Frenzied 10 year old daughter responds with "I can't control my emotions!"

[steglass3]

Yesterday evening my daughter participated in WRBA basketball finals. She was an emotional wreck! My husband coaches her team and during the game, when she was having total emotional breakdown, he took her out in the hall to try to talk her down. When he asked her to control her emotions she said "I can't!" This has been a trend for the whole season and also with her daily life. She is unhappy, quick to anger, and defensive all the time. Children are suppose to have fun and be happy, but we fear she is simply not enjoying life. It's breaking our hearts and we feel the situation is beyond our capabilities. I'm assuming the next step is to get her evaluated, but during the interim we could use some advice on how to help her cope with daily life and it's ups and downs.

Rather than asking her to control her emotions (would that help you if you were feeling upset?) I would try and get her to talk about them, think about different ways to react, what helps her to relax etc, maybe some breathing exercises for when she's feeling overwhelmed.

Hello, thank you for the advice. We have tried to open up discussion with her but she gets angry and defensive. It appears like she honestly believes that what she is doing/saying/feeling is justified and that she is taking the correct course of action and that everyone else is wrong attacking her. I understand that her feelings are her own and that she is feeling them for a reason. I think where the hang-up is is that I can't get her to accept that it's ok to be wrong or to be confused and not know the best way. When she does something wrong or is reacting abnormally, we can't get past her defenses so that we can move on and have a healthy conversation. It's created a lot of separation between all three of us and it's sad.

Too much pressure? Maybe drop the team sports and find something less intense.

There's a lot of 'rights and wrongs' and abnormal vs normal in your post. It's easy to feel defensive if people are telling you your reactions are wrong, even if they do seem to be an overreaction to other people. Have you tried talking to her when she's showing her emotions ('I can see you are feeling frustrated/upset/angry) without saying how you think she should be reacting?
Acknowledging someone's feelings doesn't have to be agreeing they are a 'correct' response or proportional, but might lessen the defensive response and lead to more productive conversation?
Cbt can be useful for looking at things in a different way, as can mindfulness (have a google).
Also I think sometimes children are under pressure to 'be happy' - you hear it all the time 'I don't care what he/she does as long as they're happy'...of course we want our children to be happy! But it's a pressure we can put on children without realising I think.