About angry 7 year old?

[Sofaschoice]

Her temper tantrums and violence are causing issues with her younger siblings. She is being very violent towards me. I want to find a way to parent her and her siblings at the same time. I feel like I have to choose between them and keep them separate as much as possible to keep them all safe, and I always get caught the worst. We are waiting for therapy but all on hold due to covid. This started after we left ex, who was abusive. Kids have NC.

Any advice would be great.

What is triggering her outbursts?

How do you respond? Does she have somewhere quiet she can go to calm that is her own space?

I have no idea what is triggering her outbursts. Usually just me telling her No is enough, even if it's for something she was never going to get (like going to the beach at midnight, or me buying her a horse!) so it's like a set up where she wants to hurt me and just wants me to give her an excuse IYSWIM

She shares a bedroom but has her own space and really her younger sibling just sleeps in there or goes in to play with her.

I try to be calm etc, but I also have to get in the way of her hurting her younger siblings and she also attacks me. At the point that I am physically hurt I usually shout and then cry. It's rubbish, but I don't respond well to being hurt repeatedly (does anyone?)

I had a child like that at that age and asked health visitor for advice and got some guidance on anger management and de escalating etc. DD now 17 and I am pretty sure she has undiagnosed ADD. Always had suspicions and she declined assessment but she has really found lockdown difficult and done no college work at all and lots of anger. However, my DD has not had an emotional stress of the magnitude of parents splitting and domestic violence so I guess there could also be some trauma there.

Yeah she's had initial assessments done they said it's trauma not autism or AD(H)D or related disorders, but since then all the advice I've had has contradicted each other and basically just been told to wait it out. But, I can't just wait for this to pass if there is a risk of injuries and it's causing her younger siblings to get re-traumatised/traumatised.

I just feel stuck between a rock and a hard place.

If your DD has spent her early years in an abusive environment then she has probably experienced a degree of trauma. You might want to look at therapeutic parenting approaches. Here's a starting point:
www.goodtoknow.co.uk/family/therapeutic-parenting-what-it-is-and-how-it-can-help-you-and-your-child-421087

Dan Hughes and Sarah Naish are 2 names to Google for further info, and both have material on youtube

Not sure I have much advice, but wanted to say, it does end. My DS experienced trauma related anger and aggression, so much so that DD was so scared she called the police once. He was 3 when we left exh and he's 11 now.

It was a terrible time and I felt like the worst mother in the world; so just wanted to say, you are not alone and it will end.

Thank you. I'm just not sure how to keep everyone safe and not cause the younger ones to become increasingly stressed etc. It's like they copy her bad behaviour so then they are all like it and I am only one person. I can't be everywhere all of the time.