Daughter violent to sibling

[atmywits]

I have a very aggressive 6 year old daughter who regularly has violent outbursts, her sister is 8 and has always been very quiet, placid and sensible but she's also very sensitive.
Dd6 will throw things at her sister and call her names, hit her and bite her and can be really hateful towards her.
They share a bedroom so there's no escape for dd8 who is very tolerant but gets very upset and no matter how we try to deal with this nothing is successful, we've tried sticker charts and time out, taking things away, firm talking to but she doesn't change her behaviour and it's quite heartbreaking to see what her sister puts up with.

They do play together and most of the time they are fine but dd6 can change without warning especially if she's tired.
Dd8 never retaliates and forgives her every time.
I don't know how to handle this as it seems we've tried everything possible and get nowhere.
She's also like this to us but dd8 does seem to get the brunt of it.

Have you got her assessed for ASD? Maybe also speak with the school and see what she's like there. Also your GP?

Can you afford private? If so a child behavioural therapist may be able to help. It sounds like she (and you) need coping strategies for when she's overtired.

Hopefully it is a phase OP.

I have spoken to the school about potential Asd and they have absolutely no concerns about her and are sure it's not that.
I keep thinking she'll grow out of it but she doesn't.

I have noticed it's a pattern of when she gets tired eg when she gets home from school or when she's been to the park or a play date she can be fine until she gets home but these outbursts can be over and done with in 10/15 minutes and she's fine again or sometimes she'll just be in that mood she gets in when she's going to be deliberately difficult.
She goes straight out like a light when it's bedtime and is the last one up in the morning.

Sounds like it could be ADHD or ASD. Don't trust the school. My niece was very well behaved in school, masking her problems. She was diagnosed at age 13 even though she had been in therapy for years by that time.

It sounds like your 6 year old is externalising her feelings and your 8 year old is internalising hers. It often means that everyone is focusing on the externalising child and that, longterm, your 8 year old could develop mental health or psychosomatic problems. You must keep her save. She is bascially experiencing domestic violence. Throwing things at her, name calling and hitting and biting her is completely unacceptable and must be prevented. How often does this happen? The girls need to be supervised, separated if needed and your 8 year old needs a safe space to withdraw to if needed.

It's oft-spouted but this is a pattern we saw too. Younger one was diagnosed with autism in junior school, after I think 6 teachers had told me I was overthinking, he was definitely fine, had too many friends etc. Older one diagnosed at 16. Being overly accepting makes your day to day easier but more of a reaction might be healthier. In hindsight I think my older one didn't have the skills to do anything other than put up with it.

If you can't do separate bedrooms I would recommend making sure your older one has had safe space, and later bedtime so she gets you to herself frequently. Encourage separate interests. Look up fawning as a trauma response (might be OTT for the situation, I don't know)

A six year old biting is unusual and should be raising some flags with behaviour. School SENCo or school nurse might be able to signpost help even if they don't see it in school. Could be through a behaviour management route, which is separate to autism diagnosis.

This must be awful for your 8 year old. She has no safe space and is basically stuck in a bedroom with her violent sibling. This sort of thing can cause long term damage. Can you put one sibling in another room or downstairs or just somewhere else while you tackle this?

Girls with ASD often mask. She may well struggle with

• reading social situations
• behaving in ways others think is fair
• using words not hitting, biting, throwing things when she is frustrated
• understanding how she is expected to behave.

However she probably understands that if shows all these problems in school, by messing up games because she wrongly understood, or being aggressive because she is frustrated by not understanding, children will quickly shun her. If she doesn't want to be the kid who has to hang about alone because she has no friends, she probably puts 110% into doing everything like her peers do so she comes across as the nice girl, not the horrid one.

After school she knows that she can let herself go. Her family aren't going to hate her. When it's too much effort to keep finding words, she can take the toy from her sister and hit her sister when she tries to stop her. She knows you'll punish her, but you won't make her spend the next 18 years in her room alone. Her sister won't decide never to play with her again. She can stop masking, she can stop putting 110% into understand what you want/need her to do. She can stop trying to figure out how to interact with her sister and let herself melt down and it will be ok, because she's wanted and loved however she behaves.

Push for school to test her. Take her to the GP and see if they can help. In the meantime, make sure that the girls each have space at home. Even if they have to share a bedroom, give them each a space. Could be one has a corner of your bedroom and one has a corner of the living room, whatever. In that space have something - a beanbag, a desk, a chair, a bookshelf, anything. You can go in those spaces, but the sister don't ever go in each other's spaces without permission.

It sounds like you're a bit lax with it. I mean, she's not 3, time outs aren't appropriate at 6 where she knows better.

Are you consistent? I have a 6 year old and if he's rude etc he goes without pudding. The rest of us eat it. No second chances or substitutes.

I would separate the children even if it means you sleeping in with the 8 yr old. It's not fair to subject her to that.

Take control, it's your house and you don't accept violence. End of.

This, when you're taking thing away, is she getting things back?
What would she do if her sister whacked her back?
Absolutely don't agree with this After school she knows that she can let herself go. Her family aren't going to hate her. When it's too much effort to keep finding words, she can take the toy from her sister and hit her sister when she tries to stop her. She knows you'll punish her, but you won't make her spend the next 18 years in her room alone. Her sister won't decide never to play with her again. She can stop masking, she can stop putting 110% into understand what you want/need her to do. She can stop trying to figure out how to interact with her sister and let herself melt down and it will be ok, because she's wanted and loved however she behaves.
Maybe she can expect this from her parents, but you only have to read on here the number of posters who as soon as they can leave home and go NC with their family because of lack of care and protection when young. I think it's quote dangerous to sell a child the belief that they can be violent and aggressive and they'll always be forgiven and loved by everyone, including the siblings they assault because 'faaamily'. And on that, that the victim has to forgive because of the same.

You must protect your 8yo from this abuse. It is domestic abuse.

Find somewhere for her to rest, relax, sleep etc where she can be safe. You are forcing her to share a bedroom with someone who regularly abuses her.

I agree with the other posters that you need to look at the root causes for the 6yo behaviour- but don’t overlook the placid acquiescence of the 8yo to being harmed. That’s not normal either. Being exposed to this kind of traumatic situation is likely to leave her wounded.

This is brilliant advice.

I agree with the others. You must protect the 8 year old. I think you should pursue the ASD diagnosis but in the absence of that I would recommend just working with her directly using Ross Greene’s The Explosive Child or another book called Breaking the Behavior Code. Try looking hard at the prodromal period before she breaks down and see if you can help her put the brakes on this behavior before it reaches the white hot/red mist stage. If it routinely happens after school see what quiet time or snack time does for it? See if scheduling her and playtime with her sister improves or degrades her behavior.

But her sister must have a safe space that she can retreat to at the first sign of violence. And you might consider instituting a ritual of repair so your younger daughter can redeem herself and make it up to her sister.

You need to do everything to protect your 8 year old. You wouldn't tolerate an adult being hit and kept in a room with their abuser, the intent is different but the damage on your 8 year old will be the same. You also need to tell your 8 year old you have noticed it and are doing something about it long term not just sort of dealing with it in the moment. You need to be harder on your six year old, it doesn't matter if she's tired violence is not okay full stop.

You must do much more to protect the 8yo. This is really serious. You sound like you're minimising.

Put a bed for the 6yo in your room and let the 8yo have a safe space.

Until this stops - properly - you have to supervise constantly and step in instantly.

@pikkumyy77 re Try looking hard at the prodromal period before she breaks down and see if you can help her put the brakes on this behavior before it reaches the white hot/red mist stage. If it routinely happens after school see what quiet time or snack time does for it? See if scheduling her and playtime with her sister improves or degrades her behavior.
Does that not require the 8 yo agreeing to be a crash test dummy in this?

I'm not "advocating" it though, I'm telling how it is. Imagine you are about to throw up. You try to make it to the loo, not do it on the front room carpet, but you can't stop yourself, and you might (especially if you are a kid) do it on the carpet, because you really can't hold it back.

Now imagine a mental "throw up". All day, you've struggle to understand. You've been bombarded with information you don't understand, with situations where people clearly expect something of you that you don't quite get. All day you've been scared you'll let something slip that you didn't understand would hurt someone, you've been trying to work out what is "good" and what's "bad" and keep the bad stuff in and let the good stuff out. You come home and just like puking because you can't hold it back, you "puke" the mental load, you give up, you sink away, you stop trying to untangle everything, because there is no more energy. It's not that she doesn't care, or she isn't being punished enough, it's that the systems fail and she does what's easy because that's ALL she still has energy for. Punishing her will just make her try to hold on more, but there will still be a slip unless she just locks herself away and stops interacting entirely.

Not more than she is now. Of course Im advocating instantly ending interactions that are going badly. My rather obvious point is that if OP can be curious and experimental with her observations she may be able to head things off and slowly teach the 6 year old how to manage to stay within her “window of tolerance” or to withdraw from the interaction herself when she feels herself slipping into the red zone.

Give the 8 year old her own room.
You share with the 6 year old so they can hit and bite you instead.

The 8 year-old needs a room of her own. She needs to be able to have a place to feel safe.

You really need to separate them

You need to protect your 8 year old
You have no idea what this is doing to her mental health

How are you protecting her????

You really need to sort out separate rooms so at least your 8 year old has one safe space, this is likely to create lifelong trauma if it continues

You need a consistent discipline for the behaviour and stick to it - loss of screen time, time out etc

Don't let them be together without supervision. So no playing upstairs while you're downstairs. Be in the same room ti intervene if escalating.

Dd8 gets a later bedtime and time alone with you.

Find a space in the house dd 8 can go too to get away from dd6

Sort some counselling for dd6

Try to give them bothe separate time at a weekend.