relative which might have a smidgeon of authority over them. Usually hubby or I are the big boss, but since they see me defer to my own parents occassionally, they will try to see how far they can push things. They are not sure who’s the ‘big boss’ anymore.

Maybe she was just acting up for your benefit? Or maybe there’s some sort a a low level struggle between you sis and BIL? They see these things too and exploit them. Maybe you could take her out for some one-on-one time and eventually find out what’s really bothering her. Every girl needs a favorite aunt. Good luck.

7

There’s the root of the problem. I have a friend who has two boys (4 & 1-1/2) and she freely admits to spoiling them both AND being very light on discipline. I’ve told her she will live to regret this, but it has no effect.

8

Unfortunately, it’s not always spoiling.

My baby brother was spoiled relentlessly as well. Still is, matter of fact.

He doesn’t push boundaries nearly as much as the 8 year old in the OP does.

Might there be something in the house that is a cause of her anger? Could she possibly see her little sister as “replacing” her in some fashion, and resents her to no end? Might there be something else that could be causing such serious anger in her?

One thing you didn’t mention (or if you did, I seriously failed to notice): did you punish the child in any fashion for what she said? Even a reprimand? Maybe she was testing YOU.

In my husband’s family, every adult has reprimand rights - I only do it if the parent(s) have not seen the child do whatever was reprimand worthy. My stepdad, on the other hand, does the whole “I am the parent, and I will do the disciplining” routine. Which is fine now. When my baby brother was younger, that caused problems between me and my stepdad, thusly:

Stepdad: I would like for you to take Kenji to the store with you and get him some [clothes, shoes, toys]. And if he misbehaves, do not spank him. I am the parent, and I will do it.

Me: No worries there. If he misbehaves, we’re leaving without the [clothes, shoes, toys]. I won’t tolerate a misbehaving child in public.

Stepdad: That’s not your call to make!

Me: You’re a flaming idiot if you think I am going to tolerate that. You don’t, and I refuse to. If you really don’t mind, YOU take him.

[End of story]

And the little brother never once stepped over the boundaries with me. He knew I was serious.

9

the parents need to stop responding to her outbursts like that. She acts like that because it is effective. I have had trouble like that myself with a foster child we have taken in. He used to get similarly enraged at home but never at school or other places. We would essentially give him time outs or send him to his room until he could speak civilly again.
We simply refused to listen to any words that were yelled or angry. It was amazingly effective. He learned that he was never going to have his say unless he controlled himself. That isn’t to say there were no problems just that in the end it seemed to be the right course.

10

I think this kid needs some sort of therapy too. She is not just ‘misbehaving’, but from your description, seems to lose total self-control when something aggravates her. By the age of 8, most children have acquired the skills necessary to behave in socially acceptable ways. Punching and kicking and death threats are not normal behaviours.

And don’t be too hard on the parents. Some children prove to be more of a challenge to live with, and it may just be that they don’t have the resources to deal with this alone.

I’m reminded of my own sister (who is ten years older than me) and my mum realised when she was a toddler that she was ‘out of control’. She did the rounds of shrinks etc, who basically told her that she just had to set a few more boundaries! Mum tried her darndest, but with each new boundary came more temper tantrums and more violence and more dysfunction within the family. V is 52 now, and is still a cantankerous old bitch who lashes out at anybody (physically and verbally) when she doesn’t get her own way. Had she had a proper assessment done when she was a child, and recieved some treatment, I suspect things might have turned out quite differently for her. It certainly would have helped the rest of the family!

11

OK that’s pretty extreme behaviour and you don’t usually get that extreme behaviour as a mere result of spoiling.

I’ll also observe that often parents who are just worn out because NOTHING they do works can appear not to set boundaries and to spoil the kid when in fact they are at their wits’s end and have no idea what to do next.

There is a phenomenon where a kid may be perfect at school and in other settings and comes home and cuts loose really badly because the effort of holding their behaviour together for all those hours is just too much and they just lose it where it is safe to lose it. I’d wonder about sensory issues – that sock incident screams of sensory integration problems to me.

My elder son was a very very difficult child – now he is appropriately assesssed, in an appropriate educational setting and properly medicated, my parenting looks stellar ;). When he was out of control, I looked like the world’s suckiest parent because nothing I did worked. Nothing anyone else did worked either.

I’d ask the parents how they are feeling about her and if I could help track down some services to help the family. When burn out is extreme (and living with a kid like that can burn out anyone) there are times when the thought of finding help is just one more burden.

OK, just a perspective from the other side of the fence :slight_smile:

12

First off, I should mention that I wasn’t there when the tantrums were taking place. My knowledge of the events were from my mom who was there and witnessed everything.

Secondly, I agree that the 8 yo doesn’t seem particularly happy, either. She seems so frustrated and mad at everything; that doesn’t indicate a happy, contented child to me.

Perhaps I’m wrong to blame the parents; they seem extremely permissive to me, but I agree that they are probably worn-out from the never-ending battles with this kid. I don’t know how my bil is feeling, but I suspect that my sister is feeling guilty, stressed, and unhappy about her relationship with her eldest daughter.

kambukta and primaflora, what were the assessments for the difficult children in your lives? What medication is used to help the difficulties? I’m not keen on suggesting to my sister that her kid needs to be medicated, but this situation is starting to tear our family apart, and something needs to be done for us and for this unhappy, lashing-out child.

13

She is already causing damage to the four year old if she is hitting and kicking. That reason is enough to warrant action. The parents are unintentionally permitting child abuse if they do nothing under these circumstances. It can scar the four year old both mentally and physically.

And that doesn’t even address what is happening to the eight year old…

For everyone’s sake, the eight year old certainly needs to be examined to see if there is a physical cause for her behavior. Then possibly a referral to a psychiatrist. And the parents need to see a family counselor to learn how to deal with her.

I doubt that it will get any better without help.

IANA licensed counselor

14

Sorry, not sure how to respond to second-hand information.

We know the information about the freakout is from the mom. Is the information about being an angel at school and the babysitter also from mom? Maybe mom just gets fed up - after all, her husband doesn’t think there’s a problem so he probably not sympathetic - and exaggerates the stories of what she has to deal with, and then defends her kid by pointing out that the child doesn’t go ape outside the home.

If the kid regularly screams until she pukes, throws things, etc., how come only the mom sees this? When you say your niece has always been difficult, is this something other family members see, or is this more information form the mom?

I unlikley that the kid has major problems, or that your sister is completely making things up. It’s most likely that the kid is bratty, and you sister wants sympathy.

Okay, so she has control. (Primaflora makes a good point about behaving most of the time. This happens. It also happens that kids figure out who will put up with this crap.)

15

j.c., I said my mom was the one reporting on this. As in, the 8 yo’s grandmother. And I’ve seen all of this behaviour myself in the past. The only new thing is the death threats.

16

My point certainly was not that kids figure out who will tolerate behaviour. My point was that some kids maintain for whatever reason in different settings and then crack up when they feel safe. Sure, there’s an element of figuring out who will tolerate negative behaviour but I don’t believe most kids are setting out to be difficult and unpleasant. It’s not a comfortable way to live.

17

featherlou, IF the girl has a mental illness, there are many possibilities of what the diagnosis might be, and what, if any, medications would be appropriate. Casual info from other people will not give you any useful insight into exactly what the problem is, and will certainly not help you identify an appropriate medication. It’s helpful to hear of other people’s experiences, but don’t depend on them to make a decision, other than the decision for your relatives to see a professional.

That being said, in my experience you’d have the testing done by a neuropsych. A variety of tests will be done over a couple of sessions, and then it will all be written up and you’ll discuss it with the doctor. This report will be helpful to show a psychiatrist, if it seems that kind of intervention is needed. Also, although you say her school situation is good, this kind of testing can be useful in dealing with the school system, where needed.

Seeing a psychotherapist will help the family cope with the girl’s behavior. Specifically, the 4-year-old may be having difficulty dealing with the older girl. And although the problem is probably not caused by “spoiling,” the parents still have to learn techniques that may help them deal with her. In cases like this, the usual tried-and-true techniques that work with other kids will not work at all with a child with these kinds of issues.

18

I was the youngest kid with two sisters who were bullying bitches, (but in a normal sense—aren’t all older sisters bullying bitches?). My parents looked the other way when I complained. (My sisters lied and my parents believed them.)

I can say without a doubt that it’ll really screw you up to be bullied (even within “normal” levels, like with my sisters) while not being protected/defended by your parents. It took me a long while (and I sometimes have trouble with it) to learn to speak up for myself. It was useless trying to speak up to my parents, they did nothing. I learned to not bother trying. I started to assume that I’d never be protected or vindicated, no one would believe me if I told, and there was no use fighting it. I believe this is why I never told my anyone about being fondled by an older boy several years later. I simply saw no point, and actually believed I’d be blamed for the whole thing.

Imagine how scarred this little 4 year old is going to be, and probably already is. Her older sister is really, really out of control, abusive, the whole nine yards. This little 4 year old deserves much better than this. And, like Zoe says, this isn’t even delving into the trouble and suffering the 8 year old is having.

19

Some of the OP was uncomfortably familiar to me. I wasn’t spoiled and I didn’t use death threats or hurt or break things, but I did have the violent temper tantrums, screaming and crying for hours and hours until I made myself sick. As in the OP, this did happen only at home, and I would be set off by the smallest things. It was heartbreaking for me as well as for my poor family, because even during a tantrum I knew I was overreacting, and I knew I was upsetting people, but I just physically could not stop, and that would just upset me more and add to my hysteria.

My poor parents were just desperate, and they tried everything. There were changes in discipline, there was therapy, there was testing. After years of going to various specialists, my family doctor happened to read an article about caffiene, and had me tested for a chemical imbalance. Sure enough, that was exactly what it was. The caffiene was causing a reaction in my brain that made me feel sort of paranoid. I very well may have reacted the same way as the 8 yr old with the wet sock, because in my mind the 4 yr old would have done it on purpose. And had my parents come to tell me to cut it out, that would have upset me even more, because in my mind, they would have all been ganging up on me and that would make me feel panicky. The reason it was only happening at home was because it was only my family that I felt sad and scared enough at the idea that they were out to get me. Strangers and acquaintances just didn’t evoke the same passion.

So I cut all the caffiene (mainly coke and chocolate but some nuts and artificial flavours as well) out of my diet and within a week there was a dramatic change.

Could there be some kind of food or other allergy in this case?

20

Whatever the problem is, these kids are not being properly looked after.

Whatever the problem, these parents still need to get off their butts and find out what it is. I doubt it’s a physical or neurological problem or they’d be seeing this behaviour elsewhere other than at home. It sounds emotional, frustrated, pissed-off.

Saying “I’m going to kill you” is not that abnormal for an older sibling, I’m afraid. My older sister did rotten things to me on a regular basis. My best friend used to tell her little brother that she wasn’t really his sister, she was here to kill him. Shitty, but not that abnormal. I don’t know if older sibs are pissed that someone else is stealing their limelight or whatever, but who cares. It’s the parents job to look after all their kids, period.

Having a “problem child” is not an excuse for paralysis. We are not allowed to throw up our hands, give up on our kids, even (especially) if they’re viciously rotten snot-nosed brats.

I don’t buy the “bad seed” theory. I think it’s insufficient parenting in one way or another most of the time. I am not talking about autism or any other problem of that nature, I’m talking about emotional disturbance.

Parenting classes, therapy, some sort of intervention is called for IMO. Other people have posted about their problems in this thread…but most of you have said that your parents DID or tried to DO SOMETHING. These parents have to do the same.

I betcha that the BIL does know there’s a problem, he’s just not admitting it and hoping it goes away. No doubt they’re both fed up with the situation and could use some guidance themselves. But it’s their responsibility, bottom line.

Something needs to be done for these kids. If the parents aren’t going to, then other family members have to. I know it’s hard, it’s crappy to have to “interfere” but you can’t just leave this situation to fester IMO.

Let us know how it goes if you do decide to say something. Good luck Featherlou.