6 year old meltdowns

[Flobellz]

Just wanted to see if anyone else had any similar experiences.

my daughter is coming up to 6, she’s always struggled more than my eldest with regulated her emotions but no more than what I would expect any other child but I have worked with her to help her understand her emotions

however over the 2 years her meltdowns seem to have increased - we’re talking easily 1 or 2 per day. Usually caused by things like she wanted to decide where everyone was sitting at the dinner table after everyone was sat down, she decided she didn’t want us all to sleep in our own beds & when we all said no this caused a meltdown, she decided her sister was the only person that was allowed to touch her uniform for school, she was asked to brush her hair etc - the main issue I’m having is even if you “ give in” ( which we actively avoid and very very rarely do) to what she’s demanding it doesn’t resolve the meltdown, there is then another reason she is angry e.g today she wanted to lay the table that was already set, my nan took the things off the table so she could set it again, that didn’t solve it, she then wanted a spoon, she got the spoon, that didn’t help, she then didn’t want the nuggets on her plate so they were taken off, again that didn’t help.

we’ve tried reward, punishment, time out, really everything I can think to try to encourage her we have tried with no luck - I’ve spoken with the school and they’ve come back with a glowing report of how well behaved she is & she is a very sociable outgoing little girl I guess I’m just at a loss of how to help her.

has anyone else experienced anything similar? I’m starting to wonder if it’s just my bad parenting or if it is something underlying

Doesn’t sound like bad parenting to me at all. We’ve had very similar with our DD, including the glowing report from school.

I would stop using the usual discipline techniques as they don’t work for some DC, it does require a bit of a mind shift though.

I’d recommend reading The Explosive Child and also on how ASD presents in girls, in case that is a possibility.

It’s probably worth doing this simple progress checker as well, just to check that her frustration isn’t stemming from a communication delay.

@BunnyRuddington thankyou so much for that

I’ll definitely have a read! Looking at the progress checker it does look like there may be a slight communication delay - I’ve managed to schedule a meeting with pastoral care & the SENDCO at her school for when they go back after the holidays so hopefully that will help!

If she has a slight communication delay you can ask for a referral to SaLT and also a hearing test, just to rule out Glue Ear. The SENDCO should be able to advise you the best way to go about this

Just wanted to add that as well as reading up on how ASD presents in girls it might also be worth reading up on PDA

Honestly thankyou so much - that’s really helpful

I have done some research on PDA which does seem to really match up with her behaviour, over the last few days I’ve tried to change my language to avoid demands as much as possible as she does seem to be really receptive !

it’s just so frustrating when the general advise you get it “ be more firm, stricter boundaries, reward and consequence” like I’ve not already tried all that & it just doesn’t work for her

No I understand totally. The sort of techniques that “experts” like the Supernanny use are really pushed everywhere but nobody seems to mention that they are actually deter mental to your relationship with some DC