Counselling for child?

[LittleFlowerL]

Hi there,

My 9 year old daughter is difficult. Not just backchat and not listening, volatile, furious tantrums, screaming, throwing and breaking things, meltdowns, basically just general difficult behaviour. At school she is really well behaved, though struggles to make friends and prefers the company of adults.

My husband and I do not know how to deal with her issues .. we’ve tried setting boundaries, time outs, etc but nothing seems to work. We think it might be hormonal but she’s becoming so difficult to be around and we do not want to make the mistakes of our parents and repeat old habits. We are looking into getting counselling for her, we want her to have a safe space to talk and help us also understand her and was wondering if anyone else had experienced anything similar and how it worked out?

Therapist here :) 100% recommend getting counselling for her. Sounds like she’s got some big emotions that therapy would massively help with. If you go on psychology today website you can narrow down based on people that work with kids. Most important is that your daughter feels comfortable with them and they will likely work with you and your husband too on how to best support your daughter at home.

@LittleFlowerL I would also start to read up on ASD in girls as she could be masking at school and her behaviour at home will be the fall out of her not being able to cope.

Not having friendships and preferring the company of adults could be another sign.

How's her soeech & language too? My DD was very much like yours and although we thought her communication was fine, it turns out that she can't really express how she's feeling. At 9 I thought it was just a reluctance, I hadn't actually twigged that she can't tell us.

Because of this counselling hasn't really worked, unless you can find a counsellor who specialises in girls who mask she might have difficulty too