How to manage angry, rude 8 year old?

[gloriagloria]

DD is 8, and still, about maybe once every 10 days has massive meltdowns when she shouts, screams and is incredibly rude. She is often quite rude in between, and the meltdowns are often precipitated by her being disciplined or told off for this (or told she can't do something she wanted to). She is polite and well behaved at school and outside the home. There are some fairly low grade school friendship issues (not bullying) which I think make her unhappy and while she comes across as happy and confident I think she is actually the opposite. She is very jealous of her younger sister.

I've tried to get her to talk about her feelings so many times and really got nowhere, and also try to give her regular 1-1 time away from her sister, which she loves. I just don't know how to deal with the rudeness and tantrums - this morning she was awful and we actually ended up cancelling two activities this week which she enjoys. She's then very contrite (mostly because she want the punishment revoked rather than genuine repentance) but we will obviously be following through.

She obviously can control her behaviour to some extent as she doesn't do it outside the home. I keep trying to explain it's alright to feel angry, but not to behave like this. Are we doing the right thing by getting tough? We do cuddle her etc. afterwards but this really can't go on. This has been going on now for about 3 years so not recent (she wasn't a tantrummy toddler) and it wasn't precipitated by anything obvious. Interestingly if she kicks off in the morning she always manages to calm down by the time she needs to go to school as she realises we would have to explain her absence to the teacher.

Any advice would be very welcome.

sounds very similar to my 7 yo boy, I often feel the dumping point for his bad moods. like he held it in at school, and just let rip when he got home! he is dyslexic and I think sometimes the frustration is just to much.
for him I find he likes time to himself, does she have her own bedroom? somewhere to escape and cool off?

Yes, she has her own room but won't go to it when she's like this - follows us around and clings to our legs so you can't just ignore her and let her calm down by herself. Yes, I think on some levels she is frustrated and we are the dumping ground. However, while I want her to have the opportunity to let off steam I really don't feel I can let her carry on like this - unusually today she went to smack me (although not hard - again she seems to have some control).

Any other thoughts? Feeling quite out of my depth here.

Have you tried rewarding when she does behave rather than punishing for the negative behaviour? This is not a criticisim of you but just trying to come to it from a different angle.

If it doesn't cause too much of a meltdown I would take away perks and have her earn them back. Break the rewards into small achievable targets so she does feel she can succeed.

Other than that I would try to ignore the outbursts (even if she was hanging on to my leg). So in effect there are no outcomes to her tantrums either in punishments or attention but there are outcomes in perks and attention for positive behaviour. This is all far easier said than done of course!

You sound like you're handling a difficult situation with great patience.

Hi Ink - thanks for your response. Yes we've tried that. For other aspects of her behaviour she's very reward oriented but it doesn't seem to work for this - and when she doesn't get a reward she responds in the same way as if she'd got a punishment IYSWIM. We try to ignore as much as we can but because she follows us around it becomes impossible after a while. Her behaviour just becomes more and more extreme. If she'd just go to her room to calm down it would be OK.

gloriagloria, I could have written your OP! My DD1 is exactly the same (she's 7, btw). No troubles as a toddler, in fact she was a dream, but over the last couple of years she has got moodier and now we are dealing with screaming, shouting and hitting on a daily basis, and is often very rude. It is mainly at me, but now occasionally directed at her sister (who is 3) and DH. Never at school or when out.

Reward charts don't work, neither does reasoning. Positive reinforcement doesn't seem to help either. I manage to stay calm most of the time, but am often shaking inside at the ferocity of it all, and am exhausted by the end of each day with it all.

So no advice here but I'll be watching with interest and just wanted to say that you are not alone. In the meantime, have a and some .

Thanks Science - I need it. It's so hard isn't it. She's a lovely girl but the strength of her anger just takes my breath away.

I hear you. My dd can switch it off and on too. Today she was lovely, tomorrow who knows? Does yours do that?

Absolutely - sometimes she seems to be "making up" for previous bad behaviour and I know it bothers her, but this doesn't stop her. I've bought the book "there's a volcano in my tummy" and plan to start working through this with her so hopefully she can at least learn to manage her anger.

What To Do When Your Temper Flares:
A Kid's Guide to Overcoming Problems with Anger
Dawn Huebner, Ph.D

The Explosive Child
Ross Greene

Try these two books. DS has adhd amongst other things and our biggest battle is that every negative emotion/sadness/pain is displayed as anger. Ross explains very well why some children throw such huge tantrums and seem unable to learn from punishments etc. we can do all the sanctions and positive reinforcements in the world and they still make no difference. We need to teach DS to manage frustration better. Some days are terrible, others good which could lead to the assertion that he can control the meltdowns but I don't think he can. It is exhausting but sadly you need to put a large amount of work/time/effort in to deal with issue. It is very tiring.

The Huebner book we have just started working on. It is a CBT workbook for kids and their parents. I like it. I like that it doesn't
demonise anger but shows that it is a sign something is wrong and I hope we can get through to DS and help him identify his feelings more rather than just lashing out and melting down. It is hard for everyone, sometimes I feel very hard done by, like a punchbag and a lacky. Try to carve some timeout for yourself to keep sane. DS didn't throw tantrums as a toddler either. I was so smug. They started at 5/6 and my god have increased since

Thanks MyFAbulousBoys. I'll look at the Huebner book. I got "the exposive child" a while back and it didn't really resonate for us - however will look at it again.

Just to let you know you are not alone. My dd7 is exactly the same.

Am going to go and get those books too. I asked the school for help and they were at a loss as well ( she is an angel there).

I am just wondering if there are physical needs here and it is not all emotional. Admittedly my DD was 9 but she would explode coming out of school. She is clever and is just about to train as a barrister. However, I discovered that she could not go without food for longer than a few hours. Hence early morning issues and afternoon explosions occurred because she had lunch too early at school and then desperately needed a snack at 3.30pm. I would give her something like bananas, crisps, cheese dips etc immediately I picked her up from school and give her an early supper. I stopped worrying about everything being healthy and just gave her what she needed in the afternoon. I would also give her hot chocolate when she got home. Still a favourite. She still needs a regular intake of food. I also think girls do have minor hormonal changes earlier than most of us realise. As you all say, they can control themselves when needed and my DD was a very enthusiastic learner, was happy at school and had no problems at all. So maybe try a very regular intake of food. I wish you all well.

Thanks. It's often before her breakfast so this could be a reason - maybe I should bring her a little snack in bed before she gets up? She'd love that!