My 9 year old daughter punches, kicks, scratches and smacks us. What do I do? :(

[Bellesmummy12]

Hi I’m after some advice please (desperately so)..

My 9 year old daughter has always been a difficult child to parent. Everything has always been such a battle and for the past few years she has been physically violent towards me, her dad and grandparents. This is getting worse and dangerous. By physically violent I mean she kicks, punches, scratches, smacks and pulls hair. I very firmly tell her this is not okay and stop her hands but she will then keep trying or bang on the next door neighbours wall shouting help help my mums killing me (which obvs isn’t true). It’s if she is told no to something or if she can’t do something. She also hits herself in the head until she bruises. During her meltdowns which are occurring daily and lasting a good hour each time she screams, slam doors, swears, calls you every horrible name you can think of. Throws and breaks things. After all of this and she’s calmed down she wants a hug and she apologies. But no matter how much you try and explain her behaviour is wrong etc it’s always someone else’s fault never her own. Her consequences are removing privileges like screen time and me and her dad are always consistent but it doesn’t seem to work. She gets love and praise and hasn’t experienced any traumatic events.

We can’t go out much as a family anymore in public because of her meltdowns it’s too stressful. We haven’t had a holiday in over 3 years because when we did her melt downs are always worse. I’ve tried to get her in after school activities like swimming or gymnastics but every time we start a new club she runs out of the building.

Now my issue here is that school do not see these behaviours. She is not violent in any way there. Educationally she is on track. There were some issues where she was anxious about going to school in the past so they referred her to well-being support but she cried so she didn’t have to do it. She is also told off everyday for talking but school say this is normal.

I went to GP and school for help a few months ago who then referred to CAHM’s so CAMH’s sent the adhd and asd paperwork to school and the class teacher ticked not at all in every single box. I just know that camh’s are not going to pursue the referral now.

To add more context she also had some random seizures a few years ago over the space of several months ( her first occurred in school) and was diagnosed epileptic but she appears to have grown out of this now, she isn’t on any medication.

I’m so depressed about life right now. I’m desperate to get her help so if anybody has any advice I’d greatly appreciate it xxxx

Hi - so sorry you're going through this.
Wr got an ASD diagnosis recently and the school report was similar to yours. The psychiatrist who diagnosed said this is really common due to masking.

Op I m very sorry to hear what your family is going through. Can you afford to pay for an assessment to buy times.The system is so broken.

I promise I am not some kind of hippie, but our son's behaviour improved drastically when we cut out gluten. I'm normally all about following the science, and there's little to support the idea of gluten rage, but I can quite easily see that we could have been in a similar situation to you in a few years. Would it be worth trying for a week or so?

@Notparticularlywealthy I have read about that some parents and people find gluten free and dairy free diet really help improve symptoms of adhd & asd symptoms.

Same as a couple of others have said, look closely at what she's actually eating, there may be a lot of UPFs in there, in particular have her drinking mainly water rather than even fruit juices.

Yeah, we'd read about it in the context of ASD. His symptoms were bad enough for us to insist on and be given a referral for an ASD assessment. He was found not to be autistic but fortunately by then we'd realised the gluten problem and things massively improved. He'll probably always be a very emotional child though.

I generally avoid the bakery section. It s difficult to cut them all out. I minimise glue and dairy as much as possible. Also I make sure my asd dc at least has a blood test once a year to make sure all my dc s minerals and vitamins are in good place.

I'm sorry you are having a hard time with your daughter. Before I retired I ran two schools which both had behaviour support units. It is pretty unusual in my experience for a child with behaviour problems to only have them at home -it's much more common for parents whose child is behaving badly at home to say "She's fine at home, so the school must be causing the problems"!
In my view, without knowing the situation, if she is reasonably well behaved at school, it shows she can choose her behaviour - it isn't out of her control. Always say after a meltdown when she is calm "Why did you choose that behaviour?" as that emphasises that she is in charge of it and can make different choices.
Has anyone advised you to try a behaviour modification plan? The school's SENDCO should be able to advise, but these are the principles that Supernanny uses..
Basically it involves deciding clear rules and rewards. When she has calmed down after a meltdown, have a discussion about what are fair rules for the whole family, eg "In our house we are kind to each other" "We don' t hit each other" "We use nice language"etc. The emphasis should always be on rewarding behaviour you want, not punishment, and you need to have clear rewards eg "Every day you keep to all the rules you can watch "The Simpsons"."
Also have a longer term goal-something she really loves eg, "If you keep to the rules for 3 days, I'll take you to McDonalds as a reward".
It is absolutely critical to keep to giving the rewards only when she keeps to the rules - it won't work if you decide to let her get away with violence and she gets her reward because "it was only for a short time" or "well, it's your birthday" or something.
Also, it may not be a bad thing to ask her what she thinks happens to people who hit other people (they go to prison) and ask her if that's what she wants...
Good luck, I hope this helps.