Please help I'm desperate, violent 9 year old girl

[emsiewill]

Yet again I'm back with problems with my dd1 (although admittedly, I've not been around for ages).
She has always been volatile, and we've always had a fiery relationship, but lately she has become extremely violent when wound up or angry.
An example is what happened about an hour ago. We were playing on the playstation, and it froze mid game (v annoying) dd2 screamed (also v annoying), so dd1 hit her. When I told her off, and turned the playstation off (only option to make it work again), she threw the remote control across the room, and this escalated into her throwing 2 shoes at me, kicking me and pulling my hair.
This is not unusual lately. I generally react by telling her that violence is not acceptable, and sending her to her room. She refuses to go, so I try and force her, this escalates into more violence, and it all gets worse and worse.
I know that the vicious circle we're in is no good, and she see me marching her to her room (and I have to be quite forceful as she's not that much smaller than me) as me using violence on her which inflames her even more. However, I can't ignore the violence, it is too extreme.
I do use other punishments (we were meant to go shopping together last week, which I cancelled due to a violent outburst, and today I've told her she can't go on the playstation tomorrow), but I need to know how to deal with the violence when it happens without it escalating as it always does. I can't just ignore it, it's too extreme for that.
She told me earlier in the week that she's having trouble at school with one of her group of friends, which I think may be contributing to her volatility, and we have talked about how we're going to deal with this (I will go and see her teacher if it gets any worse). I'm trying to spend one to one time with her, praise her when she's good etc, but it doesn't seem to be having much effect. As soon as she gets angry, she hits out and it all starts again.
I feel so down about this, it must be my fault, I feel she must be learning her reactions from me (although I don't use violence like this, I hasten to add). I know that the way I'm dealing with it isn't working, but as I say I just cannot ignore it, the violence is too extreme.
Has anyone got any advice, or been in this situation?

Are you serious, DominiConnor? Trash her CDs with help from a couple of burly bouncer type strange men?

Is that a joke Dominiconnor? I certainly hope so because in my book that type of behaviour from a responsible adult constitutes emotional behaviour.

Meant to say emotional abuse - am so shocked by that post that words have failed me!

'Violence is acceptable providing the recipient is weaker than you are' - not sure I'd want my dd to learn that lesson personally.

BTW (on a serious note) have you tried asking her (in a rational moment) what she thinks would be a good response/punishment? At 9 she should be able to think this through and it may have some good effect.

Domimconnor - I SO agree with what you say about 'being on your side' being the best option.

We had a terrible time with our 10/11 year old girl late last year where she appeared to change personality and truly not care about my disciplining her.

I decided to wait until a school holiday to really try some positive affirmation - this worked like magic but only because i feel she was away from peer group etc for a while.

A few weeks later she out of the blue said to me ' I have realised how much nicer life is when we get on ' and has been an ANGEL ( touch wood it continues) ever since!

i've been through this same situation with my 10 year old dd, i totally understand what you are going through, i thought my dd had a screw loose and she needed some sort of help. but what i later realised, was that it was 95% me , the problem was she'd loose the plot over something silly start shouting and kicking etc then i would also then loose it with her i would shout and scream and say the most alwful things then she'd shout back and it was just like a war zone, i saw a program and they showed this girls behaviour and it was like my daughter was on tv it made me realise that my daughter was feeling unloved. what i had to do was when my daughter lost it i had to stay calm and not shout or look alarmed in the past she'd been waiting for my reaction now i had to not react to her out bursts(very difficult) also they said you must reward the child each day with 50p but every time they were naughty you had to give them one warning that you would deduct 2p if they didn't stop, so if she didn't stop after that warnig i had to say you have just lost 2p at the end of the day i had to hand her the money tuck her into bed give her a kiss. just by me not shouting at her and rewarding her with her 50p there was an unbeleivible change she lost some money for the first couple of days but when she started getting the whole 50p her whole attitude changed.

Wow, there's a lot gone on while I've been away from the PC!

Thanks all for your input - so often I think "I must ask mumsnet" about so many things, but life is so busy I don't get round to it. Thank goodness I did this time!

Lozzer: I have tried letting her hit me, and she has seen me cry, but it's always after we've argued, so she's at the point where she doesn't care. But I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand...

WWW - long time no speak. I know you've advised me on this before, and I took to heart last time what you said about her wanting more attention. I always start with good intentions, and then life starts to take over again. I have been really trying with the praise - she has been really good to dd2 over the last couple of days (helping her do her hair, cuddling and kissing her when she's been feeling a bit under the weather), so I have been thanking her for that. We had a girls' day shopping yesterday, and I made sure I thanked the 2 of them at the end of the day for behaving so well.

Easy - she is a model pupil at school (I once said to her teacher "of course she has a terrible temper" and she looked at me as though I was speaking gibberish lol), which I think sometimes is half the problem, she keeps it all in there, and lets it out here where she feels safe. I actually bought some Omega 3 this weekend for both of them, so will see if it helps...

Berries - I couldn't say it happens every x weeks, but it does seem to go through peaks and troughs, and other people have suggested it's hormonal. The thought of the clashes we will have when she is a teenager fill me with dread - another reason why I want to get her sorted now.

DominiConnor - I don't think I would be able to go through with your suggested plan of action, it feels to me like bullying. I can sort of see where you are coming from with your ideas, but it's just not me at all. I agree that she needs to see that being on my side is the best option, but I just couldn't be so extreme in enforcing it.

Perfumelady - I think I remember the programme you are talking about, and it is a similar idea to marbles / pasta, but perhaps might have more impact as she understands very well the concept of money. Will ponder on that one.

Thanks to all of you for your advice and good wishes. As always, it helps to know that others have been in the same situation, and I'm not alone in this.

funny that, my dd was also the appsolute angel at school ,at a parents evening i once told her teacher what she was like, and they just couldn't beleive it. she was only ever like it with me, no problems when her dad was around or when we were at nannies, so if that is the same for you then maybe it is an unloved/attention seaking thing. not saying you don't love your daughter cause i know you do but maybe she thinks you don't because you are always shoutting at her? if i was you and from my own experiance i would look at how you interact with her and a few more cuddles and kisses, i found that bit hard because i didn't want to cuddle her because i was still wound up from the previous out burst, but within a short space of time it has become more natural to hug her(since the shoutting has stopped)

Dominiconnor, I think your post may have been a wind up - i hope so but just in case I feel I must add that I am deeply shocked and feel quite shaky having read your post. I feel sad that there are people who would treat childrenin this way. What you suggest is bullying, intimidation and emotional abuse.

Destroying CD's and treasured items will teach a child nothing other than that if you misbehave, your parent will be cruel and vicious back. Your parent wants to control your behaviour and is not afriad of ganging up with other adults in order to frighten you. You must behave otherwise your parent will also belittle you by putting you in age inappropriate clothing purely to humiliate you.

these actions are those of someone misusing in the worst way the power of being the adult.

And will teach nothing to the child about why violence is not tolerated.

Go, I so hope I've just wasted my time and should have seen this was all a joke!! Hope I'm just gullible....

Hi
Try restraiining her from behind in a bear hug - if u can - very hard to get out of.

It is not acceptable to hurt you!

Also what about an incentive?

ie does she want to go horse riding, shopping somewhere - explain in a rational moment why she cant do it now but how she could.

Believe the you are a grown up approach could work if you could find a 'hook' to get her interested.

Might also need a self esteem push

Don't mean to sound patronising (hope I don't but amazing what a couple of glasses of red do to you!!)

'Violence is acceptable providing the recipient is >weaker than you are' - not sure I'd want my dd to >learn that lesson personally.

I was very specific that I didn't advocate violence, but wanted to ensure that the 9yo didn't try anything.

As for it being "abuse", I'm a little surprised by that as a reaction. We read that this girl is acting at the limit of her personal ability to hurt. As she gets larger that will grow, as will the consequences if she does it to someone who will hit back.

The term used by the poor mother is "desparate". We're not dealing with refusing to eat vegetables or a random lash out quickly regretted.

Dexter says "And will teach nothing to the child about why violence is not tolerated. "

Agreed 100%. A child should be taught this early and often. I don't doubt that emsiewill has tried, but for some reason it didn't take. School will have tried as well, but again it's not worked.

Thus the first step has to be to let her know that violence has is not tolerated, then one can start to work on why it is not.
"Why" is a bit subtle, and requires the child is listening, so we need to get her full attention.

Loss of toys is better than an increasing cycle of violence.

I'm vaguely disturbed by the idea that someone calls breaking a CD child abuse.

I'm hugely disturbed that a parent would calmy break a child's CD in a supposed attempt to instil good bahaviour!

DominiConnor i feel I have learned alot from being on mumsnet and as it says on the blurb of the talk bit, bringing up children is an emotive subject and we all do it differently. Have really tried to see it from another viewpoint here -

However! You say that you 'Agree 100% that this will teach the child nothing about why violence is not tolerated" so why follow this course of action?

I think the adults here would be acting in an intimidating, humiliating way calulated to instil upset and fear. CONFISCATING toys - yes. But deliberately breaking them and trashing them - no! You can cease to buy treats/new clothes but you are abusing a position of power if you deliberately put a child in age inappropriate clothing just to humiliate them. Even prisoners have the human right to be dressed appropriately and not be deliberately humiliated! As a parent obviously we need to impose consequences for behaviour but this crosses the line from reasonable consequence to acts of bullying. Am disturbed by the image of child having to beg and make promises to parent in order to get them to stop trashing their things.

I know we'll never agree on this and don't expect to but felt I wanted to explain my feelings a bit more - can't sleep!

DC I'm sure you are right that a firm approach is needed but I really think that your suggestions go much too far. Humiliating your child in horrid clothes just is not a good way to go IMHO, and breaking her stuff is firmly in the "two wrongs don't make a right" category - you may as well just go ahead and hit her, if you want to beat her into submission like that.

I just can't agree with you.

Indeed, I wrote my posts late at night, so I probably didn't express myself well. Have discussed it with various other carers, and quite uniformly they advocated force being used on the 9yo.
I tend to use "violence" to mean acts against people, which is of course worse than breaking things.
I see this situation as something of a crisis, where the normal process of positive feedback, rewards, tones of voice, praise and mild sanctions have failed. I'm not advocating this as a standard method of changing a child's behaviour at all.

Would do it myself without a hint of remorse. When we took the Shrek & Moon stuff from 2.0's bedroom he was still upset about it a week later.

Fact is that any useful punishment involves suffering. A child may howl piteously for hours because you've made him sit on the stairs for some unacceptable behaviour. However emsiewill does not have many of the options for standard punishment because she faces serious physical assault.
I've had kids go for me, come from a large family, looked after kids all my life. A couple have drawn blood, and I'm a bloke who's had slightly above average number of fights. Took pride in never damaging them in defence/retaliation, but that's a function of the fact that I had options.

A furious 9yo vs an average mum is scarily close to a fair fight, and these are of course the most damaging.
You and the poor mum see this as purely in terms of the child's welfare, I see elements of self preservation. I be scared in her position, and would not be embarassed to focus on getting out of such an attack.

As for intimidation, well frankly yes that's the goal. The 9yo has found that the current limit of emsiewill's sanctions is bearable, and thus is not deterred. Reason and shared values is of course much better, but that's 2 or 3 stages away.

There is nothing to suggest that the girl is stupid, and thus she has a model of her mum's behaviour that allows for the behaviour she chooses.
"Choose" is the right word here, and for everyone's good those choices must be changed.

You mention prisoners, but the fact is that their possessions are regularly confiscated and destroyed.

You're disturbed by the images, this process will cause, and that's entirely humane and reasonable.
My skin would crawl as I carried it out myselfl would hate it a lot,probably scar me as much as the kid. Then again I don't like the way the kids cry out when we get them injected with vaccines.

The overall structure of parenting should of course be based upon love, but some of parenting is imposing your will against heavy opposition.

DC My father used to do this to me, whenever I did something he didn't like, naughty or nasty etc, he would throw my possessions away.

It turned me into a strange child who would not accept presents from people, or accept favours, because things like that gave my dad a 'lever' to make me do what he wanted.

I refused to go on trips, I would never choose a Christmas present, I would never say whether or not I liked something, I never asked for clothes as a teenager, I wore my mum's, because I knew he wouldn't throw mum's clothes away.

Even now, 12 years later, I remember the sick, sad feeling of watching a present from my best friend disappear into the bin, knowing that he had done it purely to hurt me. It made me think he didn't love me, otherwise why would he deliberately make me so much more unhappy than I already was?

I would definately advocate NOT doing this with a child. I am not saying it is wrong, but that it left me with deep rooted issues with material possessions to this day.

I did actually throw one of her birthday presents away (I've just remembered) after an incident the other week. However, it was half a packet of jelly babies, so 'disposable' anyway.

But in general, I just don't think I can coldly use sanctions like that against her. I strongly believe she has to know that violence is not acceptable, and that I have a 'zero tolerance' attitude towards it, but my experience with her is that to impose an immediate sanction (no TV, no PC, no PS, no shopping trip etc), not get involved in a fight (either verbal or physical) and then try to really reinforce the positives is what works best. It's just hard to stick with it sometimes.

DC - I am glad I am not your child.

or your spouse. or your pet.

i couldnt smash the cd's. i would be of the "how very dare you hit me" approach.

and do virtually nothing for her until she apologised. but i would tell her so.

i know you think the playstation not to be the casue - however my 12 year old "i want to be a bhuddist" shit you not... turns into spawn of satan. and thats after a racing car game - if tea is ready for instance and hes in the middle of something on the game then he gets really really annoyed.

as i am a grown up - i refuse to put myself in the situation where conflict will arise - if i am in possession of certain facts which tell me its likley to. therefore i would change the situation - remove the ps2 or limit the time on it.

I am going through similar things with dd who is also 9. I'm luckoer in that although she has an awful temper, she isn't violent.

Her melt downs are quite something though, so I do undersatnd a little of what you are going through.

I wish I had a magic answer. ATM we try to do a lot of talking when calm. She gets her pocket money docked for very bad behaviour. I have aslo told her that she can be as angry as she likes in her own room, but not to inflict it on the rest of the house. Thankfully she will go to her room.

I don't know what to sugest, over things that others have posted, soft rewards and sanctions. Jusr want to send you best wishes

Hi, emsiewill, just read this quickly - hope I have the general gist.

I am gobsmacked by dominiconnar's suggestions. If my mum had coldly destroyed my most precious possessions in front of me, that image of her would have remained with me forever and I would have felt she had betrayed me in a fundamental way. I really feel for you Colditz, having had a similar thing happen to you.

I don't know what to suggest, though. Your daughter is not violent at school - you say she is a model pupil? Can you tell her you will speak to her teacher about her violence at home if she continues? Could this be the ultimate threat if she loses her temper?

To back this up, could you see her teacher and say (without being specific) that your dd is having problems with her behaviour at home and you are worried she's having problems with her group of school friends. You need some back up so, would the teacher mind filling in a home/school book each day? Both you and the teacher record what your dd's conduct has been like (and how she is getting on with her friends) so each of you can see the other's comments.

I know this is more usual with children who are not model pupils, but if you can get the teacher to agree to this, it might help you at home.

The other thing I wanted to say was a more basic thing - do you think your dd's general routine need adjusting? Does she do too much or too little when she's not at school? Does she see other groups of friends outside school? Is her self esteem determined by her school friends too much - if so, can you get other friends into her life?

Really hope things start improving for you, anyway.

Emsie, I really felt for you reading your first post.

My thoughts were:

1. limit time on the playstation, no matter what she's playing, it does wind them up. We've had this with DS. Or talkto her about not letting it get to her.

2. don't manhandle her any more if at all possible; it won't get easier as she gets bigger & it makes things much worse, doesn't it?

3. Chris Green (I keep plugging his books on MN!) talks a bit about avoiding escalation in conflicst in his book for 5-12 yrs old called "Beyond Toddlerdom". It's got basic and good starting advice.

4. I was watching Brat Camp last week and got a similar message out of that. The approach with wild teens was Taoist-like (and rather unlike the advice DC gave earlier). The idea was not to push back when they push, thus diverting their negative energy into the ether.

Hard as it is, I realised that it's sometimes also the best tactic with DS. For instance, Green suggests that you walk away from a potentially volatile situation, make yourself a cup of coffee, then come back and start again with the simple request that child was threatening to meltdown about earlier.

Am not criticising, but for instance...
In the example incident you gave, when the playstation froze up and DD1 hit DD2, you could have asked DD1 to apologise to DD2. After that was successfully done, then everyone sit quietly together. If safe you could ask your DD1 if she was calm now, invite her talk about her frustrations. After she gets them out of her system a bit, offer to get the playstation working again if she can stay calm. THEN you turn it off and back on again. It's like... you need to take the whole thing slower and check that she's not going into flashpoint mode at each step along the way.

I think that she just needed time to calm down after her initial frustrations, really.

I came across this thread today when I was looking for the word "gameboy" on mumsnet. The reason I was donig that is because 9 year old dd has told me that "everyone" has one and has asked if she can have one. I have particular views about things like gameboys (based on observing the behaviours of various of dd's cousins) and have explained to her why I hold those views. She understands what I am saying and the concept of peer pressure.

I am very interested to see that some of you also think that gameboy-type things do have a negative effect on behaviour.

Hi to you emsiewill, hope things have settled down a bit with your dd, 9 going on 15, yes I recognize that When your dd kicks off,I feel that the trick is to not "enter into it" with her, which you are already saying anyway (it's just hard to do sometimes isn't it).

As for dominoconnor what you are advocating is child abuse. You seem to have no appreciation of the fact that behaviour breeds behaviour. If you are doing any of those things that you are stating with your child/children, I hope someone who knows you is taking appropriate action.