Am I dealing with this ok??

[houselikeashed]

Dd age nearly 9. She has v quick mood swings and violent rages.
Bed time is a regular trigger. Tonight, at 8pm - a pre agreed time - she switched the TV off, un buttoned her school dress and walked towards the living room door. However, before she made it to the door, her mood flicked, and she was in a temper.
I can remain calm whilst being shouted at and spat at, and can avoid most missiles and kicks now.
What am I supposed to do???
She is currently under assessment for ADHD, poss Aspergers, but I think PDA.
Am feeling at my wits end.

[alwaysrushing]

Oh poor you. At least she's under assessment and in the meantime keep sticking to pre agreed boundaries, keep calm, and keep dodging the bullets. Keep on buggering on basically. Sounds like you're doing all the right things- easy in theory- bloody hard in practice!!

[Ineedmorepatience]

What does she do if you walk away house? When Dd3 who has Asd becomes shouty or aggressive I walk away from her and tell her I will speak to her when she is calm.

We dont tend to use punishments as such because they just inflame situations but I do use a red and yellow card system like footballers to let her know that she is behaving in a way I dont like.

We have loads of demand avoidant behavior here, I try to give as much warning as possible when I am going to make a demand on Dd3 especially if I know it is something she doesnt like doing. I might be wrong to that, it does lead to alot of moaning but we dont have the massive meltdowns anymore so it works for us.

Good luck

[alita7]

Dsd (10) can be like this. she can be told to do something and she will 9/ 10 moan a bit and may argue/ protest but do it. about 1-2% of the time she will sit there and shout no repeatedly (usually when she's told to go to her room or sit on the naughty step as she's already been naughty) she will scream and cry and no amount of reasoning, shouting or threats of punishment can stop this. She will eventually stop if you get up and walk away (though sometimes she will try and block you in) and then she hates it as she's not done so eventually she will sort herself out. What worries me though is that she will learn that this behaviour will get her out of doing what she's told so you have to make sure that you stick to your guns later on when they've calmed down.
Dsd this morning didn't want a plait she wanted her hair loose. I explained that a plait helps stop nit s getting in and that as it's the first week of school she needs a plait abd she kept just saying but I want it loose and was unable to process the rationale reason and kept trying to I pull her head away (which was obviously hurting)... but the problem is that when she wants something she is unable to open up to reason, because no matter what she still wants it. Maybe your dd is similar, it makes things really hard because there's not much you can do, it's really hard to change their minds. I have even resorted to just saying well tough I want x... which actually I think she can cope with better sometimes.

[alita7]

sorry that meant to say 9 out of 10 times and them 1- 2 out of 10 times.

[alita7]

sorry just thought I hadn't explained brilliantly in order to prevent a learned get out of doing things behaviour (especially as she has started to begin to act like she's going to get like this while doing things like homework), when she has understood that I am ignoring her/ am not coming out of my room, she will go to her room as told, I will go back to the living room and she will come out after 10 mins say sorry and hug. But if the initial problem was she wouldn't eat he'd veg then she will be told she has a choice, she can either eat them all as asked or eat half and have to do something for me depending on the circumstances. That way she still has to do as she is told and she gets some control over it to prevent another argument.

[houselikeashed]

Thanks everyone. It is so tiring.
If I walk away, she will just follow me.
I am very sure to point out that she has gained nothing from her behaviour afterwards. She knows this though.
And she doesn't like her behaviour any more than I do.
Anyway. Life goes on. Dh is out at work in the evenings so I'm usually on my own. I just need to know there's others out there sometimes. Feeling down.

[houselikeashed]

I found the explosive child really helpful. I make sure I use Plan B as much as possible.