A bit of a difficult time ahead of us....

I have spoken recently within my blog of a few incidents of Lucy, in particular, being quite difficult and rude at times. This has been gradually escalating in recent weeks and both Amy and I are finding it very upsetting and struggling to handle it at the moment. No amount of discussion, coaching, talking to her or giving her a punishment is working and the behaviour still continues. She sways from delightful to having such a poor attitude several times a day. We still do not know the cause or why she is speaking to us so badly at times. She is such a good and polite girl at school (not perfect but nothing out of the ordinary) and with other people mostly such as family and friends. Amy and I have talked and talked about this and have not come up with a definitive answer as yet, more a combination of several things. Lucy has always worn her heart on her sleeve and is a very emotional human being. She could be tired - after all it has been a long year at school, we have been concerned about this 'hormonal surge' of late and erratic mood swings, it upsets me to say but she could be being stubborn and a bit of a brat whilst pushing new boundaries and she is really experimenting with skills such as sarcasm and humour that can go horribly wrong in conversation too. Is it the television programmes she watches or influence from friends at school? Her test results came in and they were not quite as good as she had hoped for, her progress has levelled off and it is clearly niggling her and worrying her, although she will not discuss it. Maybe this is just normal for an eight year old, after all I have no previous experience! At present, the problem is that leading by example does not work or change her behaviour, punishing her does not work and she has no fear of consequences what so ever. After a punishment for example, she just repeats the behaviour the next day and does not learn from this. I know that in particular, I struggle with consistency as a parent, but I have to say I have improved and worked on this over the last few weeks, but still not to positive effect. I know the answer is out there and I know that my Lucy is a good girl and we both work hard to be the best parents we can and give her a good grounding. The problem is, that if there is something that is bothering her for example that is the cause, she often will not open up to discuss it and quickly becomes upset and defensive. Who said that being a parent was ever going to be easy. The one thing I do know that is that Amy and I love her dearly and she means the world to us both and we will work through this difficult time. Any suggestions would be most welcome!! Today we have discussed as a family that things need to change and that the consequences of poor attitude and rudeness will mean a months television and gadget ban. Five strikes this week and out - I still do not know whether this is the right thing to do, but we are going with it for both girls. They have agreed and I wonder whether they understand we really mean it. I hope this supports them to understand that actions and the way we behave has consequences and we get the smile back in daughter number one....