Help - DD kicking and hitting me

[Ilovepugs2017]

I don’t know where to start I’m just so stressed. DD is 6 and has horrendous meltdowns. Sending her up to her room for 5 to calm down doesn’t work anymore - she just comes back downstairs and throws herself on the floor screaming
This evening it’s got worse to the point she’s kicking and hitting me

Do you think she has special needs?

Have you tried taking away something she wants like the tv for the whole of the next day?

Is there anything specifically triggering the meltdowns and is there any SEN?

I think at that age, the concept of calming down is too vague. Distractions with those tubes that look like lava lamps (or homemade with water and glitter), or something else might be more successful. Music to dance and shake out the energy.

What causes the meltdowns? I think the best thing to do would be to try and prevent the loss of control in the first place.

I’m not sure to be honest - I’ve wondered whether she might be autistic as she sometimes struggles with changes to routine, loud noises etc.

Yeah I’ve tried taking her tablet away and that doesn’t make much difference tbh

DS went through a phase of this about the same age. Tantrums were always intense but became really awful and violent during lock down.
What worked for us was explaining when he was calm that it was a hard line for us, and that he could be angry, but hurting us wasn't allowed, and if he did it, he would get one warning to stop and then if he continued he would lose access to his Switch for all the next day. (that was the thing he cared most about losing).
Next time it happened, we gave the warning, he carried on, we said he'd lost switch and then just rode out the rest of the hideous tantrum, and then stuck to our guns with the Switch the next day. Next time he did it, we gave the warning and he immediately stopped hitting. Has never hit or kicked us since - it was astonishing how quickly it worked!

I also made a big fuss of how proud I was of him when I could see him managing to control his temper.

We did talk to the school nurse at the time, and she sent me loads of resources and put us forward for some parenting classes for dealing with angry children (it was called something nicer than that 😂) - we ended up cancelling as we'd sussed it before it came round, but worth seeing if your school nurse can help.

Instead of taking tablet away as punishment, keep it away for a week and see if her behaviour improves. From what I can see with SDC, screens make them extremely irritable and moody.

Sometimes they just start randomly over something little other times I can see a cause if that makes sense.

For example, this evening id taken her for a gymnastics lesson that she had been nagging to start and she was beaming coming out. She had already had an hour of tablet time earlier in the day and asked for some more time on there so I said ok if you do a couple of little jobs first you can have a bit of time on there (age appropriate jobs that she normally does anyway) and she just went off on one, refusing to do it etc. so I said ok we will do something else instead like read a book for a little bit, she started throwing things around the room, went over to the kitchen table and purposely tipped a new bottle of apple juice all over the table because apparently it was too full. Then had a screaming meltdown in the living room on the rug kicking my legs when I tried to stand up to move out of her way she slapped my back a couple of times etc. this meltdown went on for a good hour and half

Running a bath and letting her play in it calms my autistic DD. Making her a quiet corner to escape to when she’s having a meltdown also helped.

Thanks for this, I’ve tried the taking the tablet away and it doesn’t make a lot of difference infact it probably just makes her angrier.

I remember she had one really bad meltdown in school - she was meant to go to a fun &fitness after school club but DH completely forgot and he was picking her up that particular day. When she realised he had picked her up normal time she had a complete meltdown to the point 3 teachers and DH had tried to calm her down. She was in a hell of a state. Her teacher even had to come into the car with DH to try and keep her calm enough for DH to drive to pick up our son

She does love baths and I notice this is the time when she is calmest, she loves the bubbles and washing her barbie dolls

It has completely overwhelmed me tonight, it’s so hard going at the minute alongside trying to help oldest DS (12) who’s been having fainting episodes and panic attacks and recently DH’s father has passed away so trying to support him too, just feel like it’s all so much stress sometimes

@Ilovepugs2017 I'm sorry you're having such a hard time. Has this always happened or is it more recent - any correlation with her grandad getting ill/passing away? It sounds like your 12yo is also going through something pretty major - was the granddad's death sudden/traumatic? I wonder if they could both benefit from some counselling?

It’s been like this for a while with her tbh so not just the recent passing but it seems to get worse. With my middle son if he had a meltdown and was told to go upstairs to calm down for a while he generally would but she doesn’t, nothing seems to work with her. She demands attention all the time, constantly interrupts me when I’m on the phone when it’s something important. I was speaking to the hospital the other day about my son and had to keep on putting the phone on mute and saying sorry I’ll be right back because he was saying he was about to faint and she was screaming blue murder in the background and kicking the doors.

Op you’ll get better advice from others but can I honestly say tv instead of tablet. The lights from a tablet, the closeness to the face, the difference between my kids when they aren’t on screens is monstrous- some children just seem to get triggered/fired up/ just plain affected. And actually when you started talking the first thing I thought was I wonder if there’s screen time involved. Best of luck op, that’s really tough

I would remove the tablet permanently. Encourage crafts, games and other activities. She needs to be a child, not attached to a screen. Reward good behaviour.
DS needs support and attention too. I assume you have already seen the doctor.
Two parents, two children. Support on one to one. Early bedtimes with books to look at, no TV in rooms.
You and DH need time in the evening to relax and talk, especially as he is grieving for his father.

Yes I’ve been back and for the hospital with DS about the fainting episodes and also to the doctors a couple of days ago about the panic attacks. The panic attacks are happening because he’s scared of going out and the fainting happening whilst he’s out and not near me or DH.
Ive been trying to do everything 90% of the time with our three DC (oldest son is DH step son) so that he has space to do what he needs to do to deal with his dads death. He’s very up and down at the moment so I’m trying to deal with the kids to take the pressure off him when he’s not at work.
With DD it isn’t just related to the tablet though.
She asked to go to the park on Sunday - DH was away with our middle son. I was at home with oldest DS and DD but DD had a fainting episode so I explained we couldn’t go to the park because DS was unwell and I needed to take him to the hospital. She then had a meltdown to the point that 111 couldn’t even hear me on the phone trying to explain to them what had happened to DS.

Sorry that should have said DS had a fainting episode not DS

This sounds like a lot to cope with.
If you suspect she is Autistic seek diagnosis if you can.

It seems you would benefit from support to help you help your DD.

With regards to the IPad - I agree about not avoiding any child have access to one as it can turn into a negative if not properly supervised especially with those with autism (I work in an ASD school and all the teachers despise IPads as the majority of violent outbursts from students are over these devices used to entertain the child at home unregulated).

A simple reward system or “working for board” may be beneficial for your DD so she can see her actions have consequences.

For example “I am working for 30 minutes of IPad at 6pm” or “I am working for 1 hour in the park at 12pm”

Then you give a tick at different points of the day for good behaviour. For any unacceptable behaviour you remove a tick. However you explain to DD why you are giving or removing ticks.
Having a visual like this works well with some children. Also as your DD is young or maybe struggling with behaviour it might be better having a one working for board in the morning and then another in the afternoon.

We removed tablets off all 4 kids at one point for 3 months. The improvement on genera behaviour was marked. I understand you're not keen but it did help all our kids.

This sounds very much like my daughter at this age.

I don’t have any magic words of wisdom, I struggled through until she was old enough to think things through better. In hindsight, if you don’t think it relevant to look into ASD I would still treat her as if she were neurodiverse. See that anything that a neurodiverse person would struggle with. Basically any change in her reality which doesn’t meet her want or expectation could well lead to a meltdown. This is a minefield as it covers 80% of being a child!

I think with my daughter her emotional brain was streaks ahead and 10 times stronger than her thinking brain and she couldn’t cope with the normal challenges of day to day life as her sister did.

She may need a lot of patience and understanding, be firm but understand at the root of it she is struggling to manage such intense feelings. Be consistent and find calming strategies, show love and empathy and try to make life as easy as you can for you all.

You are not doing anything wrong.

Yes, it did result in him being angrier initially.. One of the things we had fallen in to was escallating the consequences as the tantrum went on - so "if you hit me again you'll lose your switch for today. Right, do it again and you lost it for tomorrow as well. Ok, now you've lost if for the week" etc - which of course didn't work. Once in a rage, he just heard 'lose switch for today' and immediately got angrier. We found that agreeing to one single consequence, and giving him the 'rules' while he was calm, whilst he was initially angrier on being told the rule was being enforced, it ultimately worked because he understood the expectations and what would happen (without there being an unknown escallation of consequences).

As others have said though, screentime itself did have an impact. We also massively reduced that. We stopped YouTube altogether (again, I should say our biggest issues were during and in the aftermath of lockdown, so he'd spent far longer on screens than we would have normally allowed anyway). Even now he's older, we keep both of those quite limited, and can see a difference in his behaviour on the odd occasion where we allow him longer time limits.