Any help please I dont know what to do...5year old girl

[clucky26]

Is it possible for your beautiful five year old daughter (almost 6) to change overnight.......she has always known her own mind and what she does and doesnt like but just lately I feel so ground down by her answering me back, screaming(I mean supersonic ear piercing, I'm sure my neighbours must think were torturing her!), uncontrolable temper tamtrums, kicking out at me, weeing and pooing in her dolls potty, dribbling in her pants, spitting on the furniture (slowly and watching it fall) the list goes on...
I am at my wits end, I'm trying to remember that I must not shout (again my neighbours must be sick of my shrill eekks), I must ignore, I love my little girl and this is a phase but I feel like I have failed as a parent and feel like it is only me this is happening to.
She is the most adorable, kindhearted, joyous little girl except when she is acting like this! It's almost like jekyl and hyde...
Is anyone else coming across this?
How do you get out of this continuous cycle? Any help would be appreciated. Sorry it's so long x

Sorry clucky but in those circumstances I certainly would not use ignoring as a tactic, and my voice at the least would be Very Stern, and with the spitting / kicking, there would be not shouting but a low, strong and calm Mummy Voice. Which is always interpreted as 'you shouted at me mummy!'

Sounds like very bad behaviour and you need to deal with it firmly. I would take away the dolls potty for the moment, have A Talk about proper places to go to the toilet, if she spits on furniture she is going to clean it up, after a talk about Doing Things That Are Not Nice, and Nice Ways To Talk To People.

Balance this with some activities together, completely unrelated to behaviour. You know her best, if she loves you to sit and colour in with her, do that, and talk to her about how you love it when she is so funy, nice, polite, and how happy it makes you when she does x, y and z.

My five year old has had a patch of more tantrummy behaviour recently,generally over-reacting to small things and being a bit more cheeky-I think it was party the upset of leaving reception, and partly tiredness as she has had a massive growth spurt.The last week she has been back to her old self after several weeks,and I wonder if the fact that we have been giving her extra vitamins (GP thought maybe she needed an iron boost)might have helped.Has your DD grown a lot this Summer?

Well after a goods night sleep she seems like a changed child...again!

Hellymelly your post makes perfect sense, she is extremely tired and upset about leaving reception/moving to a new class!and at the moment her normal routine is completely upside down with the summer holidays...Vitamins, vitamins here we come!
Nemo fish I completely agree reading the post through someone else's eyes the behaviour is totally unacceptable. But when your perfect princess suddenly starts behaving like this and you are almost in tears after trying to find out why and you have used every diversion tactic you can think of, you can't always see the wood from the trees!:)
We will have to see what tomorrow brings I think I may start a diary to see if I can pin point any patterns!
Thank you both again xx

My dds reception teacher said they are all exhausted by the end of Summer term and I think that's true.My daughter had hardly had a tantrum for ages and then suddenly started getting into a complete flap over tiny things,bursting into tears etc.She is very upset at leaving her reception teacher and there are as yet unresolved issues with her teacher-to-come,so that has all had a effect on her.your DD sounds so similar,as you say,I think just as much rest as possible this holiday,some one on one time if you can give her that,early nights and extra vits! Just general rest and recuperation.Glad she is more herself now.

clucky26, your DD sounds very like mine. She too is 5 and has turned from a lovely well behaved little girl to one who has awful terrible tantrums. Although she hasn't done the spitting or the weeing and pooing, she screams at us, slams the door, rips things off her walls and gets so angry. I have been putting in her room till she calms down then her punishment is that she loses a bedtime story or she doesn't get to do something nice that we had planned. When she is good, I praise her lots. Since doing all this, I have seen an in improvement in her behaviour but tonight she has had another almighty tantrum. What upsets me so much is to see her get so angry and I keep worrying if it's normal, I haven't seen any other kids doing the same. So it's helpful to know on MN that other people are having the same problem. Fingers crossed it's just a phase that passes quickly.

is there anything bothering her at school apart from being tired sometimes there is something that really bothers them

My DD is also 5 and has been having more tantrums than normal over the summer. She has also developped a really annoying baby voice. I have put it down to not having much contact with her peers over the summer.- All her swimming and dance classes stopped as well as school. In the next few weeks I expect her to change back to a well behaved girl. Here's hoping anyway!

This is all reassuring thank you. DD is just 4 but has been a hell-child all summer - rude to me and DP, not listening, mean to DS (2.5), etc. She gets the normal time outs, removal of treats, etc, but seems determined to behave badly. She starts reception in Sept after a year of nursery mornings and I think the change in routine over the summer has unbalanced her. Plus probably a growth spurt and the fact I'm 40+1 with DC3.

Actually, now I've written it down, her behaviour isn't so surprising. It just seems so unrelated to anything at the time.