Am I a bully to my DD?

[DoIBully]

Age 7, Year 3.

She gets tired at school and when she gets tired she has absolutely awful meltdown /tantrums (Not sure which is the right way to describe it) where she refuses to walk, ends up hitting me, kicking me etc.

If these happen at home I can easily walk away to another room, leave her to calm down and then love bomb her until bedtime once she’s calm.

It’s just me and her (and our pet) at home.

Since going back to school she’s been having these meltdowns/tantrums right outside the school gates, more or less as soon as I’ve got her through the gates. Not only is it embarrassing to have my 7 year old hitting me in front of the HT, it’s quite dangerous as I can’t easily and safely carry her plus backpack plus library bag/art folder/lunchbox home and I am worried she’ll hit or hurt one of the smaller children (school starts at age 3). She just goes into a rage and doesn’t know what she’s doing - the HT described her like that when she’s witnessed DD like this, she says it’s not DD and she doesn’t recognise that behaviour from her normally – shes generally pretty chilled out even with me.

Tonight and Friday night we played a new game, the silent game. Apart from blinking, breathing and the sound of our footsteps, no noise from our body was allowed. Whoever managed it got a biscuit at home. Obviously I didn’t actually punish for her talking/walking/laughing. But it did help to focus her and it worked! DD managed to “hold in” the rage until we got home where she could safely let out her emotions and we could then settle down for a nice evening together – we live half a mile from school so this was for about 15-20 minutes if that.

A family member of mine has said that doing this is bullying my DD and they’re surprised the HT hasn’t stepped in to stop me from playing this with DD.

Am I honestly harming her or bullying her? She gets plenty of attention after the meltdown/tantrum has passed, we’ll do her homework together, read her school book, play a board game, as well as eat, and we always have a cuddle in bed before she goes to sleep.

AIBU or is the family member right?

Age 7, Year 3.

She gets tired at school and when she gets tired she has absolutely awful meltdown /tantrums (Not sure which is the right way to describe it) where she refuses to walk, ends up hitting me, kicking me etc.

If these happen at home I can easily walk away to another room, leave her to calm down and then love bomb her until bedtime once she’s calm.

It’s just me and her (and our pet) at home.

Since going back to school she’s been having these meltdowns/tantrums right outside the school gates, more or less as soon as I’ve got her through the gates. Not only is it embarrassing to have my 7 year old hitting me in front of the HT, it’s quite dangerous as I can’t easily and safely carry her plus backpack plus library bag/art folder/lunchbox home and I am worried she’ll hit or hurt one of the smaller children (school starts at age 3). She just goes into a rage and doesn’t know what she’s doing - the HT described her like that when she’s witnessed DD like this, she says it’s not DD and she doesn’t recognise that behaviour from her normally – shes generally pretty chilled out even with me.

Tonight and Friday night we played a new game, the silent game. Apart from blinking, breathing and the sound of our footsteps, no noise from our body was allowed. Whoever managed it got a biscuit at home. Obviously I didn’t actually punish for her talking/walking/laughing. But it did help to focus her and it worked! DD managed to “hold in” the rage until we got home where she could safely let out her emotions and we could then settle down for a nice evening together – we live half a mile from school so this was for about 15-20 minutes if that.

A family member of mine has said that doing this is bullying my DD and they’re surprised the HT hasn’t stepped in to stop me from playing this with DD.

Am I honestly harming her or bullying her? She gets plenty of attention after the meltdown/tantrum has passed, we’ll do her homework together, read her school book, play a board game, as well as eat, and we always have a cuddle in bed before she goes to sleep.

AIBU or is the family member right?

Heyyy if it works for you! I’d love to know what you’re family member suggests otherwise? Send them for collection.

It sounds like she’s very overwhelmed, (with good emotions too if she loves school!) so helping her control her emotions while you walk and having her safe space to offload is surely a good thing?

It sounds like a great idea to me. Your relative has a very strange idea of what bullying is!

Take a drink and a snack for them and give it as soon as you see them after school. Cuts down afterschool tantrums quite a lot

Sounds ingenious!

I don't understand how both of you playing a very calm game could be described as bullying?!

Gagging her and marching her home with her arm twisted behind her back, or shouting at her continuously, that would be bullying.

Is she hangry?

My two can be difficult after school because it's a long time since lunch (especially if they have after school clubs too) and there's no afternoon break. Arriving with a healthy snack can really help a lot.

I have autistic twins - one girl, one boy. My son was diagnosed when he was 4, my daughter wasn't diagnosed until age 10 - and even then it was only because I went to the SENCO with a long list of concerns. For years I was told she was "fine". Similar to your DD, had friends at school, enjoyed going, enjoyed lessons - but found it tiring. In autism, the sensory overload can be very hard to regulate and processing also takes a lot more work. That's why school feels exhausting for many autistic kids.

Your DD might not be autistic. She might have a sensory processing difficulty. She might be entirely neurotypical and this could be just a phase. But I have to say there are more than a few hints there - difficulties with the transitions, getting exhausted, slow eating, difficulty walking and eating at the same time, outbursts, masking. Google autism in girls and as other PP have said, just keep it in mind. Believe me when I say you can't trust teachers etc to spot it especially in girls - no disrespect to teachers but they don't have the time to get past the masking behaviours and many of them don't have the expertise/training in autism that they'd need to spot it. It can even be difficult for GPs and general paediatricians to spot autism in girls.

As I say, it absolutely might just be a normal developmental phase your DD is going through but just keep it in mind.

@HotPenguin

Hi my son is just like this. He is on the autistic spectrum and basically he holds it all together at school then when he sees me all the emotion comes out. It is difficult but your headteacher should have seen this before and should know that your DD is "decompressing". I'm not saying your DD is autistic but it does suggest she finds school challenging.

I don't think your game is mean as you aren't forcing her or punishing, and if it is physically difficult to get her home it sounds sensible. I would suggest you should also try to work out what is causing this build up of emotion at school.

It is very similar with my son.

OP, we have a 15-20min walk home as well, and I have done the «silence game» on occasions as I noticed meltdowns often happen then, whereas if we manage go home and start an activity the rest of the day goes well - quiet activity, like reading or board game.

Just try feeding her as soon as you get to school. My youngest who's now a teenager, would be overtired and tantrummy and it was all solved with a bag of crisps, banana or sandwich. Has to be relatively appetising and substantial though - no kid wants a chopped up apple or whatever

So I'd try that before a complicated game

We've had this at pick up times so often. Things that have worked for us are chewey toys/chewlery to regulate rather than food. Taking cuddley toy to pick up. Scooting home rather than walking. How many cats/dogs/red cars do you think we'll see on way home. (It's always the same cat in the same spot!) All are distractions to calm them. Do what works for you.

Oh for fucks sake, your relative is a pure idiot.

I sometimes play a variation of this game just to get my kids to be quiet for more than 2 minutes - just because I need five minutes peace!

One of mine was prone to tantrums after school around that age. Wish I’d thought of your “quiet” game! - it’s genius. Cannot understand how your relative thinks it is bullying.

For mine, a snack made a huge difference. Even a fruit juice would do the job. I think it’s partly the calories, but also having something to concentrate on that didn’t involve interacting with people (suspect this may be why the quiet game works?).

Your game sounds like a fab idea. It sounds like you're doing a great job, OP.

Your relative is being utterly ridiculous!

Any game that keeps them calm is great!

I'd definitely look into Autism in Girls. It's easier to help them when you know what you're dealing with & both your lives will be better if you understand her more.

The only book I read that was any help was called "The Explosive Child".
My DD's tantrums escalated into serious violence.

She was diagnosed ASD age 9.
School was "shocked, as she's no trouble here".

OP - as others have said, it may be a tiredness thing, but do watch out for repeated patterns. I found myself googling how to deal with bad tantrums, and kept ending up on autism sites. That's where I found the most helpful stuff.

good luck OP. Sounds like you're doing fab.

I have a 7 year old who has started tantrums this year too. I've increased the amount of food in her lunchbox as I suspected part of it was hanger - we've had some major growth spurts this year.
I love your quiet game idea.
She likes something soft in her hands to calm her down - I've bought a few velour tops and also a taggie blanket and these help slow down her thoughts.
Also we do a podcast if she needs time out from her siblings. Lots on Spotify. She enjoys that up in her room and then we chat about them later.

It sounds like good parenting to me! I might try the quiet game myself. I wouldn't be taking any parenting advice from that particular relative, they sound ridiculous.. bullying 🙄

Routine, routine, routine. If she's tired she needs to go to bed earlier, it will be difficult to enforce at first but persevere. In the morning make sure she has time to get ready so she is not rushed.

I know this sounds crazy but have dinner with her, talk with her about her day- don't sit on the sofa or do it separately.

Plan some time after school to do something together, it might be reading, homework or just playing with toys for thirty minutes.

I am both a teacher and a mother, and from my experience they lash out for two reasons, lack of structure at home and lack of attention. Bad behaviour attention is better than none.

Also by live bombing her after such bad behaviour has ensured she now has the link in her brain to bad behaviour, awesome lives up attention afterwards. You need to break that cycle.

We have one child a little like this at home. Bad behaviour = attention. So to combat this we created a values chart. If she does something good from the chart she gets a small prize and lots of positive attention. It's things like being kind, being resilient, having goals, thinking of others etc.

Of course it's not bullying. As someone that has experienced significant bullying I can tell you categorically this is not it!

You are cleverly parenting and teaching your daughter how to self regulate until she's somewhere appropriate and safe to let out her emotions.

All good 😊

Nope it’s definitely not bullying, you’re teaching her to self regulate via using play and games as a distraction. That’s really fantastic and I’m glad she’s responding well to it.

As PP have suggested cold you explore the possibility of the meltdowns being linked to any kind of additional needs?

I'm wondering about anxiety. A family child is having meltdowns like this seeing a psychologist. She is a similar age to your dd and Covid restrictions pretty much screwed her up, in that in lockdown she was fine and got too used to her world being small. Once everything opened up and they started doing normal things again she developed panic attacks.

Have a look at the Facebook page "not fine in school".

I think @SpidersAreShitheads’ post is really good. I’d absolutely consider masking.

I have 3 DC:1 is considered very neurotypical, 1 has probable ASD and 1 has ADHD. They all present very differently. The one with ADHD bounces around all the time. The one with probably ASD is fantastic at masking until we go through the front door. Then it’s chaos. I will say that snacks absolutely do help - agree with PP who’ve suggested drinks if walking and eating are hard.

What you are doing sounds brilliant. Utter nonsense from your relative!!! Do NOT listen. You know your child best.

My daughter really struggled with year 3, she did have some teacher problems but no other issues. Hers came out as extreme anxiety, the same when my youngest was born a few months later and a few other occasions. She is now 14 and the changes from the pandemic have hit really hard. Her anxiety has been almost out of control at times.

I never considered that she might not be neurotypical when she was younger but now I think she might be. As pp has said it does present differently in girls and as I teach secondary I can now see many similarities with girls I know to have ASD.

Might be worth a think as getting on very well at school and then melting down is very typical masking behaviour for ASD. I wish someone had suggested it for me earlier. Now she is in year 10 and it's going to be much harder to get her help eg with exam considerations in a very short space of time. It's not unusual for girls with ASD to go uninvestigated until puberty/secondary.

I love your game idea. Sometimes parenting is very personal to the child and the situation and even if she still loses it when you get home at least she will feel safer there.

Does she have any sensory difficulties, e.g. problems with noise, smells, bright lights, certain textures etc? Sometimes the stress of having to deal with those all day causes pressures to build up resulting in meltdown. If so, she needs some occupational therapy input such as a sensory diet and movement breaks.

My son was like that and did grow out of it. I wish I'd tried your game! I found some ideas in The Explosive Child and in this theory of sensitive children. We also used StopNowandPlan to identify when he was starting to get upset and take steps before the point of no return. We didn't do the program (which seems to have evolved over the years into crime prevention) but just worked on our own: Notice tension (his was clenched fists), Stop (deep breath, count to 10, make a plan). He isn't autistic/has no diagnoses, just had meltdowns more-so than other kids.

He's now 25 and has incorporated many of the behaviour/emotion management techniques learned back then. He also uses them with some of his students when he's coaching. He's still extra sensitive but is comfortable.