Will she grow out of it?

[DesperatePunchbag]

I’m desperate for help with my 3.5 year old DD who has become a violent nightmare.

She is our second child - DS is now 7 and a relatively placid child who has never hit anyone in his life. DD on the other hand is becoming increasingly more difficult. We’ve just returned from a 2 week holiday which has really highlighted how bad the situation has become. Several times a day she will have the most almighty tantrum - screaming at us and punching/scratching/biting as hard as she can. She really is trying to hurt us. When she does this I will often have to restrain her by holding her arms by her side. I do this as gently as possible but she will scream her head off that I am hurting her and then play the victim afterwards, which is obviously mortifying if we are out in public.

The trigger for this behaviour is generally some version of not getting what she wants. Eg wanting a certain snack or a toy in a shop, being stopped from running out into a road or climbing something dangerous, getting the wrong colour plate… it could be any minor thing. Basically she’s become the classic brat.

I don’t know where we’ve gone so wrong. I certainly don’t give in to her demands when she tantrums. We try to discipline her using immediate consequences, although that’s not always feasible depending on the situation. We also explain to her (when she is calm) that good behaviour will be rewarded whereas if she hits she will lose out / be punished. She agrees with this and seems to understand, but then just can’t seem to self regulate enough to remember it when the red mist descends. I thought about a sticker chart but again I can’t see her remembering about it in the moment. I’ve read many of the parenting books that get recommended on here. I haven’t tried ‘The Explosive Child’ yet but it’s next on my list.

Has anyone had a child who was like this at this age? Did they grow out of it? Do you have any advice?! 🙏

Just to add - she attends nursery at a school 3 days a week and seems to get on well there. The casual feedback we’ve had so far has all been positive, I’m pretty sure they would let us know if she was going around hitting the staff or other children. But I do plan to talk to her teacher to get a bit more detail on that.

My son is 7 now, but from between the ages of 2 until about a month ago, he was really aggressive. It peaked at the age of 5 and 6.

I'm not saying it will last anywhere near as long for your little girl, by the way.

He just suddenly stopped being aggressive. He still talks to me rudely sometimes but I try not to take that personally because he really does struggle to regulate himself, bless him.

But she might just grow out of it. You have my empathy, OP x

Is she otherwise sensitive (light sleeper, irritated by clothing labels, quick to get frustrated)? My son is and he used to get aggressive when he was overwhelmed at that age. You sound like you have quite a punitive attitude and perceive her as the problem - maybe try focusing on reducing stressors for her (avoiding crowded places, keeping routine very samey and calm) and see if it improves?

Was she worse with the unpredictability of the holiday? What did you do to prepare her for the holiday? Looking ay photos, social stories, visual time tables, youtube videos of the place you were visiting?

For whatever reason at this point she can’t regulate her self. This is not her fault but yes you need to discipline things like hitting because obviously you can’t accept those behaviours.
First don’t sweat the small stuff, the normal parenting that you would be on top of let go for now. Focus on these big behaviours, try to stay calm (role model the behaviour you want ) give a warning then give a discipline (5 min time out or similar ) try to stick to same discipline for consistency and keep small if you give a big punishment there’s no incentive to behave.
i personally wouldn’t discipline a meltdown as if she’s in overwhelm she’s not deliberately doing any behaviour she’s reacting to the flight or fight situation she’s in. But removing her from a situation and staying with her trying to soothe could help. If you can try to get her to lay down (to ground her) or give her a cushion or similar to hit /pull at. Talk calmly and remind her she is safe/ok. Don’t ask her to do anything she will fail. Try to find things that are soothing/distracting for her (food/screen/ toy/ ) and try to offer at the start or end of a melt down to offset it if possible. When she is calm do some feelings work with her if she is willing. Using pictures try to name her emotions with her and help her understand what she is experiencing. Look at things she could do to help that emotion (again picture form) like cuddle a teddy, have a drink, go for a walk, read a book, eventually you want to get to a point where she can pause and access her calming tools but it could take a while.
The most important thing you can do is manage her environment, try to have consistent routine- eat , sleep etc at similar times every day. ( You could create a picture chart of her day if you feel it wil help) Try to pre warn her of changes to routine/new situations. Show her visuals. Try to pre empt meltdowns, so if you can see a situation that will cause a reaction remove her or distract her. Try not to set her up to fail , so if there are certain situations that set her off try to avoid them first now (you can reintroduce gradually later) Try to make sure both kids get some 1:1 time and tag team )separate activities) if it helps. What you are aiming to do is bring her anxiety/anger down so you can work on supporting her . Look for triggers and try to avoid/alter them. Make sure she gets down time everyday to reset her self.

Is she at nursery? What’s her behaviour like away from you ?
I would speak to nursery , explain the issues you are having and ask them to observe her (ideally the senco) but yes she may hold her behaviours in at nursery and let them out with you because she feels safe to.

This is definitely worth monitoring, OP. The very fact that you think DD’s behaviour is extreme compared to her brother suggests that there might be something worth investigating. She might be masking in nursery, plus 3 year olds tend to play alongside each other anyway, so the signs might be tricky to spot.

I teach secondary, when things tend to fall apart for ND girls. Often, the signs were there in early life, but attributed to other factors.

Good advice so far. Don’t see it as a personality trait, she isn’t violent, she’s lashing out at you when she disregulates.

Don't try and restrain her, hold her at a distance- your arms are much longer than hers. Let her wear herself out then give her a cuddle and ask if she’s feeling better.

Get something she can do before she flips instead- put her on a trampoline, pummel a pillow, roll her up in a blanket and pat and squidge her like pizza dough. Start getting good at predicting when it’s going to happen and intervene with tight squeezes, hair brushing, something sensory that will let her release the adrenaline.

And in the calm quiet times, enjoy all the hugs and cuddles and loving words you can, to tide you all over the rough moments.

And look after your DS- this will be upsetting for him too. He needs one on one with each of his parents.

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I'm afraid it took till age 12 here!

My son was like this between 3 and 5. He’s now 6 and has the odd moment but nowhere near as often as before. When he was smaller he would just see red and get into these furious rages. Similar triggers to your daughter. You have my sympathy.

Yes my DD18 was like this throughout her childhood. The only thing we could do was clear the room except for 1 parent.That parent would sit there quietly and name her feelings "I wonder if you are scared, you look so furious etc" "I wonder if you are angry because..." and keep reiterating they were right there for when she was calm.Usually this would take a long while of "I cannot stay here if you hit".Sounds wishy washy but naming her feeling really helped her.
She was diagnosed as autistic at the start of 6th form.Didnt happen earlier as perfect behaviour at school , good friendhips ( on the surface )but actually very sensory about clothes and cannot identify her feelings - tired, anxious, hungry, in pain etc all caused "tantrums" throughout her life.At your DDs age and onwards we had to really plan visits and trips out.Make sure she didn't get thirsty, hungry or need a wee.She only coped with joggers, t shirts and seam free socks and needed to be told what was happening and when.Holidays were a nightmare the 1st few days as change was difficult for her. Just bear it in mind and even if this is just a phase all this might work for your DD

I should also say her anger wasn't anger...it was anxiety or overwhelm.She had help with emotional regulation from.a school nurse at age 7 and we used storybooks related to this helped too (lots on amazon).The nursery nurse linked to your health visitor service can help so speak to your HV.

No I wouldn’t say she is particularly sensitive, she sleeps like a log and is a real Jekyll and Hyde - when she’s not kicking off like I’ve described in the OP I would describe her as a sweet, happy-go-lucky little thing.

The problem with reducing stressors is that I don’t want my DS to miss out on experiences and opportunities just because of his little sister 🙁

Yes. DD1 was a nightmare to parent in the early years, and a nightmare at preschool. She has ASD and a learning disability and a brain malformation.

DD2 has ASD but was very passive.

DD3 also ASD but flew under the radar because she was nothing like either of the others. She used to get really 'hangry'. It was quite distressing. Very sensory. I talked to her when she was calm and said 'you get really hangry and then you don't know you need something to eat. So we need a deal. If I put something in front of you and say 'eat', you must eat it. If I say 'drink' you must drink it. That's what we did. If DD3 was in an absolute rage for no apparent reason, I'd get a biscuit and some orange juice, and say 'eat' and 'drink'. Within about 10-15 minutes she was calm and reasonable again.

Try not to think of it as brat behaviour. As PP have said she is unable to regulate. Agree don't restrain, that did not help in our situation. Try staying small (as in crouch down to her height) and calm voice (though say as little as possible as she can't process it when in fight flight) and offering your open arms as a gesture that you are here for her. Or saying 'its ok you're safe' as suggested above.

We have the same kind of triggers - when we say no /she doesn't get to do /buy what she wants/when it's time for TV to go off etc.

You could try using a less direct way of saying no (that's a great idea, let's do it tomorrow; let's take a photo of this toy and add it to your birthday list; oh I love blue plates, can we swap?)

If you can't head things off and you see things escalating you could try empathising 'oh it's so hard when we can't do xyz, it makes me feel angry/upset too' so you're naming the emotions too.

If there are regular triggers you could try talking about it in a calm moment. 'i have noticed that when xyz happens it makes you very upset. Shall we work together to find a solution to this?'. Definitely try the explosive child, it helps to start thinking of lagging skills and framing the problem in a non blamey way.

Our DD is 10 now. She has ADHD so hasn't miraculously grown out of these behaviours. But on the whole when we are on the ball and now we understand more fully what's likely to be happening in her brain and body, we are better able to handle it calmly. Though we definitely still slip up on occasion! Can usually see afterwards what was the point at which things could have turned out better if we had responded differently. Definitely think about your actions and responses and body language - this is the key to things escalating or de-escalating.

Good luck!

She is definitely worse with holidays and daytrips. I’m not sure it’s the unpredictability of them, but rather that they provide ample trigger points where we need her to behave in a certain way. Whereas at home she can be much more self-directed. Plus at home we can all get more space to calm things down- obviously can’t just let her storm off when we are out.

I read the explosive child ages ago but the main takeaway I recall is looking at what are your child’s ’lagging skills’. Ie what can she not yet do that you’d like her to do. Like maybe ‘emotional regulation when not getting what she wants’. And do lots of focusing on this outwith the crisis times, preparing her as well as you can what to expect in various situations. Reading books like ‘my big shouting day’ and ones focused on anger and how it feels. Breathing with her, etc. It sounds really hard. I had a very explosive one, I wondered about ASD at times. But she’s 7 now and pretty good at regulating, not placid like your first but normal range.

Thank you I will follow these suggestions. Yes it’s the hitting that is the problem, if we could reduce it to just screaming I would consider that a win at this point!

She is at nursery and gets on well there as far as I am aware, but I am planning to discuss things with her teacher.

If you haven't already try preparing her better for these trips /holidays.
Showing pics/videos of where you are going. Discuss which activities you will/won't be doing. Talk about the various new situations she might encounter and any limits you may need to set.
Explain there is a gift shop and she can spend £3/4/5 or something, so she knows in advance there is a limit and you can look at each thing, checking it's price against the limit.

My dc wasn’t quite so extreme but he was violent at this age and would meltdown. He is now 6 and I can’t even remember the last time he had a meltdown - he has learned to get on top of his frustration and realised other people have a point of view and he can’t just do exactly what he wants.

So yes I’m fairly sure your dd will grow out of it.

I have considered there might be something more going on. I’m not really sure what else I should be looking out for. She doesn’t have any of the other typical signs of ND but I know it can be hard to spot in girls. Shes extremely sociable and precocious.

This is really interesting

I understand that she got diagnosed later cos she was ok at school.
What changed? Did she get worse at school?
What were her other signs of autism?

Very interested cos I have one that sounds similar

For DD3, early signs (dismissed by us):

• Very precocious socially - would go up to teenagers aged 3, while waiting to collect her sister from school, and ask them how their day was and what they'd been doing at school.
• Massive sensory sensitivity. When she was 3 I told her to go through her t-shirts and tell my why she couldn't wear them. She went through each one saying 'seam here', 'line there', 'bad there'. She had about 4 left.
• Couldn't get socks and shoes on before school. Regularly carried her in to school with them in my hands and handed her over saying 'couldn't get these on'
• Didn't understand if she was being told off at school. Just laughed and giggled.
• Very intelligent but would not learn to read because she didn't want to get it wrong.
• Separation anxiety - needed reward charts to get her into school until year 2.
• Didn't cope with non-uniform days. When she was about 8, we had a Christmas jumper day. I ended up bringing her to reception with a bag that had 2 jumpers and a hairbrush. I said 'Her hair isn't brushed, she hasn't had breakfast, but she's on time and there are two jumpers in the bag.' the head teacher phoned later to say that her hair was brushed, she was wearing the silver jumper, and they'd snuck into the kitchen and stolen a chocolate brownie.

She was very academic, top sets, accelerated maths, etc., but she became very unwell in year 9 with OCD. Some other events at school meant that she couldn't cope with going at all.

She got an EHCP, was diagnosed with ASD, ADHD, and OCD. She now goes to an independent special school.

I hate having to restrain her but it’s honestly the only way to avoid injury to myself or whoever is in the firing line (often poor DS). If I hold her even too loosely she will twist around and bite my arm.

Things seem to go from 0-100 rather than escalating so it’s difficult to head things off. I am starting to better predict her triggers though and using avoidance or distraction to prevent the meltdown in the first place.

Once it’s started though it’s like nothing I say or do gets through to her. Once the hitting stops we have cuddles which seems to reset her.

Great ideas for how to say no in a less direct way, I’ll be using those.

Yes, @DesperatePunchbag we too mostly have 0-100 in an instant! Sometimes I can see it coming, if I am on the ball, but often not (and I realise afterwards I could have anticipated it if I had been on the ball).

If you can very quickly remove DS from the firing line that's better than restraining DD to protect him.

I have come to accept that I will get a bit hurt but that's better than anyone else getting hurt. I shouldn't have to accept it but if I send everyone else (DH and older DD) away and it's just me and her, things calm quicker. I used to flinch in pain and tell her to stop hitting etc but that only made it worse. The best way I have found is to try to gently block the worst of the lashing out, whilst making soothing noises (hey, let me help you sweetie, here's a cushion (or use it to protect yourself), you're safe, it's ok etc). Not to react to being hit or kicked, get down on my knees or sit down somewhere low, and offer a hug for when she's ready.

It doesn't always work, and we have the occasional massive blow up where it gets to lots of yelling rather than hitting and I end up yelling back. This sometimes snaps her out of it. Sometimes she just needs to be handed a get out clause - that might be us using humour, turning the aggression into a game, singing really loudly, anything that snaps her out of the spiral she's in. Even making a loud exclamation, like 'ooh look at that really big dog/pink car/yummy cake' and that gives a momentary distraction that breaks the pattern.

On the whole we don't punish her for lashing out. She knows it wrong and isn't in control. She sometimes apologises but we don't force it. We do talk about it in calm moments though.

https://www.peacefulparenthappykids.com/read/When-Your-Toddler-Hits-You in case any of the suggestions help. There's one for older kids too.