Was violent today - how to improve child’s behaviour?

[Shitmum101]

My DD is only 5 but she can be awful, pushing and hitting the baby, ripping up paperwork, drawing on the walls, screaming, spitting etc today I had enough. I’ve tried giving masses of attention, naughty steps, taking toys away, prize at the end of the week, sticker charts, alone time. Literally nothing is improving her behaviour.

Today I lost it when she pulled her baby up by its leg and bent his neck backwards while laughing that he was a naughty boy. I grabbed her and threw her in the bathroom quite aggressively and locked the door and walked away for 5 mins. She kept screaming that I hurt her and I feel awful but I don’t know what to do. I’m such a terrible mum.

Please how can I improve this?

Losing your temper is one thing, being so rough with your child is unacceptable. Is it the attention she is craving? Is this since you had the baby?

I thinknOP is aware it’s unacceptable and is by the sounds of it under a lot of stress and worry. That comment was unhelpful.

How is she at school?

You have already taken the first step by acknowledging you were wrong to do that and asking for help. Your daughter's behaviour could be interpreted as already copying how you parent her.
Contacting the school nurse / family support person would be a good first step. They can signpost to all kinds of support. Don't be afraid if parenting courses, when run well they can be really useful to help reflect on what is happening.

She’s good as gold at school. I’ve made hints to her teacher about how she is at home and the teacher just always says what a ‘superstar’ she is.
It is since I had the baby. He was very poorly when born so we did stay in hospital for a month and I didn’t see her as much as I should’ve in this time and I think it stemmed from there. I just kept thinking it’ll get better but it’s been nearly a year now!
I know my behaviour was unacceptable but I snapped. I’ve never done anything like that before but then I’ve never feared for the baby from her in the same way before so I honestly don’t know how I’d react if she did something like that again.
I don’t really want to go the school/social worker route as we are already on their radar due to previous domestic violence (pre DD so I’m 100% sure it’s nothing to do with that that’s causing it)

As a parent before the PC world hit, I know that young children can drive you frankly insane. I had a lot of young mothers as friends and it was something we discussed from time to time.
The first thing to say is that it's not abnormal. It happens often and we should admit it. How else to try to overcome it than admitting it exists with a fair number of mothers . You are not a bad mother for having those feelings when pushed. I know it's PC to often censure those that feel like that - it's shows off our right on credentials - but the truth is it's not unusual.

How to deal with it is more difficult. Obviously we shouldn't use any form of violence against the child. On the few occasions it happened to me, when my OH came home I thrust the offender into his arms and said 'you take care of him/her while I take a walk round the garden to cool off'. Having cooled off there is a terrible feeling of guilt at the anger that I had had. It was usually at that point that I was able to calmly sit down and think about how I could have handled it differently and why the offender behaved as he/she did.
The bottom line of what I wanted to say is that many mothers have these feelings at one time or another. That does not make you a bad mother - acting on them would though.
I often thought how difficult it would be for a single parent with nobody to help take some of the pressure off.

When my sister was a born, apparently I rebelled by scribbling all over the school exams that my mum was marking, and a few walls too.

If she's a superstar at school, it does sound like the issue is the baby. And even if it's been a year, if you spent a while in hospital and there was a lot of stress surrounding this, this might explain the length of time it's going on for. At that age, she will have picked up on the additional stress.

If the school won't help, can you talk to the HV? Are there any books on the topic to read with your daughter? Do you have a partner? Are you making sure that your daughter still has times when she has your undivided attention?

As for throwing her into her room, you know that was wrong. So in addition, you need to consider how you're going to keep yourself calm for the remainder of the time she's a pain in the backside.