DD's reception teacher has asked me to see the GP about DD's behaviour

[Rolf]

DD1 is the 3rd of 4 children. She started in Reception in September and is young for the year (July birthday). When she's nice she's wonderful, but when she's not being nice it's as though a shutter has come down over her and it's impossible to get through it.

Two parents have phoned up the school about her. She threw sand in someone's face and there was something about her throwing food (real? toy?). When an adult goes to lead her away from the situation, DD1 lashes out. The teacher said that some children are beginning to edge away from her .

This is all behaviour that we see at home. Her big brothers are 9 and 8, and her little sister is 18 months. I think she finds it difficult having the boys doing stuff she can't do, and having a little sister who gets a lot of attention. I try to give her attention but with all 4, and my DH is away a lot, she can't have me to herself.

She is very dominant at home. She winds the others up horribly, sometimes reducing DS1 to tears with all her shouting and carrying on. She can scream for hours. She wants to be good - sometimes even when she's screaming she is shouting "I thought I was going to be good today". I get down to her level and ask if she's feeling happy when she's shouting and sometimes that gets through to her, but not always. Her behaviour is making family life difficult and is now impacting on school life as well.

Does anyone know what I can expect from the GP? Or have any suggestions for strategies that might help me get through to her?

Have you tried How to Talk to Kids so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids will talk? She is maybe a little young yet for many of the suggestions in the book, but i found it really useful in helping me 'detatch' myself from all the emotions involved. I expect someone can explain it better than me, but it is really worth buying this book, if only to reassure you you are not alone!

Message withdrawn

Message withdrawn

My ds had some similar issues with totally out of control anger/frustration problems. He used to regularly throw things/scream/lose it when things didn't go his way - usually when there was a change of activity. He was very (still is quite) impulsive too and struggles with the idea of consequences. We had lots of referrals in reception/Yr1, but what seemed to help most was the whole class stuff that the social communications expert facilitated on how to play games together, plus structured behavioural stuff (star charts in effect) and time out rewards in the quiet room (the school had a sensory room because it had a unit for children with moderate/serious behavioural problems). At home I'm afraid we just waited him out because once he had gone he wasn't reachable, so we'd leave him to it as much as possible and then talk afterward. I did do a bit of in your room stuff, but as it involved me holding the door shut whilst he screamed and threw himself at the door it wasn't terribly effective - I've never understood how the "naughty step" could possibly work! We didn't have the winding up thing, although I've seen him do that a bit at school (he wasn't very happy as year when we moved to Canada).

He has mostly grown out of the tantrums (good at sulking now though!) and does well at school, but still has to have a behaviour management program in place (a bit embarrassing now he's 10, but it does seem to work). He's also very repentant about his behaviour afterward, often says things were "accidental" (how can you spit at someone accidentally?) and really doesn't want to tell us when things have gone wrong or he has behaved badly. We now have school e-mail us about any problems so that he knows that we will always know about whatever he has done. The rule is that he tells us first before we talk about it, but he really really wants to forget the bad thing happened, so it takes a lot of nudging at times.

Anyway, I hope your GP is supportive and you get a referral to a good team (I'm not sure why the school can't do this directly through the school nurse). There will be lots of questions about home, but there will also be questionnaires etc for school too, and they will all be about understanding the behaviour, identifying triggers etc. It shouldn't be too painful!

My ds had meltdowns when we tried sticker charts at home (I've not got any stickers/give me a sticker/I'm a very bad boy scream scream...) but they worked really well at school for some reason. Perhaps they were more consistent? That seems to be a very important thing for children who feel they just can't understand the world/its rules/their place.

Christiana wow, what a great system. I will give that a try. I can see that it might help me deal with the meltdowns - give me something to do. Does your DS have a meltdown when it comes to counting the squares at the end of the day if he has more than 20 black squares? I could imagine DD getting hysterical when she realised that she couldn't undo a day of crime at the 11th hour.

Thank you everyone else too.

Message withdrawn

Rolf - have you contacted Corpal? They are the support group for families of children with agenesis of the corpus callosum (www.corpal.org.uk). I've had a lot to do with the group over the last few years - they are very helpful and have lots of first-hand experience in dealing with children with ACC. My email is on there too under the research section if you want to contact me directly .

There is lots of information on the website about what to expect with a child with ACC. Now is the time that most children with ACC start to show differences from children their own age and her behaviour is not entirely unexpected. It probably would be useful to go and see a paediatrician and discuss her behaviour. Even if you don't need CAMHS yet it would be useful for someone to know your daughter so you have somewhere to contact if problems.

Christiana - love the plans - will perhaps alert the guys at Corpal too!

Odisco thank you very much for this. I don't know if the research has moved on significantly in the last few years (we were talking to specialists in 2005/6) but the outlook seems much worse than it did last time I was engaged with this. We were told that if, at 12 months, she was developing normally, and the ACC was isolated, then there was every chance that she would continue to develop normally. I asked the neurologist if I should discuss it with the school when she reached school age, and he didn't think that was necessary. Over the past couple of years I've tried to put behind me the worries of my pregnancy with DD1, and all the checks she had during her first year. I thought the ACC was just a quirk of her make-up that wouldn't make any difference or cause any problems.

So, the information on the website you linked to is a huge and horrible bombshell for me.

I'm not sure if her behaviour is caused by being young, exhausted, feisty and so on - in which case i need to focus on finding strategies that work, just as I do for my other children. Or if her behaviour is a symptom of the ACC and needs expert intervention. And because I am so upset about it, it's difficult to know which way to jump.

Do you know if there are any specialists in my part of the country with a particular interest in ACC, who I could try to get referred to?

thanks again

As a Mum of 3, one on the autistic spectrum I just wanted to say do not question your parenting, hold on to the fact that you have parented all your children well and whatever the cause of these difficulties its unlikely to be anything you have done and its unlikely she can help it either. My boy with ASD responds totally differently to discipline than the other two, he does not care or "get" the social rules; naughty steps etc would be pointless - he enjoys the time out. If typical discipline isn't working there are other strategies you can use. But talk to the school about the possibility there might "be more to it" and hopefully they will support you both. Having said that the run up to Xmas in reception is notorious for creating overtired, foul tempered 4 / 5 year olds. You can also ask the school to refer to an ed psych to come and observe. Try and keep a diary over the holidays of any meltdowns and what might have triggered them and see if any pattern emerges.

I am in a similar position with my ds2,he is a pain, but I think they are compounding the issue at school ( he has just started reception) I think that is really mean that they didn't let her go to the play. They are alienating her which will just make her behaviour with the other children worse. I feel that at 5, my son is being labelled as 'trouble'so he is living up to the reputation they have already given him. He loves all the attention he's getting for being naughty- sent to headmistress, has the teacher speaking to me about it every night. had Daddy go to see headmistress etc. In the meatime he is taking attention away from my other 2 kids, who are now cottoning on and getting worse too. I wish they would just ignore it for a while and he'd probably stop.A lot of the behaviour I don't consider that abnormal, I'm sick of living in a nanny state where a kid can't push another kid or swing his bag aound or run too fast into someone without it being 'an issue' They are 5 for Gods sake !!