Parent in Meltdown

Another meltdown this afternoon from The One Who Hates Chinese. Again, triggered by a reminder to do her homework.

Now she hates jujitsu too.

She wants a day when she has no extracurricular activities at all. I guess there was always going to be this point, when she found 1.5 hours of music and 3 hours of Chinese too much for a Sat.

I am now contemplating letting her off Term 4 Chinese. We could call it a break - and hopefully next Feb she will have outgrown this phase and feel better about things.

My Perfect Parent half feels like this is the beginning of the end. If she's going to give up on Chinese at 8, what are the chances she will want to get back to it when she's a little older? And if she's allowed to give up so easily, how will this affect her attitude to studies and life in general?

My Compassionate Parent half feels this isn't a battle worth fighting. It's rupturing family harmony and it's just plain too hard to keep up every week. Maybe if I don't fight her on this, she will grow out of this phase naturally and want to come back to it when she is a bit more mature.

My 70 yo friend tells me my battles with Beth are because she is 8. That is apparently the age her son was when he drove her barmy with his tantrums, rebellion and smart-mouthing. But we're talking 8, not 13, I protested. If at 8 she has started to give me the grays, what's going to happen when she becomes a full-fledged teen?

Said friend had some practical tips. Make time to do fun things with Beth. Take her shopping for girly things. Go for a coffee together after Chinese classes. That will give her something to look forward to.

All wonderful ideas, which I wouldn't have thought up myself. All I know, and all I've been raised to do, is the top-down approach: scold, nag, threaten and insist. Now I have to learn to act against my natural instincts and be a completely different sort of mother.

The kind I wish I'd had.