Conure playing "hard to get"

My almost 1 year old GCC Kermit has been getting a bit bratty lately. Often when we want to take her out of the cage (and she LURES us in with her beautiful screams and 'kisses' demand), she climbs on the outside of the cage and will plant some very nasty bites if you try to get her to step-up. Nothing that has broken skin, but the intent is clear.

Now, I know parrots like to enforce their own will and don't always want to do what we want. So I try to support her parrot individuality and whenever she's like this, my mom or myself will walk away and let her play on top of her cage. Sometimes I think this is exactly what she wants. But other times, it's clear she's playing "hard to get".

She'll start strutting on top of her cage and opening and closing her beak as soon when she sees you've back has turned. I'm not sure if anyone has ever seen a conure strut, but believe me it's a sight to behold. But if you approach, she immediately backs away. If you approach too closely, she might bite or she might try to climb the curtains (her cage is against them). But if you walk away, she'll start strutting for attention again and position herself nearest to you from her cage-top. So today I played a little game in patience and whenever she stepped forward, I stepped forward. Whenever she stepped back, I stepped back. While amusing for the both of us, this actually didn't accomplish what I intended it to in that she never stepped up.

I'm averse to using food-rewards because I don't want our relationship founded just on bribery. And sometimes she does step-up without food, so I don't want her to think she'll ONLY come out if there's food involved. It's clear this is a form of attention-seeking, since she gets a lot of my attention from these little games while I try to get her off the top of the cage. I'm just not sure how to proceed without invariably making it about attention, since it's clear it will take patience and she won't do it on my time-scale. I need to somehow make it positive attention. Trick training from the top of her cage, maybe ?

On a few occasions, when I have walked away and let her be for an hour, she's actually flown off the cage and landed on my hands because I wasn't playing right LOL. She doesn't quite have control over her flight yet, otherwise that'd be a nice solution.

Anyways I'd appreciate some thoughts on this bratty conure

sounds like Kermit has hit puberty and is trying to get a bit higher on the pecking order

unfortunately when you're leaving you're telling Kermit that if they want you to go away they need to bite. The thing to do when they bite is absolutely nothing. I got a nasty bite from mine the other day where he clamped on to my finger and I just froze when he did, it hurt like hell but he eventually got the idea that nothing was being accomplished

When you say she's strutting for attention it sounds to me like that could be territory strutting in effect saying "this is mine go away" which would make sense with hormones and age

this is the phase that I have heard about a lot where they do become little brats but you just need to enforce stepping up with some laddering, (going from one finger/perch to another over and over again) I normally say 5 or 6 step ups then they get a treat be it scratches or food

Puberty? Really ? I was under the impression GCC's hit puberty closer to the 2 year mark. If this is puberty, then I'd be pleased this is the worst of it (though I expect wwII to unleash itself in the next year LOL).

Her strutting seemed more attention getting to me. She does it sometimes on her playstand too, and usually hops right on over to my offered finger. I'll have to observe which it is.

I did rearrange her cage and I've noticed she responds a lot better to stepping up if we start with a trick Her favorite (only trick) is playing 'kisses'. If I can get her to play, then she'll usually come right over. I'll have to try some 'laddering' too. I'm wary of using food for her to do tricks she's very strong in doing normally, and don't want her to ONLY do them with food, but laddering does make her work for her dinner so this is a good alternative.

Well... I'll tell my tale...
I have reduced biting to almost zero over the decades... not because I've changed the bird, but I have changed me. And a lot of that has involved giving up on a lot of my desires/expectations. After years of battle, I surrendered. I don't do stuff that gets me bitten. I don't scratch his head much, ever... tail is okay. I NEVER do stuff that makes him mad... I don't touch others when he's out; I rarely try to get him to step up onto my hand first. Hand-held perch first, then hand. In some ways, I swallow my disappointment at having such a little monster for a pet, but he is what he is. I ALWAYS wear my hair down when he's on my shoulder, so all he can bite is hair. Really, I don't involve hands much... he doesn't like them. He seems to think the real ME is my head, perched on a weird moveable tree with questionable appendages.
Since he's fully flighted, the ONLY way I get him into the cage is to toss a chile pepper in and he flaps in after it. So food reward is a necessity for me.
But please... listen to and try all the good advice you'll get here. Don't surrender until you know you've done your best. Then just accept and love whatever/whoever your bird turns out to be.
My darling is kind of a worse-case scenario, but we have it all worked out between the two of us.
Very, very best of luck to you.
Good for you for reaching out!

The common misconception behind treay reward training is that they Will only want the food. This is not true.

I suggest you look up some clicker training articles and get acquainted with what it really is.

I'll put some more research into it, thanks. Animal behavior is not something I've formally researched into and based more on my experiences with training dogs, but dogs are a bit more forgiving of mistakes x)

I did try to teach Kermit with the clicker, but unfortunately while the bird was very quick to understand it, the human is not very coordinated... I've instead been using the word 'thank you' or good girl when she does a trick right.