5.7yo dd and temper tantrums

[Molotov]

... I'm having a wobble with how I'm dealing with them.

She's very bright and talkative and extremely high-energy. However, within the last couple of months has started to have tantrums akin to my 2yo's: complete with screams and foot-stomping. It sounds awful. God knows what our neighbours must think.

Being back at school has been great for her and generally, her behaviour has improved since returning a few days ago.

However, she still has these tantrums. I've recently started to use a star chart where she gets a golden star for good beahviour and a red star for bad.

She's just received 5 red stars on the strength of one tantrum

Is it counterproductive to give red stars when this seems to make her tantrum worse? I have done this in an effort to stop me from shouting - this was what I was doing before and just felt like such a shit ...

If it's any use, I know she gets frustrated with her 2yo dsis, and she regularly wakes at 5am (regardless of whether I put her to bed at 7pm or 8:30pm).

Help, please!

No help, just watching with interest as my dd has a few anger management issues too!

sorry no advice other than turn your back and ignore but thought you could probably use and

Have you got the "how to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk?"

We've had a bit of this at the end of the holidays. I tend to see it as them getting really "stuck" with their emotions and really is them signalling for help.

I wouldn't personally do red stars as that can create a cycle where they feel their emotions are uncontrollable/they tantrum/they get red stars/they feel worse.

whatever you do do (and we're still working it out) I think its really important to try and connect, hug, go to bed with a fresh start and cuddles and stories.

Its hard to remember its a child struggling when they're full in the throws of it though
..!

What happens when your 2 year old has a tantrum? Has your intelligent 5 year old worked out a good way to get your undivided attention?
Can you ignore the bad behaviour and ramp up the attention when she's behaving well?

Thanks for your supportive messages I will check out the book, thank-you, Stripey

I felt last night that the red star idea was working for me, in terms of controlling my shouting, but it was exacerbating her anger.

Unfortunately, I cannot ignore her temper outbursts. Dd1 screamed in dd2's face, and then thumped her in plain view. (I gave her 2 red stars for each action and then the situation escalated). I can't ingore this behaviour because of the fact that one might injure the other.

It may well be that dd1 copies dd2's tantrums - although that kind of behaviour in other children revolts dd1. Dd1 is praised a lot, but there are imbalances at the moment that I just haven't struck the right way of handling.

The reason why dd1 screamed at/hit dd2 is because she felt that dd2 talked over her.

I think my daughters are similar. I've found that threatening to do something (if you kick me again I'll do x) seems to just make her angrier and she does it anyway.

I'm not 100per cent sure of the answer but so aware half of it is controlling my anger and helping her cope with her emotions.