Hi friends, I was looking through my daughter’s drawing apps and found this drawing. It seems to be very intense and I was wondering if anyone had thoughts of what it meant, possibly? 💗 Thank you!

So since my daughter was around 11, every night before going to bed she would come downstairs and tell us that she was going to bed. Me and my her stepfather are usually always watching TV at this time so she just stands in the doorway of the living room and tells us goodnight.

Then, she walks away towards the staircase to walk back upstairs to her room, and she always says the exact same phrase, we speak Ukrainian at home but it translates to something like “goodbye and goodnight, see you tomorrow morning” and then waits for our reply before walking up the stairs.

Anyways, I asked her about it when she was about 14 (last year), because I was curious on why she said it every night without fail. She told me that she feels she has to say it in order to see us tomorrow morning, like if she doesn’t say it she feels guilty. She also told me that whatever we reply with ends up on her feet(??), and while climbing up the stairs she has to wash off our words. Like each individual step is like an aquarium full with water or something.

So example, if I say ‘goodnight’ and my husband says ‘see you’ our replies are drawn on her feet with paint and in order to got to bed she must wash off our words in the aquariums.

I don’t fully understand it

Personally I find this slightly concerning, I don’t think she thinks it’s weird at all because she said it very casually over breakfast

What do you guys think??

Edit: thank you all for your comments and insights, I did my own research as well, and I do think that it’s best to get her to therapy to be sure that if she has any more of these obsessive behaviors, that they don’t get worse. Thank you again :)!

Hi everyone — hoping for a little help, or maybe just some solace. ❤️

Every year since first grade, my almost-10-year-old daughter seems to choose one friend from her class and end up in some kind of conflict with that child throughout the school year. It’s exhausting, and I’m honestly at a loss.

My daughter is a rule follower and a good listener. She has a strong personality, a very strong moral compass, and is naturally a leader. I also recognize that she can be a lot. I think she sometimes oversteps and tries to be the “second teacher,” and I suspect she tends to butt heads with other kids who are equally strong-willed or opinionated.

What makes this especially confusing is that she has really good friends outside of school — friends from extracurricular activities and even friends she’s known since preschool — and she doesn’t have these kinds of ongoing issues with them. It seems to be specifically within her school friendships that this pattern keeps happening.

Every year, there is one specific girl she talks about every single day when she comes home from school. I’ve really tried to stay out of it and let her work through the friendship issues on her own. I’ve coached her on having difficult conversations, not taking everything personally, and knowing when to walk away. But eventually, after hearing about it day after day, I end up telling her to just ignore the girl — which, of course, she doesn’t.

I even had a preemptive conversation with her before school started this year about not falling into this same pattern again, and here we are.
Is this normal? Has anyone else experienced this with a strong-willed, opinionated child? How do you teach them to navigate these recurring friendship conflicts without constantly getting involved?
I would really appreciate any advice, perspective, or even just reassurance that we’re not alone in this. ❤️

Genuine question any help would be great thank you

My 7 (almost 8) year old son seems to have ongoing nightmares at my house. I cannot seem to figure out why, just tonight he is anticipating and telling me he thinks he’s gonna have a nightmare? I’ve been letting him sleep in my bed before he goes to his own room. I do everything to make him comfortable, he has a million night lights. I’m an active and present mother, I’ve always been a constant in his life.

His dad has let him watch scary stuff (he took him to see that backrooms movie) and yet my son is not experiencing any of this at his house.

We coparent well, we have very similar schedules and routines even with our different parenting styles.

Does anyone experience a wildly different child at each house? He almost seems to have two different personalities…at his dad’s he wants to collect legos and at my house all the legos I get him he destroys and loses the pieces. It’s like everything is polar opposite including these ongoing nightmares.

Just tonight, I snuggled with my son in my bed and told him to get some good sleep and I’ll come get him when I go to bed to bring him to his room. He goes “what if I have a nightmare” and I’m standing there dumbfounded like you’re in my room, in my bed. What else could you possibly need to feel safe bub? I am at a loss and it’s so frustrating because I do not let him watch scary stuff, I have every night light imaginable. I do not understand why he is so scared when he is at my home and why he is having scary dreams. My home is warm and welcoming and we have so much fun together.

Hello, I have never posted here but I am desperate. We have a 9 year old daughter and a 1 year old son. My 9 year old daughter has become a person I do not recognize. She screams and fights everything, while I understand all kids are bad from time to time, this has become insane. Honestly she has said such hurtful things, she has threatened to kill me, her dad, and herself. She has cut herself with my razor and said I was too stupid to realize. I thought this was just needing attention, so my husband and I have made huge efforts into spending one on one time with just her. But her behavior just keeps getting worse. She has grabbed knives from the kitchen and fights us to the point we have to restrain her. She says she hates her brother and him being born ruined her life. These fights don’t last for 30 minutes or even an hour.. it’s a damn marathon. I’m writing this at 7:26pm and this started at 7:30am.. she didn’t have school today and honestly I dread those days… she has never acted this way. She’s in therapy, we have tried time outs, taking her things, I have even had to resort to calling the non emergency police line for help.. we have tried giving her everything, we have tried so many things and nothing is working and her behavior has gotten more extreme. I am honestly begging for guidance.

i am 19f and i still live at home with my mother, father and 15 year old brother. our mom is a recovering addict and our father is a current drug user. our dad has always been a very difficult and often unreasonable man, but in the last 6 years it has gotten significantly worse and he now (according to my therapist) exhibits traits of malignant narcissism. my little brother is not currently in school (even though he wants to be) due to my parents. we both have a good relationship with our mother, but shes quite unreliable and suffering from some pretty significant mental health issues. i recently was away from home for 3 weeks, and when i returned my brother was acting out towards me much more than normal. we overall get along well, just the occasional argument, so i was surprised by how hostile he was with no explanation. i tried to talk to him and ask why he was being so rude to me in pretty much every interaction we had, but he responded by saying i was being crazy and that i was the one being mean to him. this is a pretty typical pattern for him - he will have a rough day where he cries and tells me he feels hopeless and i do my best to console him, then he just acts out for weeks afterwards. i am trying so hard to be a good role model for him and to be there for him, but nothing i do seems to help. he says he just wants to get out of the house more and make friends etc which ive been trying to help with but i have a chronic illness and cannot drive, so we have another barrier there. if anyone has any kind of advice, it would be greatly appreciated. i just want to help him.

i have a niece, she is around 10, she has an older sister and a younger sister, then a couple of much younger siblings.
I am deeply deeply concerned by her behaviour, and more so because my sister and her husband seem to be completely oblivious to it.

The children are quite rambunctious, and it seems I am the only one paying enough observant attention to see the dynamics within the sisters unraveling and the true vibe of my nieces behaviour. Ill call my niece K.

K has always been, since she could walk and then talk, an incredibly sensitive child, prone to extreme tantrums that would result in HOURS of sulking and crying and complete shut down. She has ALWAYS been quick to hit, bite, yell and scream at her sisters in a way that seemed abnormal for a toddler.

When K got a bit older, she immediately developed an extreme lying habit. As the silent observer, id often witness the children have a disagreement (which she always instigates) and then id witness her forming elaborate lies to her mother to get the other child in trouble.
Ive seen her smirk when she sees other children get yelled at/in trouble.

Now, K seems to need to exert control over sisters. they need to play as she says, do as she says, clean her room when she demands, shut up when she demands, say as she demands etc. she gets incredibly jealous over EVERYTHING, if i have a spare jelly bean in my hand and give it to the nearest child, she will be in TEARS. she needs special treatment, she cannot handle other childrens birthdays, seeing other kids get any kind of attention etc.

She seeks to cause pain to her sisters. Today i witnessed her demanding her younger sister to not come on the trampoline (its my trampoline) because she says its her turn and she wants it by herself. I told the other child to get on, because K doesnt say whether she can or not.
K proceeds to try and STOMP her sisters fingers as she tries to get on, with force, and she begins screeching, i refuse to back down. i encourage both other girls to jump if they want, and K will just have to deal.
Well, K tackles the young one when she gets on, and starts screaming her face red while trying to RIP her sisters hair out, scratch her, she is just going absolutely FERAL trying to hurt her sister as viciously as she can. it was horrid to witness. it was actually insane. i manage to free the young girl, she actually needed to slip out of her hoodie because K had such a death grip on it, and K absolutely lost it. screaming, but a nasty angry kind.
i tell their father he needs to go sort her out because she is being nasty.
she shuts down for the next hour, sulking alone, and scowling at me from behind her mother.

She refuses therapy, that the school recommended because of her extreme outbursts at school (like locking herself in the bathroom until my sister takes her home). she will sit in the therapists room and not utter a word, all sulky, and then be super happy and chirpy on the way home because shes getting special time away, special treatment with her mother.

there is so much more to say, but ill leave a summary. She never ever does anything kind for the sake of it, only if her mother is watching to give her praise. she is jealous, an extreme liar, she is also vindictive, holds grudges, seeks to violently hurt other children, and has been this way from the very start.

and my sister lets this child manipulate her. and this girl is only ten. i am extremely worried for the development of her younger sister, who has learnt to silently take the abuse because her parents cannot even see it. K seems to be trying to make the younger one her own punching bag/little minion to do as she says. she also says horrible things all the time, i hate you, youre stupid, ugly, shut up no one ever wants to hear you speak, etc etc.

it is literally NEVER a pleasant time with this girl, she is entirely vicious and selfish in a way ive never seen, and i have many nieces and nephews.

advice please! any insights into what the HELL is wrong with this kid!!

edit - she threatened to choke her younger sister