Looking for any advice, or just to know she's not the only one. My 9 year old daughter gets so incredibly angry and can't calm down. It's taking up around an hour in a morning, with potential outbursts later in the day. It is worse because of lockdown, she hates not being able to see her friends and the lack of school routine , although we often don't see friends in the holidays and usually relax routine. However lockdown is masking an ongoing problem. Almost every school morning she has a meltdown at some stage and it's only manageable because getting her to school breaks the mood and creates a natural new start for her. Without that we are stuck.
She starts getting angry when things go slightly against how she expects- clothes aren't a perfect fit, her drawing doesn't turn out as envisaged, she changes her mind anout breakfast. Once she has become angry it's like she can't switch it off. Strategies such as deep breathing are met with screaming that she doesn't want to, it's pretty much like she knows i am trying to manage her and so she won't do it. We've talked when calm about what calms her down, she will say there is nothing.. Sometimes she says cheese or the cat but these are wrong when she has got angry. If I leave her in her room to calm down she'll come out and go round the house screaming again. It really upsets her older sister who is spending more and more time in her room. We've talked about how things can go wrong and mistakes are ok and how she can't keep behaving like this when she's calm but she will say she can't help it and now seems to have taken what I'm saying on board but is turning it against herself to say that eveyone hates her behaviour and her. I find this so worrying. I'm trying to work on getting her to pick things she likes doing during the day but she so often says she doesn't know, doesn't want to do anything. If I make suggestions of things I knows she likes she will refuse almost because I've suggested it. I just want to have a calm household and to spend time doing nice things together and I'm dreading next week when I'll be back to WfH while she's here.