Daughter scratching her face while being told off

[Babayaggatheboneylegged]

This evening we were out in the garden. I was taking washing off the line and the kids had just had dinner. They - daughter aged 4 (nearly 5) and son aged 21 months started bickering over a chair.

DD then pushed her brother off the chair and he landed awkwardly and bashed his face on another chair. It was a hard fall and he was obviously really upset.

I picked him up and shouted at DD that That was a terrible thing to do to her brother and to go to her room.

She went without complaining and I spent a couple of minutes comforting the boy and asking DH, who'd been running the kids bath, how we should deal with this incident.

We got DD out of her room and started explaining that we were very disappointed as she'd hurt her brother, that he's only little, that she should never shove him like that & that she'd really hurt him.

While we were doing this she was acting sort of strangely - she wasn't visibly upset, but was doing strange almost shrug-like responses and she started scratching her fingers down her face - about 5-7 times during the course of us reprimanding her.

We were both really unnerved by this!

She apologised to her brother and I said we were going to draw a line under it and then she was very sweet to him and went out of her way to find him a duck for his bath. The rest of the night passed without incident.

I'm just a bit worried by her reaction to doing something bad/being told off. It was almost compulsive behaviour and like I say, really quite unnerving!

Should we have handled it differently/better?

Scared because you shouted?
As an adult you can suddenly calm down and speak rationally. A child can't. So she's just been shouted at. She's expecting more shouting? It's like a coping mechanism?
Avoid yelling where possible (I know. I know!) don't "reprimand". Sit her on your lap and chat. How do you think he felt when... How would you feel if.. In future..

Yes, I know shouting isn't good! I suppose I did it because despite DS screaming his head off, she was initially very much like, 'well it was MY chair' and I was trying to communicate the unacceptability of what she'd done!

When we got her out of her room and she was doing the face scratching thing, we were just talking sternly. I got the feeling she was struggling with how to deal with the fact she'd done something 'wrong' rather than being scared of us. But I could of course be wrong!

An adult talking sternly (who was shouting a minute ago) could make her feel a bit anxious. I'm not trying to suggest you were terrifying your child.
Also young children struggle with reason (that part of the brain develops in mid 20s fully!) and tend to have an emotional response. They also don't have the words always to explain how they feel. Repetitive things can be a comfort.

The scratching was a nervous reaction. At her age, she probably doesn't really understand, or even remember or realize, the conscience decision to push her sibling. Children that age have next to zero ability to resist impulsive reactions. You and your husband did all the right things in parenting her. Her little brain is definitely learning what is acceptable and what is not.

Even better, you have discovered her "tell." A tell is an unconscious physical manifestation when she lies or feels guilty or vulnerable.

As mentioned it's a nervous reaction as she's incredibly anxious for having been told off.

There have been a handful of times in my life where I've become overwhelmed with anxiety (like my university finals) that I've scratched myself so much I bled!