5 year old MEGA tantrum

[Rubeydoobie]

Hi,

I'd appreciate some ideas on how to do things differently after a really rough evening with our eldest daughter (5).

She hadn't been eating much dinner at all the last week and a bit and we felt that she was suffering from it, being very low on energy. We moved house a fortnight ago so we had been giving her a bit of slack, but over the last three evenings we told her that she had to eat everything we gave her, and although she got really fed up and it took about an hour each time, she did finish her food. Our hope was that she would recognise that it was important, and in fact each time she finished she would say sorry for getting grumpy and say that she would try again tomorrow.

Tonight we planned to give her a meal she usually really likes but as soon as she came to the table she started flopping everywhere and poking at it again. We told her that the same rules applied and that we would help her if she needed it.

Nearly an hour later and not much had been eaten (she is capable of wolfing down a meal by-the-way) and then she started growling as she pushed the chair away from the table. When I moved her back and said that she had to finish her food the tantrum started...

"You're making me angry!"

Growling

Arching her back and trying to get away

"I just want to leave this family!"

I think we were really calm, as we've had a few of these from her before, and mostly we just say that we won't go away, that we do love her, but that she has lost control and needs to take a moment to breathe. Writing it down makes it sound ridiculously perfect, so on reflection we probably do get exasperated too.

It got worse so that she was trying to run away from the table, and at one point my wife shouted at her after the daughter told her that she "wished you weren't my mummy and I just want to leave you for ever."

At this point I thought she needed to be alone so I picked her up (through flailing limbs) and took her into a bedroom to be alone. On the way she was shouting things like "I just want to destroy you!" and "I want to destroy this family which means you will be dead", which was pretty horrible to hear her say. I said that she could come out when she was calmer and ready to talk.

There were a few rounds of her trying to run out, and about ten minutes of full on screaming but then it calmed down.

My wife and I were gutted this evening. the daughter said lots of sorrys, had a bath and then went to bed, but i just don't feel that it can be left and discarded as 'another' tantrum. I'm pretty emotionless and it hurt, but my wife was absolutely gutted and has been talking about how much it hurt her and how angry and upset she was inside.

Any ideas?

I think it's normal for five year olds to be a bit dramatic. If you make a big deal of it she'll know it's an effective way to hurt you. I expect "death" and "destroy" are just things that she knows are bad and she doesn't attach the same weight to them as you have so I would just treat it the same as you would any other nonsense that comes out during a tantrum.

Bloody hell you guys need to 'man up' !!!
If they don't want to eat ... After 20 mins take it away and bin it!
No more food until next mealtime. No snacks or fruit ...
Continue until they realise they will e give 3 meals a day and if they don't want to eat it , that's fine but they get nothing else until the next meal .... We have 3 tricky eaters, 2 with sensory problems and 1 with dairy intolerance.
We managed until about 3 years ago and them realised what we were doing!!!

Sound cruel but you are going them a favour. They are using food as control ... You take the control back, listen and empathise why they don't want or like the good but nothing else will be offered!

I have a child who claims they don't like bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, anything carby unless it's a French pastry ! Not happening my love!!

Words are just that ... She's trying to hurt you!!!

Brutal?! You're new round these 'ere parts arent you.

What LOADS of us are thinking is 'man the fuck up. It's a kid having a strop. If you think that's a mega tantrum then you ain't seen nothing yet'. But nobody will actually type it as this isn't AIBU 😁

i pick my battles with the kids and its never food if i know they like a meal and i give it to them? they choose not to eat it they are choosing to go to bed hungry (i have a different rule if its new food it must be tried before they can have beans on toast)

upshot is i have three fairly reliable eaters my first is my best success she eats everything put in front of her my boys are a bit fussy but still have a wide variety of foods and if my middle one wont eat much a innocently serve up a curry he never says no to a curry unless he is really really ill

Okay. That all sounds really useful. Thank you.

I reckon I'm just carrying over outdated notions that you've got to finish a meal, but clearly it's too early for that.

Cheers

OP, the fact that this has shocked and upset you so much shows its unusual behaviour. So clearly she's a good kid and you're doing a good job as parents. She probably lost it because she was being forced to do something that she really is struggling to do. I was fussy with food when I was kid - this was back in the days when you had to clear your plate. I can still remember that stressful panicky feeling of desperation - I was a good kid who hated to be in trouble but I just couldn't eat what my parents wanted me to eat. I used to hide food and try and flush it away and all sorts. They unwittingly made my fussyness much worse. And you may well be doing the same.

She sounds like a sweetheart, apologising for her behaviour at such a young age. Give her a break, give yourselves a break and lower your expectations.

Definitely don't force the clearing of a plate. It doesn't help and can cause massive food issues.
We have a three year old who can be a pain with food an stubborn. I never make her finish her plate if she's said she's full. If she refuses to eat her tea it goes in the bin. Fruit only if hungry after that.

It sounds like you were so determined to "win" her only way to show her frustration was to lose it. You then ignored that telling her to calm down, this was after you'd ignored it for three days her feelings. I eat less in summer, she's out of routine, moved house, probably eating more in the mornings etc.

Put her food out, ask if she's done, if she says yes, remove plate and bin it. No more mention of it. Any requests for food, decide on your tactic, I don't personally like giving nothing but others do and have equal success. I think being hungry can sometimes trigger more tantrums so we offer fruit or toast for supper.

With regards to the tantrum, ignore, and I mean this nicely but toughen up a bit. I love my DSS (who's now 18) but bloody hell, we've over the years been told he hates us, wishes us dead, wished he was dead, he'd throw himself out of the window (that was because we turned his Xbox off at silly o clock one night) and everything in between. We shrugged and ignored it and raised it when everyone was calmer. He still loves us, he's also far more laid back than dd so I expect far worse from her.

If this is the worst tantrum you've ever had, my god you've had it easy so far ;) she sounds like a lovely girl and a credit to you from the other things you say.

I agree with others it's not a good idea to force a child to finish a meal, it can cause massive issues with food. I speak from personal experience.

My take on it is:

There's been a massive change (moving house) and she is insecure, maybe unhappy too.

She is testing you with what she said, testing that you still love her despite all the changes. And your reaction from her point of view is to shout at her and send her away to be alone.

I think it would be a good idea to at a calm time to acknowledge how she was feeling. Accept her feelings. She is allowed negative feelings. And she needs to know despite them that you both still love her. I know how upsetting it is to be rejected by your child and to hear hurtful things from them but your wife needs to put her anger and upset to one side.

Oh there's a great well established set of rules on food we follow. Developed by a psychologist I think.

We set meal and snack times (same every day)

We decide what the meal will be

We all eat together whenever possible

The child decides how much they will eat, how they will eat it eg what cutlery, and in what order (we often serve pudding eg fruit alongside the other food, interestingly he will often eat more of the main course on those occasions) ideally serve food from a big pot /servers on the table so they can help themselves to more if they want

After 30 minutes, you say "in 5 minutes we are going to get down from the table and play Lego/watch your programme/do colouring" or whatever appeals to them. Then they get down whatever they've eaten. No food until next meal or snack time.

If they say "I don't like /want x" you say in a very relaxed way "you don't have to eat it".

OP, the reason some posters have been a bit harsh is because they are afraid that your very dramatic way of seeing your dd's behaviour might cause her more problems than she had in the first place: thinking of a child as out of control and likely to end up uncontrollable can affect the way they think of themselves and that can lead to serious behavioural issues.

Ime there is nothing particularly old-fashioned about your reactions or your way of handling the problem: to me it sounds more like inexperience. Fwiw my parents were born in the 30's, my FIL before WW1, my grandparents in the 1880s- and they would certainly not have been shocked by a 5yos tantrum of this relatively modest magnitude. Otoh I reckon they would all have thought 1 hr was far too long to try to force an unsettled young child to eat. But then we have always had a large extended family, with plenty of young children around. And not a single one has grown up into a violent criminal- or even an adult with inadequate table manners.

Calm, calm, calm is the way to go if you want to impress a 5yo. The quickest way to unsettle a young child ime is to let them feel that you are terrified of losing control: that makes them feel that maybe there is a danger that they cannot be controlled. Calm, brisk, cheerful shows them that even though their present behaviour is not up to scratch, mummy and daddy will make sure it all gets sorted in the end.

A little imagination also goes a long way. Imagine if you were feeling unsettled and maybe a bit queasy after some major stress in life (say, imminent job loss): how would you feel if somebody sat you down for a whole hour trying to force you to eat and then thought of it as a major misdemeanour if you tried to get away. It probably wouldn't boost your appetite.

Sorry, accidentally deleted part of first sentence. Should have read: "I suspect, is that they are afraid"

I agree that encouraging finishing a meal isn't going to foster healthy attitudes to food. The current thinking is generally to encourage children to recognise when they are full and stop eating at that point.
If you want to ensure they are hungry for a meal then you can try and keep them busy beforehand so there's no opportunity for snacking.

With regard to worrying about her pickiness affecting her health, does she eat any fruit/veg? Some protein? Nuts?
What nutritional groups are you worried she's missing out on?

Oh and in answer to your question of what if they don't like what is being served, I try and make sure that there is one bit of every meal that they do like.
Unless it's something they absolutely hate, I ask them to have three tiny bits of it.

Going to try to be kind and constructive here!
I think that although you are obviously caring, loving parents who want the best for their kids, you have forgotten somehow along the way that you are both on the same side. Your daughter doesn't want her food, for whatever reason. If you did not want your food or did not like it, and someone made you sit there for as long as an hour, making you finish it, how would you feel? Probably very hacked off and angry, and in no mood to eat the food you didn't even want to begin with! And eventually you'd probably raise your voice and lose it with the person trying to force you to eat. Now add the fact that your daughter is very little and likely to have very poor impulse control...you can see why after 3 nights of this battle she lost it! .
My first child, now 9, eats everything put in front of him and is always hungry. My daughter, 6, is autistic and has sensory issues with food and therefore has a very limited diet consisting of fruit, chips, one brand of instant mash, peas, cereal, bread and eggs. Nothing can touch or be mixed up. Over the years I have realised that even though she barely eats at some meals, she makes up for it at others. She is perfectly healthy, and due to her issues we have just had to be very relaxed and let her be. And the world hasn't ended!
Don't take what your DD says to heart. She's 5 and was probably just so overwhelmed and angry that she wanted to shock you as much as possible to express that.

It doesn't sound like she was particularly out of control. It sounds like she was trying to assert a boundary after you'd shown her that you were perfectly happy to trample her boundaries and make her abide by your wishes for what she sees as dubious or nonexistent gains.

From her perspective, she was probably behaving quite logically. I would guess that by the third day of being made to eat for an hour and then apologize and promise to try again (I guarantee she didn't offer this on her own, though your post tries to make it sound like she did), she probably spent most of her day dreading mealtime.

I agree with a previous poster who said that calling a child out of control or uncontrollable when they behave in this manner is attributing to them qualities they do not have, but may start to have if you continue to describe them this way.

Five year olds don't understand how long "forever" is, or how permanent "dead" is. When a five year old says they want you dead and gone forever, they mean they'd like you to stop impeding their ability to achieve their current desire. If you actually vanished in a poof of smoke unharmed when they said it (much less died), they'd be crying to have you back inside half an hour.