"Not normal behavour"

[DooBeDooBe]

My DC is prone to temper tantrums still. She is 4 1/2 and full time in reception class. We have all struggled all along with her temper and she has 30 - 45 min tantrums regulary. She recently had one at school and the teacher said her tantrum was not normal for a child her age.
Tonight, I was talking to a friend who works with ADHD and Aspergers(sp?) children, and she said her outbursts sounded just like Aspergers. I've looked up Aspergers symptoms and they don't seem to fit. DD has a good imagination and has lots of friends. She just can't cope with things not going her way.
Anyone got any suggestions / comments??

Is she having these long tantrums at school?

A lay person cannot diagnose ADHD/Aspergers, it's a specialist job to do that

have you any other concerns about her development - can she run/skip/balance on one leg, can she listen as well as talk, what are her hearing and vision like?

DooBeDooBe, I'm not sure that it isn't normal for a 4.6 year old to tantrum, but probably it is true to say that it isn't normal for a child of her age to be comfortable enough to tantrum with a stranger (her teacher).

What sort of things trigger a tantrum? How does she behave during one? What calms her down?

ok - this was her first tantrum (40 mins)at school. It sounds like it was mild by her standards. Just crying and refusing to respond and acknowledge the teachers. At home, she can fly into a rage quickly if she doesn't get her own way. Eg. if she doesn't want to brush her teeth yet, or wants chocolate to eat before a meal, or go to a friends house. Anything really. At home, she gets quite violent - hitting, kicking, spitting, scratching, thrashing around. She argues and refuses to do things her swimming and ballet teacher ask her to do, causing problems and disruption to the classes.
She is a lovely, sweet, able girl otherwise - when she wants to be. No other worries other than a lack of regard for authority figures.
When she's ready to stop, she just stops. Just like that.
At the moment she is having an outburst most days. It's like walking on eggshells waiting for her to blow up over something.

To be honest, I would think that she is young, and is adjusting to a very different day, having just started school. I have a friend whose 4.6 year old is quite similar, and tantrums have increased since starting school.

lou...
does your friends dc have tantrums at school,or had them at pre school?? Just interested to see how similar.

Not preschool, but has had to be peeled of the mum at school doors. Tantrums reserved for home, I think.

I have a friend whose little boy does the same, I think he has calmed down now he has been at school a while.

One of my dts (4.5) is prone to them too, though keeps his for home!

I do think temper tantrums are common at this age still, and I really wouldn't be worrying about aspergers.

I've found as dt1 is getting a little older, I can talk to him a bit more and I'm encouraging him to control his temper by taking deep breaths and reasoning with him.

Little neighbour, now aged 7, had tantrums until about age 6, real meltdowns, about three times a week. They started doing the 123 Magic consequences method and either it worked or she naturally started becoming a bit more mature, but she's much more even tempered now. She had to be removed from a montessori school at age 5 because of daily tantrums that were causing too much misery for everyone, including her mum. She couldn't cope with the very structured environment at the school. She's a very bright, outgoing, uninhibited child, the life and soul of the party when she's not having a meltdown. She needed a daily nap until age 5.

My ds is 5 and still has meltdowns if things don't go his way. He is only like this at home and we don't have any concerns raised from school. If he is tired or in bad spirits he will quite easily become aggressive, yell, sometimes scream. A friends of his the same age still lies on the floor and screams when he gets upset. I really do think that some children just take longer to develop emotionally and struggle more than others to keep their temper under wraps. We still use the 'thinking step' to calm him down and my OH will occasionally hold him still until he has calmed himself down.

Does anyone elses child 'shut down' ever? By this I mean refuse to move, or make eye contact. The head teacher said that she was deciding to make naughty choices rather than back down and lose face.
I think it is this kind of behaviour that school is referring to maybe.
We have received phone calls from day nursery and pre school about this too. The shut-downs usually preceed the tantrum.

Sounds like sensory overload to me. DD1 has SN, and part of it is that she can get overwhelmed by everything going on, which leads to meltdown. Looking back, it is hard to identify one sole trigger, but we then realise it is a 'straw that broke the camel's back' situation. Does that ring bells?

The other things you mention, "She is a lovely, sweet, able girl otherwise - when she wants to be. No other worries other than a lack of regard for authority figures."

do sound a bit like aspergers/ASD. It isn't a lack of regard for authority, but more that a child is on their own agenda, and gets frustrated if someone interferes with that.

Perhaps you should ask your GP for a referral to a developmental paediatrician. If she is a typical child, they will tell you. But it would be a shame for her to be labelled naughty if she does have ASD, and there will also be strategies that work to help you minimise the meltdowns

Have you considered minor strategies such as:

• Giving warning with a count down when you will expect change. i.e. "DD, in 5 minutes you need to brush your teeth." "DD, teeth brushing in 2 minutes" "DD, time to brush your teeth now".

-Make sure that you make plans in advance and stick to them as far as possible, preventing sudden surprises.

-Using now & next as key words for activities, so that she is clear that things will happen, just not yet?

lou - couple of things you mention ring BIG bells. especially - "but more that a child is on their own agenda, and gets frustrated if someone interferes with that." That. Is. Her. A perfect description of her.

• we have tried countdowns, they have no effect what-so-ever.

However, "avoiding suprises" - neither of my children can cope with the unexpected. Even if the suprise is bad (eg.injections) I will ALWAYS prep the children. Much easier. I have a GP appointment booked for me, as I find it hard to cope, so will ask about the referal. What does a development refferal undertake?

All doctors specialise. Some specialise in children's health (paediatrics) and within that, some specialise in the development of children. It is important that you get a referral to a 'developmental paediatrician', not just a paediatrician.

Once you are seen, the paed will take a history, and perhaps observe your dd. He/she will want lots of examples of what your dd would/does do in x situation, and will talk to your DD.

From there, the paed will decide whether there are any features of your DD that warrant further assessment, and if so, will tell you and arrange for further in-detail assessments.

ASD is a very specific umbrella term for a collection of symptoms. So although all children with ASD will have a 'triad of impairment', all children with ASD will be individual, and have difficulties to different degrees in different areas.

Let us know how you get on!

thank you. Very useful. We are seeing our local gp paed. on monday, so will keep you posted. Thanks again. It's just good to get some re-assurance.

FFS she is 4. While I am not a childcare professional, it really doesn;t seem at all unreasonable for a 4 year old child to have her own agenda and become annoyed when it's frustrated by other people. As she gets older, she may well learn in her own time about when to give in gracefully and when to stand up for herself in a way that doesn't involve screaming and throwing things. After all, 'authority' figures are not actually always right, they may be being totally unreasonable, and to me there is something really not right about labelling an independently-minded young child as 'dysfunctional' in order to basically drug or coerce her into dumb compliance.

No drug treatment for ASD or coercement. I am not stating that OP's daughter has ASD, simply that if she is worried, get a dev. paed to assess if there are features which aren't typical. If all is well, no harm done. But early intervention is the biggest factor for outcome for children with ASD.

Both and my dd1 were like this apparently. Hvae you tried feeding her?

According to my mum if I was hungry I was like Damien from The Omen. Dd1 is similar. When she kicks off it is with gusto. Once she is fed she calms almost mircaculousy. She has done simliar at school after she wouldn't eat breakfast.

I was reading thru this with some interest ... It struck me that it sounds like at these times, just before dd has an outburst, that there is a flat few minutes just before hand. This might sound a bit weird but my ds, though his toilet training was easy and straight forward ... he would have quite marked changes in his behaviour before he had a bowel movement ... now this could have been just him but as we are all aware of food additives and how they can impact on some behaviour .. it became apparent to me that there was a link to his mood and stress levels at the time he would be needing to pass. My ds was regular and normal and I could almost set my watch by his movements, but the fact remained until he was more than 6yrs.
At these times he could completely lose it and there would be no particular reason it seemed and I stumbled on the link by just thinking and wondering 'what'for a long time.
Just a thought ... but I dont think its anything to really worry about. My best plan when my son went off in one was to just provide a quiet place and start humming a wee song to myself and looking elsewhere .. he would calm down and end up listening to the tune ... he had to be quiet so he could hear me sing ... created a distraction that seemed to help him.

My ds was like this well into yr1, and we also had it suggested to us that he might be on the Autistic Spectrum, so off we went to many assessments. All came back as either normal or borderline normal. He has generally calmed down as he's got older, but is still a little different. He is dyslexic, has some social skills issues, and finds his temper difficult to control when life doesn't go his way. As school got more structured he found it easier, as knowing what was coming next and that he didn't have any choice about doing it over time helped with refusal to accept change. I come from a rather academic and quirky family, and I think he's just got the independence gene a little too strongly.

Finding full time reception hard at 4.5 doesn't seem very strange to me - I wonder if they are surprised at her behaviour because she is a girl? There seems to be much more tolerance of boys tantruming than girls (more of an expectation for them to cope with school I think). Bear in mind "normal" just means typical, and not being typical is not necessarily a bad thing. We think that ds will get up to great things as an adult, he'll just always be a square peg at school, and his last UK teacher agreed with us (despite struggling with his irritating behaviour).

I do think asking for a referral is a good idea, although our peads were useless. We had a social and communications expert from SS who was great, but I think she was involved with the school because it had a behavioural unit.

nooka - I agree with the indepence gene. All our family are 'creative' types, and being strong willed is no bad thing in the long run. It's just that lately I've noticed that it's always her causing the disruption during classes, and then the teacher saying this, has got me thinking 'what if...'.
DH is going to talk to local paed. tomorrow, so we'll see.
Ps - I think full-time school at 4 is stupid. Bring back 1/2 days!

Oh I'm not saying it's not a problem in practice! ds's teacher did say that maybe it would help her to know if he really couldn't help being a bit of a pain, or if there were better ways to manage it. For us as his tantrums had in general pretty much stopped at home (easier to head off with only two children and more time) it was a bit of a shock to find just how badly he behaved at times at both nursery and then school. Still does at times. But I still think that adjusting to school isn't easy!

update -

Have been to gp and advised to start a pcamhs referal. Hopefully for advice on how to manage temper. xx

Well done!