5 year old behaviour

[limitededition555]

Looking for some advice.
My (just turned) 5 year old has always been a really happy, quite easy going child, however recently her behaviour has really turned and she’s now highly strung, moany, hates being told what to do, cries at the drop of a hat. She tries to dictate every else’s day and if things don’t go her way or she gets told no, she flips and has a an absolute meltdown. It’s seems impossible to talk her out of the situation until she’s ready to calm down. For example I asked her to brush her teeth several times this morning, after the 5th or 6th time I threatened to turn the tv off and she goes off on one saying I’m being mean to her, hysterically crying ( I can’t get a word in edgeways whilst she is like this).

im just looking for advice really on whether this might be a development phase that passes or if there is something more to it.

Has she recently started Y1 at school?

She has just started reception in September

It sounds as though she might be finding the transition to school a little overwhelming. Was she in Childcare before attending school and did mention any issues.

One thing it could be is tiredness, I had obe DF who had to put her DD to bed by 6pm on school nights for the first two terms, otherwise she was overtired and miserable.

Another thing to try is only putting tv on when she’s ready for school. So as a reward really. I had to switch to this when our DD was reluctant to get ready. Do you help her to clean her teeth?

It might worth asking to her Teacher too and mentioning the problems at home avd seeing if they’ve noticed anything at school.

I would do this simple progress checker before speaking to the Teacher

I'd agree that it's likely the adjustment to school, even if she was in nursery/preschool before. Keep things simple in the afternoons, evenings, and weekends as far as you can, simple activities (both quiet things like drawing or lego or whatever and active things like the play park or riding her bike/scooter), a consistent routine, try bringing bedtime forward a bit. Sometimes a snack on the walk home is required!

We also have no TV or playing until you're fully ready on a school morning, although they do sometimes have music or an audiobook during breakfast (but it will get turned off if it's too distracting!).

I think that’s a good point about having a few quiet weekends too. It’s so tempting to try and do activities with them or go places or have people over but schools ok is so new still and she’s so little still that she needs a lot of downtime, including at the weekend.

Our local Primary, who get great results, encourage parents not do do any formal activities with their DC until the summer term of Reception because they say that they get too tired.