To be scared of my nearly 6 year old?

[itsreallymylife]

Dd is nearly 6 and her behaviour seems to get worse every day, she has angry outbursts multiple times a day and hits and screams.
She's recently discovered the F word and repeats it and screams it at everyone, no amount of discipline seems to work in fact the more I try the more she fights.
She's not an only child I but she is the youngest and the others are not like this.
She deliberately urinated on the kitchen rug last night because she wanted to play a board game one time after I'd said that's the last game.

She literally won't let anything go she had just smashed the twister board over my head and hit her sister until I peeled her off because I said she wont play if she keeps swearing now she is screaming at the top of her voice and swearing repeatedly.
She's just hit her sister again and is now kicking the lounge door.
This is every day as soon as I get her from school, she won't go to bed or do anything I ask and I have no way of controlling her.
Dh tries but she is exactly the same with him.
She can scream relentlessly for ages and ages and won't be soothed or she'll lash out.
How am I meant to manage her?

She needs an assessment and with the right support this can be managed.
Take a recording of her behaviour.
Keep a detailed diary.
Arrange a meeting with senco at school.
Arrange a gp appointment and show videos and doary and request a referal for assessment.
Get dad to be do same i.e recording outbursts and going to appointments.

I seriously hope you have no contact with children whatsoever.

I would say that she has unidentified SEN and masks very effectively at school but at the cost of completely losing the plot at home.

Poor you. It sounds very hard.

OP I work in a SEND base. This is typical of some of the girls in my class. They mask all day and we often wonder why we have them at all, but they explode at home. You need to seek an assessment.

She may be masking all day and ‘being good’ for the teacher. When she gets home you bear the brunt of it as she lets it all out.
Sounds like she may be neurodiverse and struggling to cope. You need to seek outside help- speak to the GP and school as a first point

Sounds like SEN and a typical girl who masks at school then unwinds at home and take it’s all out on the parents / siblings. I would push for a referral 100%.

OP look into masking and SEN

Fucking hell really? Do u really think this is an appropriate response ?

I couldn't tell you, but she hasn't learn it from us or her sisters.

What happens after these incidents ? All behaviour is communication so it would be worth looking at what the triggers are, and what the behaviour achieves? Does the child get what she wants following the outbursts. It could be a neurological condition, or it could be that school have very clear boundaries and consequences which are implemented and followed through.

Hi OP.

As a mother of two ND children and as someone who works with ND children I would be referring her for an assessment. Girls often get missed as they are so good at masking and mimicking the behaviour of others and it sounds like she is coping in school but then once she is home in her safe place she can relax and all of that anxiety and tension is coming out as anger and frustration.

I’d be making an appointment with the GP and requesting a school meeting, it’s good to keep everyone in the loop as they’ll all need to be involved but it sounds like she needs some interventions thought the school day to help her self regulate which will hopefully reduce outburst at home. It might also be a good idea to note any familiar triggers, like does she avoid doing any tasks that are a demand? Is it noise, is it the environment, certain people etc.

Try to write down everything so you have a good amount of evidence to refer you as it really does help to have it all on hand so the gp can send it with the referral.

This is textbook ASD. The autistic girls I know all try to control play and find it incredibly hard to maintain friendships.

Hi OP, some of what you’ve described sounds very much like my niece. Great school reports etc but at home the story was completely different. Even I, her aunt, wouldn’t have believed my sister until she showed me a video of her during one of her meltdowns.

Long story short, the school SENCo got involved, she was referred to CAMHS and diagnosed as autistic with additional ADHD. She’s 17 and was diagnosed at 7 when CAMHS had far shorter waiting times though.

Keep a record of what’s going on as the more evidence you have the easier it will be to be listened to (I have a child with ADHD).

If you can, get her assessed privately.

Read up on autism and ADHD in girls specifically: they often present very differently from boys.

Trust your instinct. You have older children which can really help - I KNEW my youngest was “different” from my older children despite the school trying to tell me otherwise. Had he been my oldest I’d have believed that he was just “fizzy” and “immature” rather than struggling hugely with a neurodevelopmental disorder.

Wishing you the very best of luck!

Also please ignore some of the BATSHIT and unbelievably comments on here. I despair. @Eve223 especially

Obviously do NOT do this.

She sounds very like my DS1 who is autistic. School perfectly behaved, too perfect. Would then explode.at home. He needs to sit in the same seat, have good routine, given space to calm down. Is scared of his own anger. A diagnosis can be very helpful. And very clear rules about hitting etc

We used to be very clear that if x happened then y would happen and follow through.

Would this fit her pattern of behaviour?

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/oppositional-defiant-disorder

She sounds identical to my dd11. She is autistic with a pda profile and I suspect ADHD.

I immediately thought PDA as others have said - if you read the info and speak to the society you may find you can implement new parenting strategies immediately that make a difference but parenting a PDA child is immensely hard work so don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t see results quickly.

OP. This is VERY hard to live with. I could have written this post 10yrs ago.

DD was diagnosed with ASD.
The only thing that helped me was reading the book "The Explosive Child". Can't remember who it's by I'm afraid.
We tried disciplining DD, but to no avail. Like you say, it just makes things worse.
I'm afraid we've had some very public meltdowns too, which were absolutely horrific. Start growing a thick skin now. The public can be very very judgemental and mean.
DD is 18 now and off to university now. She hasn't hit me for 5 years. Things are really so much better now.
If you would like to know the things that I've learnt along the way, I would be happy to post here, or you can PM me.
Please remember though. THIS IS NOT YOUR FAULT. THIS IS NOT YOUR DD'S FAULT. THIS IS NOT YOUR OTHER DC'S FAULT.
Dd is your lovely child who needs very difficult help.

Once you get a dx, you can claim DLA which might mean you can reduce your working hours to help look after her. (you will need all the help you can get!).

Start looking now for the smallest school available. Don't be afraid to ask LEA to fund private school if necessary.

GOOD LUCK OP.

Yes it does that's exactly what she's like.

That poster isn't very nice to stage 0 engineering students either. I'd go as far as saying that that poster isn't very nice full-stop.

Definitely do get help as you do not need to suffer in silence.

We had an angel at school, until one day mum broke down and told us what was going on and how her DD had been beating her and her DH up.
We saw the photos and you couldn’t imagine her doing it because her behaviour was so good at school.

We are an SEND school so are used to some violence but she was the last person we expected.
It wasn’t as bad when she was younger but as she got older she got a lot stronger and did a lot of damage.

Mum and dad had spoilt her and she didn’t like not getting her own way and so they were embarrassed to get help thinking we would judge them.
We had an intervention with her and she is a completely different young adult now.

Your DD does sound like she’s got some of other issues that need to be dealt with.

These could be just minor, temporary things like not liking being the baby in the home or not liking her class etc or it could be something more permanent like ASD or SEMH.

Either way, it’s very unlikely to go away on its own and it’s not fair on you, dad, siblings or her to carry on like this.

Please do not feel worried or embarrassed in any way.

Definitely push to have her assessed. The behaviour you describe when playing with other children also points towards some sort of ND.
However, it’s going to take a while to get that sorted so in the meantime you could look at ways of parenting children with ASD? Even if it turns out that she’s not, it’s not going to hurt and might make it a bit easier to cope in the meantime.
Things like making life routine as much as possible, with visual schedules and supports as much as possible. While she adjusts to Year 1 you need to make the evenings as low demand as possible. Could she have more screen time? Has she got a space to escape too if needed? The anxiety building up during the day will take a while to dissipate when she gets home. Generally the ways to help are either relaxation or exercise, both of which help the body to regulate. Have you got a trampoline? Does she liked to be ‘squished’ - you could try wrapping her tightly in a blanket.
Plus things like making sure she eats very regularly and a good sleep routine is great if she will comply.

PS - what changed DD's behaviour was attending a secondary school at age 13, with 16 people in the year group. Like a magic wand had been waved.

I have a friend whose dd was like this, at 6/7 the headteacher said that it wasn't ASD, she thought she was just badly behaved. 10 years later it is very clearly ASD and she is in long process of getting assessed.

Alexithymia is when a person cannot name nor identify their own emotions. It's one of the aspects of autism.

You are asking her to talk about something unpleasant that she probably struggles to even name, so yeah she'll shut down.