I don't really have any advice, just commiseration. This has been a pretty big issue with DD4 as well. She seems to have a really advanced understanding of what it means to be an adult and wants nothing to do with it except for the eating eleven donuts for dinner when you want aspect. She does not even much like being four; she would rather be a baby. She is not even thrilled about kindergarten.
I don't know what to make of it. She is just really immature in this regard. As parents, I feel like we may have pushed her towards independence faster than we should have, but she seemed so mature as a baby. We followed her lead. She potty trained day and night well before 24 months. She never wanted to nap. She was never really a baby. We never babied her. But, then she never turned into the "let me do it" toddler. And, now she is a preschooler that does not want to grow up.
She is just really anxious about getting older. We talked about how some of her classmates would be turning six shortly, but that she would be turning six next year. Her eyes got big, and she said, "I'll practically be 18! Six and then seven, then 8,9,10! I'll be a teenager soon!" I think she has concerns about 18, because she learned that is the age that kids go to college. I know in the past we have used the "with age comes great responsibility" line. I wish we never had, because I think it caused a lot of the anxiety. It was when she turned four that we dealt with a lot of angst. Looking back, we were using the birthday as an excuse to give her more responsibility. Total backfire.
She is a lot like I was as a child. It was my little sister that did everything before me. She worked as a waitress at 15. I just wanted to play. This is another reason I have seriously considered holding DD back next year. I really just want to chalk this up to maturity as was the case with me. I was about 2 to 3 years behind maturity-wise.
