Dd screams for hours if she doesn't get her own way

I recently saw a clip of Super Nanny where she was dealing with a very similar little girl. The family were desperate.

Second this!

I am ND and after being at my wits end with my youngest after feeling accomplished with my older two I was lost.

Aside from awaiting the results of her ASD assessment, I have hammered down on choices. My SIL is an ABA and provided some much needed help recently. Even basic choices ‘are you hungry? Yes or no?’ Allow the brain to process so much easier, so closed questions/choices. Open questions are so hard and consequences hard to fathom. As an example for your situation (but too far ahead for just starting out with ‘choices’)

‘this is your cheese, would you like to put it on yourself? Yes or no?’

’I hear you want more cheese but you’ve run out, when you can respond calmly/quietly we can talk about more cheese’

’do you want friend to come on Saturday? Yes or no?’

’we need to make sure we use our calm/quiet voice to talk to eachother’

’when you have had enough to eat of your meal then we can talk about friend coming over’

It’s really hard but you’re going to have to put in some hard work that will be tiring and you’ll likely lose sleep and feel like you’re getting nowhere, but with consistency and integrating tools like this you will improve the chances of reducing the emotional distress she is experiencing as well as your own.

You CAN do it and it is in hers and your best interests to be consistent ♥️

I'm not sure it's a good idea to give this advice to OP. It's best just to be clear with a child who has got used to getting their own way, so that they know that when you say No you mean No. At least until they have stopped having tantrums. You're just blurring boundaries if you say no to some things and yes to others. OP's DD has to learn that OP is boss - end of.

DD managed five hours screaming once I sat and read a book when she saw it wasn't working she tried ripping my book out of my hands so I stood up and continued to read so she screamed and howled and raged and I read she even asked for a drink halfway through which I gave her and she then began again 🤷‍♀️ at one point I took my book out in the garden she followed screaming banging her head off the grass the neighbours were fascinated how long she lasted ultimately she stopped but that was her longest episode she was also three by six I would expect better

Honestly I'd just stop serving that as a meal for a while and make a different dish. Early bedtime drink and snack is normal. Something a little carby with a little protein - banana or apple and peanut butter or biscuit and yoghurt. No toy or phone, book only.

What are you afraid of, of let's say if she screams at you, for you to be stern and have enough strict, angry and you mean it business looks on your face, telling her to stop and come down to earth and that life does not work that way?!!!

Have you had a doctor check her for ND, OP?

A lot of behavioural problems from kids get blamed on parents not being strict enough, and it’s often not true and further damage is done by escalating strictness. Sounds like this little girl is really struggling to manage her emotions.
Have you read the explosive Child OP?

It's no use having a consequence that's several days away. It has to be a here and now consequence, and you have to weather the fall out.

She won't eat any more unless you put cheese on? You tell her they're is no more cheese, and there's no alternative to the food on her plate. If she doesn't eat it, then it goes in the bin and there's nothing else. It's harsh, but it's got to the point where you have no alternative to being harsh AND FOLLOWING THROUGH WITH IT. She's got away with this for so long, you've left yourself with no other strategy.

As someone else said, tag team so you each get a break, but with the commitment that whoever is 'on' doesn't give in.

Agree with all the other PP - you know what you need to do, even if you are knackered.

If it’s of use, a phrase I’ve found really helpful is ‘you need to be able to trust what I say’. Sometimes my four-year-old understands that, and sometimes he doesn’t, but it always helps me to say it.

It reminds me that my job is not to make him happy, it’s to provide a safe and secure place for him to test boundaries, learn and grow, and that the one thing he needs from me is sincerity, to know that I’m telling the truth and not misleading him. So in our house, we say yes a lot if we can, give choices to help frame decisions and then when we say no, we mean no.

And if that sounds a bit worthy and Pollyanna, I’ll be honest and say that sometimes I just yell ENOUGH and go to a different room to calm down.

They adapt really quickly to it, I don’t think this will be as tough as it might appear. I reckon you’ve got a week of hard work, then it’ll be done.

This is really good advice. Stay super calm. Don’t escalate. She needs you to be calm and strong, not meet anger with anger.

I read your post and felt similarities between your child and my own (aged 4). He likes to have control of situations and whilst he is frequently told no and that boundary is firmly held it’s not as easy as putting him in his room to scream for hours. Like you we have other children to consider, he becomes physically aggressive; hits, kicks, and bites and very destructive, will trash his bedroom, has broken door handles, pulled down curtain poles etc and we are in a rented property so cannot allow for continual damage to be made.

It is exhausting, small things (I relate to your cheese example well) can cause these outbursts and they spiral so quickly. I do suspect ND with my child and I’m hoping school will support us with this. However I am not sure how much of this behaviour they will see. He is also a lovely, polite and very bright boy.

Sorry I’ve started rambling, but I just wanted to acknowledge it’s not as easy as putting a child in a room to scream for hours on end. If you don’t have a child that is like this it can be hard for others to comprehend the severity of it.

Earplugs and calmly stand your ground.

Leave the room if she makes it too unpleasant to stay, and tell her why you need to leave the room.

As soon as she knows it's not effective she'll stop. It will get worse for a few days though 😩

Personally I wouldn’t get into a power struggle about cheese. Why is that a hard no?

Have you tried giving her more responsibility? Eg drawing up, together, not at bedtime, a schedule for getting ready. Mine loves reverse psychology so I’d say “no, there’s no way you can do all of that! In the 30 mins before bed? No, we’ll need to start getting ready at lunchtime! Ok, if you really think you can do it you have to be in charge of it and you can prove me wrong…” Then it’s you and her against the schedule, rather than her against you.

She has learned Screaming works

Bin the sticker chart...You need a hard reset as described above if you want to see a change in behaviour. Look for solutions to make that happen not excuses as to why you cant.
Put her in the dining room /hallway/ your bedroom /on a specific chair / wherever

If you keep half arseing it this will continue/escalate.

You cannot have the friend over now.

Say what you mean and mean what you say.

Right now your dd is in charge and she considers your parenting a "light suggestion"

As hard as it is to hear... you and your dh ate failing her by bromg so permissive and inconsistent

This is a monster you have created. Your daughter behaves this way because it works, and she will act like this every single time because she knows you and your husband have no backbone and have lost control.

You had best turn this around before your daughter permanently becomes an absolute nightmare.

She’s learnt that they are empty threats. She won’t ever stop unless you stop giving in. It’s going to be tough resetting but it will get a whole lot worse if you don’t impose some boundaries now.

My DD at a similar age was a ball of rage at times. She's always been stubborn and wilful (exactly like me). I'd ended up getting into negotiations with her, she'd lose something for bad behaviour, apologise, earn it back. Etc. I finally drew a line and the meltdown was epic.

The only way to fix this is through it. I had to channel an inner calm that I really didn't think I had. I gave myself a gold star for not throwing her out of the nearest window (only half joking) and prepared for a battle.
It took a while, and I occasionally slipped back into old habits, but I realise my DD needs massively firm boundaries. We got through the raging tantrums in about 3 days. I didn't budge on any of it. Calm, repeating yourself and not raising your voice at any of the screaming will drive her insane and make her ramp up, she wants a response from you, cutting it dead will infuriate her. Don't keep escalating consequences, otherwise there is no where for her to go. (Ie start with friend not coming over - absolutely fine, three hours later, she's never ever seeing her friends until she 21, not reasonable and you have to go back on). If you do it, and then stick to it, it will be worth it. At the moment she gets what she wants by doing something specific, you always back down. You have to go on it further than she's prepared to.

My DD now 11, sometimes still a moose, and sometimes I'm snappy. But she knows the boundaries and even when she strides over them, knows the consequences will stick regardless. And just accepts it. Our life is much calmer for it. And she's actually happier.

What’s she like more generally? Has she always been demanding? Do have school have any concerns?

Screaming tantrums is behaviour most 6 year olds have outgrown. To know if there is anything more to it than not hearing no enough, you need a good few weeks of not giving in to screaming demands. Assess how she is when firm boundaries have been implemented. Some (lots) of DC thrive on firm boundaries even if it pisses them off in the short term. For a small minority of children, loss of autonomy makes their dysregulation worse. You will only know when you try.

We went through a phase of 3-4 hours worth of screaming every day with my DD last summer. It was hell but we didn’t give in. I found that once she was in a state, everything we said made her more angry so the only way to de-escalate was to put her in her room until she started to calm down. We didn’t get angry when we did it, but stayed very calm and quiet. She still gets angry but we don’t get those rages and protracted screaming fits anymore. You have to ride it out - it takes ages and it’s not easy.

She doesn't have anger or hatred in her- she's begging you to give her boundaries. Children need boundaries and love in order to be grow up into secure adults. She might be screaming for one thing but every time you give in you're making her world more insecure.

By 6, it’s going to be a very hard slog to re-enforce that no means no. My strong willed one needed this re-enforcement from 2 and understood quickly that what we said, went and that any push-back would absolutely not have resulted in their own way. They still tried!

However, are there definitely no ND issues at play? A sibling just couldn’t understand “no” its meaning and consequences. They are now in their late 30’s with some ND diagnoses.

Put her in her room and leave her to it, every single time she screams. Don’t fight about food. If she eats the cheese off the top and won’t eat anymore unless she gets more, you scrape her plate and she is hungry. Crying or being hungry for one night will not hurt her, allowing her so much power really will.
My elder sister did this for a while, it was exhausting for everyone.

Worse than pointless- every time they do this they reaffirm that the screaming has a favourable outcome for her.