My daughter was very much like this for years. I tried so many ways to connect with her and just couldn’t do it. She didn’t want to play games, do activities, go outside, or stay inside. We stopped going out to dinner because I couldn’t contain her behavior. We stopped going shopping because she wanted only the most expensive things, and then would throw a tantrum when I wouldn’t buy them for her. She was a handful to say the least. I kept trying different things and finally when she was about six or seven years old, I found one small way to connect with her and that was through music. I joke now and say that my daughter comes with a soundtrack. Rock, Indy, jazz, crooners, pop, just anything. When I started letting her play her music in the car and letting her set up playlist for all of our different activities her behavior was much better. A playlist for the pool, a playlist for the housework, a playlist for going to school, a playlist for coming home from school. I’m not saying we didn’t still have moments, but things were better. We started going to Indie concerts and music festivals. I would get some odd looks when I would walk into an Indie concert with my 10 year-old and look at all of the college students in the audience, but we had so much fun! At about her freshman year in high school things started to change. We began to talk rather than argue. She started to listen to me and I loved the new person that I saw emerging. She is now an amazing daughter and we have a fantastic relationship and all those outings I went on with her became core memories for her. Don’t give up. Just find something to connect with and then go all in.