We tend to make really nice tasting food in this house so it is horrible when 3 (or more when we have guests) people are sitting there waxing lyrical about how delicious the food is and the 4th is there whinging and complaining about how disgusting it is

It often escalates into an argument or more, like the time she hit me a few weeks ago. That was over bread.

We really do need help with conflict resolution in this house. It is argument free bliss when DD#1 is away. Even DD#2 is starting to argue with DD#1 because she is so illogical. Arguing over simple things too, like we buy chocolate or something nice, give DD#2 some for her and some to give to DD#1 and DD#1 refuses it, which gets DD#2 very upset as she doesn't understand. DD#1 started arguing with me yesterday because I said I didn't know what we were having for dinner and she immediately started interrogating me as to what we were having and point blank refused to accept 'I don't know, we haven't gone shopping yet, stop it' MULTIPLE times (voice getting more raised and annoyed each time) as an answer. Thankfully that one got cut short as she had to go to school. I wish she had an off switch I could use instead of having to yell 'STOP IT' at her 10 times to get her to stop. And its not just arguments that I can't stop by saying stop, she does it on her bike too (and then rides smack into something), or in other dangerous situations you need her to stop Right Now. I've had to physically stop her quite a few times. I dread her being old enough to want to drive ... she'd ignore the instructor completely and drive into a truck.

Her latest school report for ONE subject actually agrees with me though! 'doesn't listen or follow instructions' and 'talks too much' - its not just me! The ONE subject at school that isn't academic but has rules the teachers are actually noticing she can be a pain and aren't falling over themselves fawning at how smart she is!

She's also not very good at maths but we've known that for a long, long time. Maths has right and wrong answers. You can't re-order things each time like you can in a language-based subject, or just make up your own creative answer and expect a high grade for being different. We stopped playing maths games with her at home or in the car some years ago as she didn't like to actually answer the puzzles and we'd get into arguments with her.

Oh and her school reports at the old school used to constantly bring up conflict resolution as something she isn't good at (clarification revealed the same issues as at home - she is right and needs other kids to agree with her Or Else), but it hasn't been picked up yet at the new school, probably because there's more students to supervise and she hasn't yet done something as dramatic as sock another kid in the face and give them a split lip like she did at the old school. She's the pretty, smart kid. She can do no wrong. Grrr. They'd come down harder on her if she wasn't the #1 kid in her class and I still can't forgive her last teacher for saying she was the #1 WITHIN EARSHOT. Kids don't need to know that kind of stuff. Parents don't really need to know either ... there's more to life than academia.