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6 yo aggressive behavior

1 reply

VCO · 08/01/2026 09:49

Posting here for traffic.
I am just looking for other parents that have been through this and have some words of advice really. I am a bit lost regarding my DD behavior, we thought as she grew older things would get better but she just turned 6 and her behavior at home is getting worse. I understand at this age there's a lot going on in their little bodies and brain, but the lack of respect she has for me and DH, the constant defiance, the inability of following simple instructions like, don't stomp your feet, don't run after the puppy you're scaring her, simple basic tasks that surely every parent at some point struggles with, like getting her to sit to have dinner, or getting in the shower, getting ready in the morning for school. It's a constant fight. I am exhausted and feel defeated. She will bite, punch, kick if she doesn't have her way. She just doesn't give up till she gets what she wants. I know we should pick our battles with kids but we pick a lot of them because I believe we can't give in or she will think that being aggressive towards us works to get her way with things. We really try to distract her from the situation, rather than using a straight NO to whatever she might ask and it's not the right time for it, like snacks before dinner or more screen time. She is an absolute angel outside. She's very good at school, she has a lot friends, teaches have no concerns about her behavior. It's at home with us. She will say sorry after the storm. We apologize as well if we raise our voice to her and try to set an example. She says she doesn't know why she has such short temper and little things are enough for her to throw an aggressive temper tantrum. But quickly she will forget about what happened the previous day and she will repeat the same outbursts over and over again.
We looked into underline issues like ADHD or Oppositional defiant disorder ODD, but even this last one says she should have a consistent behavior like this every day for at least 6 months. She can be really intense for a period of time but this doesn't happen every day. Any similar experiences, advice, are more than welcome.

OP posts:
BertieBotts · 08/01/2026 14:54

It's about consistent patterns of behaviour, not necessarily it happening every day. It just means that the problem has persisted for a while, it's not something which has come out of the blue for the last week or so, which might be a phase or a reaction to something temporary. Also if it's persisted for 6m+ then it likely means you've tried different ways to tackle it but they haven't worked.

It sounds consistent enough to approach your GP and/or the school SENCo for advice about assessment and any support that might be available. Sometimes for example they offer a parenting course first, which is worth doing as you can pick up some useful tips, plus if none of it works then it gives you something concrete to say "We tried X approach as taught in Y course and it didn't help".

The pattern of assuming behaviour will get better as the child gets older and it just getting worse instead is a pattern I recognise with my 2 DC who are diagnosed with ADHD. I understand the diagnosis of ODD is not so often given in the UK because it can be quite stigmatised.

In terms of what helps IME - the examples you give about the dog and stomping etc, these strike me as quite reactive/in the moment sort of corrections almost after the fact. And you also mention difficulty with routine tasks like washing, dressing and eating. This is not to criticise because sometimes it's hard to predict behaviour in advance and especially if you have quite a whirlwind of a child, they will often just do something completely inexplicable. But I find trying to chase after the behaviour like that just escalates it. What I find tends to be more successful is trying to take a more proactive approach whenever possible e.g. sit down with DH and write a list of your top 5 battles you would face during an average day/week.

Then for each item, reword it so that rather than describing the unwanted behaviour (or a statement with "stop", "no" or "don't") you are describing a replacement or incompatible behaviour instead. Consider whether this is even a reasonable expectation e.g. if she's angry and her default response is to hit, it's probably not reasonable to expect her just to take some deep breaths and stop being angry. But you might be able to help her remember to redirect her hitting to a pillow instead, which is a good first step and you can move on from there. For stuff like the dog, it might feel reasonable to expect her to walk but it's probably more successful if you could distract her with a game that will keep her close to you, far away from the dog, moving more slowly/quietly etc e.g. trying to avoid detection or spot wildlife etc.

Sometimes literally just thinking about what the positive replacement behaviour would be is helpful in itself, but if you have more time to devote to it you could consider how to encourage it too or how to best set her up for success, like thinking about skills to make into a game to practice at neutral/happy times, less stressful "practice situations", books to read together about the topic, supports in the environment (e.g. keep pillows nearby to hit, a visual schedule to show what to do when in the morning) role play with a toy etc etc.

Then if you have even more time to devote to it you could even look into underlying structures or skills which might help her such as a behaviour points chart targeting the wanted behaviour (rather than penalising the unwanted behaviour) or looking up what developmental skill/ability might be behind certain things.

The other thing which really transformed our home lives was learning about prioritising de-escalation and not getting drawn into reacting to the behaviour. It's quite a natural response to react by giving a firm instruction and then as the instruction gets ignored, or behaviour which has repeatedly been corrected is repeated, starting to express more frustration or annoyance about it. With most children, although it's not the best way to communicate, they would receive the message that their behaviour was unacceptable and it would form part of a deterrent. We all follow social conditioning like this, which is why it's an automatic response. The problem is if a child has ADHD or some other issue affecting impulse control, they get the disapproval but it won't allow them to change their behaviour as a result. Imagine if you are riding a bike where the brakes are faulty - you can squeeze as hard as you like on the brake lever but it won't actually slow down the bike. The disapproval is like squeezing the brake lever, and normal impulse control would act like a brake on the behaviour that the child realises will cause social disapproval. This can make them very anxious instead or almost reactive and playing up to the scenario because they know they're going to get told off anyway.

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