Hi guys, I’ve come here desperately seeking help advice and guidance as I really am at the absolute end of my tether here!
I am a single mother of two beautiful children, a 6 year old son and 7 year old daughter. Both are generally happy healthy children, they achieve well at school both academically and with their attitude and attendance and are a joy to other family members who look after them however increasingly over the past few months I have experienced unacceptable and violent behaviour from my 7 year old and no matter what I try it doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of calming it’s just getting worse!
I have been on my own now for over two years following an abusive relationship with the children’s father. He now has limited contact with them and whilst my son misses him greatly and seems to less remember the bad of him my daughter doesn’t seem to care all that much and has on several occasions refused to see/ speak to him. I can say with an incredible amount of guilt that she can remember incidents of domestic violence having noted comments and discussions she’s made and that breaks my heart.
Increasingly over the past few months though there have been no changes that spring to mind in our day to day life or routine she has become aggressive and violent but only towards myself. At school she has glowing reports and not a single incident of considerable bad behaviour, for family i.e paternal grandparents she is an angel and never speaks out of turn, for the childminder she is polite and helpful. People seem to struggle to believe how much of a nightmare she can be, they cannot picture it at all! She is like two different children!
At home she is a joy until something does not go her way, in particular bed times. Then she becomes a different child and it breaks my heart to see. She will kick, hit, scratch, bite, throw things, spit and name call to me, commonly calling me fat etc. She will break things within my home and disturb her brother when he is settled for bed. More often than not I can now see it coming and mostly the problems exist at bedtime more so than others.
Recently she has lapsed into a phase of sleeping in my bed, something I have tried my hardest to prevent, she insists I go to bed with her and does not allow me to leave until she is asleep, disagreement of this leads to the behaviour above and can continue until 1am on occasions. Recently I’ve given in just out of pure exhaustion from dealing with her behaviour on top of work full time. She has become increasingly against spending time away from me including going to stay/ play with her much loved family members. She also has sleep episodes where she will walk, talk, shout, laugh and be very overactive all whilst being asleep. She has always spoken ans sometimes wandered in her sleep but this is getting worse.
I’ve tried different disciplinary methods for he behaviour. I no longer smack as it escalates things and contradicts my request that she doesn’t smack. I do time out but she can go hours without sitting her bum on the spot and still not calm at all. I’ve taken things or removed planned trips and she still shows no remorse or care. I’ve tried talking to her about her feelings and asked her to describe them in colours etc. and all I’ve gained from that is that she herself knows when she is struggling to gain control of them, she says she can feel herself going red ? Nothing I try in adjusting routine, diet etc works. If I ignore her then she pinches and scratches herself so I then have to intervene to prevent her from harm and cannot ignore. I cannot understand why this has arisen now, what has changed and why my two children both being parented the same can behave so different? My son is golden though struggles to get the attention he deserves sometimes due to this.
It’s not lost on me that some of this is definitely a product of the relationship that my daughter witnessed and for that I feel terrible beyond any words and I fully expect to be judged for my failings in protecting her from this. I also feel that one of the reasons I and not others experiences the outbursts is because she has seen me be treated similarly and because I am about the only person in her life who on a daily basis puts their foot down and says no and probably bares some resentment for this i guess. I just no longer know where to turn to resolve this and I really feel that I cannot go on with this anymore. It pains me more so because I must know how horrible she must feel to behave like this and to not control her feeling than it does to be on the receiving end of it. When she flares she seems incredibly frustrated and unhappy, the opposite to her normal self.