how to help my Dd manage her emotions.

[Pigleychez]

DD1 is 6. She's always been emotionally young for her age.
She is highly strung and can't seem to manage her emotions.
Her temper seems to be getting worse and will flip at the silliest things. Its full on rage too with screaming like a banshi. tried various tactics with varying results.

The past few weeks I've had reports from the teachers that it's now happening at school too. If she's told off or asked to do something she doesn't want to then she's likely to go into a strop, refuse to do things then give the teachers glares/evil stares and takes ages to get over herself.
She's always been an angel at school so obviously want to nip this in the bud before it grows into anything major. She's not a naughty, horrible kid. She can be so lovely but when she gets cross she's just this huge ball of aggression that I really don't like! It doesn't help that she's as stubborn as an ox!
Any ideas how to help her manage this anger?

I wonder if she is upset or frustrated about something going on in her life, and this is the way it's coming out. My dd went through a similar thing and it turned out to be because a friend of mine had died and she was panicking about who would look after her if I died too.

Oh poor thing.

I cant think of anything. Ive tried asking her and she says nothing.
I may ask at school if they could think of anything there or if she's started playing with a new bunch of friends of something.

Good idea, there might be friendship group issues or a friend has suddenly left the school, or one whose parents are divorcing... even a book or a film or something on TV with a storyline that's bothering her somehow.

I found that the best time to get my dd to open up was when she was snuggled up in bed and we would have "Tell me all about your day" time. I would tell her mine and then she would tell me hers. It seemed to work better than asking what was wrong/why was she cross/upset.

Hope you get to the bottom of it soon.

With DS we spoke to him a lot when he was calm about how to get bad feelings out when he feels cross. At one stage we let him hit a cushion and have a 'blow out' for 5 mins to sort of de-stress before he got to the crying/shouting stage. We also had to explain it is ok to feel angry sometimes but you have to learn how to deal with those feelings.

Having a lot of the same stuff with DS (4). So far an angel at preschool, but exactly as you describe elsewhere and his inability to control his feelings around little friends is becoming a serious worry (started a thread before I saw this one). We've been encouraging him to talk about it, name the emotion and deal with it in a more constructive way for over a year, but in the heat of the moment it doesn't stick.

None of which helps with your DD. Could she be feeling the general pressure of increasing expectations at school? Is she perhaps uncomfortable being the centre of attention when a teacher calls on her? It's a massive deal for some kids (and adults). I do think some of it I absolutely hating to be in the wrong, so being unable to cope with even a mild reproof and going into a downward spiral, which in DS's case is about insecurity and needing to be approved of. Somehow a mild 'don't do that' seems to become 'I'm really bad so I might as well act it/you're the enemy'.