What’s going on with my 5 year old?

[TheBareTree]

My (just turned) 5 year old was adopted at 7 months. We’ve never had real any problems until they started reception in September. There were a few hitting incidents in nursery but they described this as typical of the age.

Since starting school my LO has develop an incredibly short temper and blows up and shouts at the slightest thing. She has also hit several times in school and pushing seems to be a reasonably frequent occurrence. She is overly emotional all the time and seems to cry at the drop of a hat. We’ve also noticed her being very tired. School have said they aren’t overly concerned and most things are age-appropriate. They have noticed that she tends to be very dominant with friends and prefers to just have one friend to play with at a time and wants all their attention. I think a lot of the lashing out is linked to feeling jealous/being threatened when other children come along and so she fears losing the attention the other person is giving her. That said, she’s tending to shout at the slightest thin now so it’s not just that.
She is clever, friendly, sociable and can be extremely kind. However, I can see meanness creeping in and her oldest friend seems to be bearing the brunt of this. I’m worried how her temper is going to affect her friendships.

We talk a lot about feelings, strategies for dealing with them etc but I’m really at a loss as to how to work on emotional regulation and impose control. I know so much of this is common with adopted kids.

Any suggestions?

She sounds overwhelmed, school can be incredibly hard for our kids - so much stimulation, structure and so many expectations about behaviour and that’s before you get to the learning part. Starting school can really highlight gaps in social, emotional and cognitive development that weren’t apparent previously.

Firstly, trying to impose control is a recipe for disaster, the very nature of dysregulation means she doesn’t have control in the moment, so you trying to impose control will set you on a collision course with her. I’d be working with the school exploring what her day is like, are there regular trigger points for her? Kids with an early trauma history often find transitions very difficult so think about arriving at school, moving into the class room, settling down to work, transitions to break time/lunch time etc. Visual timetables and now, next and then boards can be really helpful because they remove uncertainty which in turn reduces overall stress which is what you want to do for her. What understanding does the school have of the impact of developmental trauma on children, if they have a decent understanding it’ll help because they’ll be open to working with you.

Think too about your pre and post school routine, try to build in time for her to decompress and don’t rush off to other activities, shopping etc. We came straight home from school to a snack (milk and banana, not sugar) for years, some colouring or quiet play or story time for years. Also look at her sleep, my DS needed a clear 12 hours sleep in primary 1, sometimes by the end of the week he was falling asleep into his dinner. While home routine might not seem related to school, it’s all interlinked, if you reduce uncertainty and create solid routine and keep her world outside of school quite small, she’ll have more capacity to cope with the demands of school, fears about friends etc.

Can she tell you how she’s feeling, can you use story books or social stories to help her make sense of how she feels in the school day? Anything you can do that helps emotional literacy will also help her self regulate, so talking about how you’re feeling (tired, worried, sad etc) will help model that as will looking at story books and helping her think about how the characters in the book might be feeling and asking her if she’s ever felt that way.

There are so many things you can do to support her, but look across the whole of her week, not just what’s happening at school.

Thanks so much @Jellycatspyjamas. I really appreciate your post.

There was an unfortunate typo in my original post where I said I wanted to working on imposing control. I actually meant work on her ‘impulse control’. Sorry about that!

You asked if she can tell me how she’s feeling. She does recognise when she’s feeling sad, grumpy or angry and can tell me this. What she can’t do is talk about why she’s feeling that way. I suppose this is natural at this age and it’s is a general feeling of being overwhelmed, she might not recognise a specific trigger or source for her anger.

Our lives are very routine driven and we don’t do anything after school. What I am guilty of though, is packing away with questions about the day when she gets in and I need to stop that. I’m often desperate to hear if it’s been a ‘good day’ but it’s not helpful for her.

The school have been mixed so far. Her teachers have a job share and they both have a very different approach to teaching. One is more gentle and nurturing, the other is much stricter. I think my daughter struggles with the latter and probably with the change in atmosphere between the start and end of the week. I think both teachers are good in their own way, and are committed, but I’m not sure if they have sufficient time or knowledge to know how to work with her. That’s not a criticism of them, but the lack of training they will have had.

I was thinking of applying to the adoption support fund for help but I’m not sure if they will consider as eligible as school aren’t flagging significant problems at this stage (though this may change).

Does anyone have any experience of this?

I would echo what Jelly has said.
My DD was exhausted by school, so much stimulation and transitions etc. She never (and I mean never all the way through secondary too) really coped with after school activities (bar swimming lessons).

At the moment I'd email the school flagging up your concerns just to have it in writing. Maybe a discussion on how they are using her enhanced pupil premium? Would she benefit from 'quiet time' for some of lunch breaks rather than the chaos of the playground?

Definitely drop the questions after school. Give her recovery time, and then maybe later ask 1 thing like

• did you sit with anyone at lunch
• did anything funny happen today
• did you enjoy the story today

I did wonder @TheBareTree because the rest of your post suggested you’re attuned to her so impulse control makes much more sense.

She may have no idea what triggers her, very often with trauma triggers are so subconscious it’s very difficult for the person to know what’s caused it, or even that they are triggered. Instead work with her on knowing how to tell she’s struggling or overwhelmed - I find that modelling and naming feelings works well with that because it puts names to big feelings. Observe her reactions to things and tell her eg “when you threw the toy you looked X to me, what do you think?”, or if she’s telling you about something at school “when you say that/did that it sounds like you felt Y?”. Always with a question mark but helping her link feelings to actions will be useful.

When my kids were overwhelmed instead of asking about their day, at dinner we’d all have a “good bits/bad bits” conversation where everyone said what went well today and what didn’t go well and how that felt. It stopped me asking a million questions, got them to identify good bits and we could talk about how one bad bit doesn’t mean the whole day was bad - my DS catastrophises something terrible. You could also try a gratitude journal type thing to help her reflect on her day which again builds capacity.

We used to have a 3 stars and a wish book from school. Every day they wrote 3 things that had gone well and 1 thing that hadn't. So we'd sit down after school, look at the book together, praise the 3 good things and "wonder" what happened as to why the wish was there. Good things were like lining up nicely, listening at storytime etc and the wish was the negative, like "I wish you had used kind hands instead of hurting so and so".
We always started with the wish so finished on the positives. Would school do this for you? Also meant we weren't bombarding them with questions!

You could be describing much of my LO except any violence is directed towards her younger sibling when she gets home.

Although we don't have a diagnosis, it's clear she has lots of sensory issues going on. There is also constant hyper vigilance which is combined in an instinctive distrust of adults to look after her. Tiredness is a big problem. We desperately want her to do a couple of after school activities like learning to swim but think it would be too much.

I agree with others. Maybe ask the school if they could build in some sensory breaks.

Perhaps also talk about feelings in the third person e.g. using a puppet or cuddly toy. My youngest found it easier to have these discussions when the focus wasn’t on her.

Just on Adoption Support Fund, you don’t need to have school flagging problems in order to apply. My five year old DD is a dream in school - she saves it ALL up for me when she gets home . We applied for ASF funding and we’re granted it no problem. Happy to answer more questions about it.

*were granted it

Hi op your LO sounds incredibly similar to my DD in terms of her behaviours at school. Things that have helped my DD: having a calm pack of stuff to bring to school in a box to play with photos and fiddle toys, bringing in transitional objects like toys, being able to do a bit of water play and colouring during breaks, talking about parts, staff using pace, being given helping tasks to do in school, having a key person to go to if she is feeling wobbly, having a meet and greet in the morning with key person to help settle into the day, staff being able to recognise anticipate and hopefully head off dysregulation behaviours.
In my experience sencos always downplay and fob you off so I get all the above in the PEP plan and put everything in writing and just keep reminding them.
My DD has only just been able to start 1 per week art club after school and she is year 4, we may put her in a Saturday activity in the summer and see if she can cope with that.

Our lives are very routine driven and we don’t do anything after school if you incorporate a long walk (ie 2 or 3 hours) every weekend you may well see a dramatic improvement in emotional regulation and impulse control and confidence after a few months. Something as simple as this really can make a huge difference in relation to how the brain reacts to things over time, according to neuroscience.

During the walk or after she may well talk more about things on her mind which is really good too as she needs to be heard and understood. What I am guilty of though, is packing away with questions about the day when she gets in and I need to stop that Asking open questions and easy questions straight after school is in fact the perfect time as far as I know as it will be in her mind, it will help her know you have been thinking of her and it will start up a habit which is going to be useful right through up to tweens. You might not get full answers every time and sometimes she might muse over it and bring it up again at bedtime or at some point when she is relaxed. In relation to I’m often desperate to hear if it’s been a ‘good day’ but it’s not helpful for her you could reframe this as “She will probably have had a bad day and if I find out what went wrong I can help her with it and what went right I can celebrate it”. By expecting disasters you are more likely to be in the right frame of mind for helping her with with strategies and to be positive about the future.

Talking about social things really helps too - They have noticed that she tends to be very dominant with friends ....I can see meanness creeping in Like you say, the meanness is likely to do with how she feels about herself and the talking about feelings you do is great. Talking about social rules really helps too, and this is a good book which talks about rules for making friends and behaving in a way which makes friendships last. It is great for reading over and over again.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvL4clmNQXQ

At home does she have free access all the time to an A4 block of printer paper and felt tips or drawing things which she can stop or start without limit and without input from you? If not it is worth trying, and what she draws might give you insights!

I think that if you can start her at this age with an after school sport activity which involves running around such as football or tennis or judo or gym which has a relaxed culture to it – ie not training for the next olympics - then that will in fact be a positive thing, for letting off steam, building friendships skills as well as slowly learning a new skill which will something which gives confidence and pleasure later on. Many aimed at this stage won't be overwhelming once she has gotten used to it.

This book looks good too:

"Gilly the Giraffe Learns to Love Herself: A Story About Self-Esteem (Dr. Treisman's Big Feelings Stories)"

I found it today on Amazon and it looks as though it is part of a new series written by a clinical psychologist with adopted children in mind. There are reviews on youtube which refer to various activities in the book which you can do with your dc too

The suggestion by @daf28to78 to take long walks is a good idea. I used to work in children's homes and found that children were reluctant to exercise and taking a walk seemed almost like a punishment. However pokemon go was a life saver! We would walk the streets for hours collecting up imaginary creatures. It was great for exercise, building up a shared interest and controlled/ supervised screen time. If we were out for hours we'd always stop off for a drink which gave us time to talk about more serious matters but then dip back in to the game when things were getting a bit intense. It's not for everyone but it's so easy to go up levels and isn't a challenging game so there's always the feel good factor of winning. Bonus is the children didn't even notice they were exercising.

In relation to questioning her about her day, I read an article once which suggested talking to your child about your day instead of asking about theirs. The idea is that you model the conversation e.g. this morning I did some washing which was quite boring but I was pleased that I’d finished it etc. I tried it with my 2 and it actually worked and now they will often respond with how their day has been.