How to get DD to deal with big emotions

[sleepfortheweek]

Going to try not waffle too much!

DD1 is nearly 7. As an infant and toddler, she had many meltdowns. Totally different to tantrums (as I later discovered with DD2!).

As she's got older, they have definitely become much fewer, however they do still occasionally rear their ugly head. The last two weeks have been particularly bad.

They usually start with something very small. Here's some from this week :

• Having to go into town after school instead of straight home

• Having a bun in her hair for swimming instead of a pony tail

• Having to read her homework out loud to me

There's probably more!

She gets so angry and wound up and just gets herself into a state. It can last ages, sometimes well over an hour. I try to stay calm, I try not not to shout or threaten but I end up getting very agitated myself which obviously doesn't help.

Afterwards when she's calm, she always apologises and often says she hates being like that and doesn't know why she does it. It's more than having a tantrum because she's not getting her way, and it's usually like a switch that goes off.

As she's getting older and other emotions influenced by friends etc occur, I want her to be able to recognise her feeling and be able to handle them a bit better. Plus, it'll help us a lot at home too 🤣

I have no idea how to tackle it. I don't know what is best to say, how to manage it, what to do when it happens.

Please, can anyone give me any advice?

If I've removed something (her kindle for example) as a punishment, she always accepts it and doesn't grumble. She knows her behaviour isn't good when she's having an absolute meltdown but similarly I recognise she isn't actively trying to behave like that and I just want to help her for all of our sakes.

Other than that, she's a lovely girl. Very kind and considerate, very sociable and great with her Dsis. She's very academic and does a lot of extra curricular activities too.

Please help! We need something before the pre teen stage hits 🙈

And apologies - that ended up being a bit rambling!

Also to add. If it gets really bad and I say (taking into account the examples I have from this week)

• "ok we'll just go home and I'll come into town later"

She'll then start wailing that she DOESN'T want to go home. So then I'll say right ok, let's get on with it, then she'll start screaming that she DOESN'T want to go into town.

Honestly it's exhausting and there's rarely anything I can do to get her to snap out of it.

Tiredness is a huge trigger. She does a lot after school and at the weekend, so we are talking about scaling that back but of course she doesn't want that to happen as she loves all her clubs and activities 🙈

Parenting is tough

Bump

She sounds a lot like my 8yo but he’s autistic. One thing that helps is always keeping him in the loop. So I would never collect him from school and say ‘we’re going to town’ as that would be a recipe for disaster. I would tell him the night before ‘we are going to town after school tomorrow’ then again in the morning.

I also don’t get drawn into it at all when the meltdown has started. So when you say about okay we’ll go home/getting agitated - once my son has started on a meltdown I just say ‘okay I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me’ and would move away. If I attempted to reason with him it would just enrage him further.

With the reading homework aloud, I wouldn’t have gotten into that either, and would simply have let it be. If the homework was poorly done she will have that pointed out at school, and you can explain that when she is calm.

That sounds like me when my blood sugars crash. It is horrible as an adult who knows what is happening and can be a bit more rational, but I know that it took my mum a while to work out that me being totally unreasonable was more than likely because I needed to eat. She did give me boring food so I didn’t use it as a tactic for getting sweets but it really did help.

Orange juice and a digestive biscuit used to bring my sugars up enough to explain the issue. Perhaps her bun was hurting her/she needed a wee and home is closer than town/she couldn’t read her homework, but couldn’t rationalise it out.

Thank you so much @Kanaloa for your reply and for sharing your experiences.

Yes, I definitely think I need to keep her informed more. That should help. However sometimes things crop up. In the instance of last week, I had to pick up a prescription for a family member last minute. I also had another child to pick up from childcare so it's not always easy. I'm going to make more of an effort of letting her Ineke what will be happening and when. It definitely is a trigger, the week before she had a non uniform day and planned out her outfit. She couldn't find a particular jacket the next morning and it was as if the world was ending. She needed a jacket as it was damp, but wouldn't leave the house because she couldn't find the one she wanted. I had to get them both to school and I needed to get to work, it's those situations that I find it hard to stay cool in. It doesn't happen all the time though, a club of hers was cancelled yesterday and I didn't realise. We arrived and had to leave but it didn't bother her at all (even though she was really looking forward to it).

There are things we do just to avoid the argument, especially when there's a time pressure. For example she HATES getting herself dressed for school. It always ends in tears and shouting, so I now pretty much always get her dressed even though she's nearly 7 and very capable of doing it (she does it at the weekend no bother).

I worry that I'm just giving in to avoid an argument. I don't want to let her 'have her way' all the time just to avoid her getting upset because life isn't like that is it, and she'll need to cope with it. It's also not a great example for her Dsis.

Thank you @Greenandcabbagelooking .

I honestly don't think DD1 knows what hunger feels like 🤣. She eats ALL the time, and I'm not strict with food if she's hungry and I know it'll help her mood.

I also get 'hanger' and know all too well the black hole of agitation when I'm hungry!

Not trying to diagnose stuff but she does have some traits that sound worthy of investigation.

My daughter has sensory issues and dyspraxia and clothing is a big issue. Is it that clothing at weekend is her choice and comfortable and something about the uniform is uncomfortable for her.

“She's very academic and does a lot of extra curricular activities too.”
That is what springs out to me. Kids like this tend to be intense - they are both sensitive and highly driven and quite often it just all gets too much for them and they meltdown. I agree you need to keep sugar levels constant, actually sometimes say no to too many activities and just keep talking to them about it. As she is clearly very intelligent she does understand afterwards but when it happens she cannot help it. You need to teach her to not put too much pressure on herself and to rest enough and to eat well and look after her emotions. This type of alpha driven female also likes to be in control - so when it all gets too much she wants to try and control the situation through small things. That is why she melts down.

Sounds very similar to DS1 who is diagnosed with ADHD (non hyperactive) and anxiety. He's 12 now and better with unexpected situations/doesn't melt down any more, however now he willl work himself up about anything that is coming up that is not "easy", which manifests as tummy aches, nausea, needing an urgent wee/poo, asking a million questions, hovering around the nearest adult.

It is difficult because his need to know what will happen has morphed into a need to be able to understand every tiny detail, and you just can't map that level of detail out in advance because not everything is predictable.

OP that sounds really tough. I suspect I was that child; I am now on the diagnostic pathway for autism. If you can, I would recommend a few sessions with a child psychologist to help both you and her; it sounds like she isn't in control of her emotions, and is ashamed of her reactions (which is what drives the "no, let's do go into town" response, and her willingness to accept punishment).

Thank you so much to everyone who has replied, I really appreciate it. I'm getting a bit emotional, I've never ever even considered that it might be a processing/sensory/spectrum disorder. Do you really think it would be worth investigating? I wouldn't even know where or how to start with that!

@Newnormal99 I don't think it's the actual clothes that's the issue. It's the a r of getting dressed that she doesn't like. It's the same at bedtime when she needs to get changed - always wants ones of us to do to it her. Weekends aren't so bad, usually because there's something she's looking forward to to get ready for, if that makes sense.

@Sunnyfreezesushi so much of what you have said resonates. She does always want to be the best and probably puts a lot of pressure on herself as a result. She's doesn't, however, seem to get upset if she DOESN'T win something, she's not a bad loser. She is competitive by nature though and is always the first to volunteer for things at school/clubs. For example, she's in the pupil council for the 3rd time this year (she's only in her 3rd year at school 🤣). What you said about control makes so much sense. She has also told me she has a 'button' she presses at school or when she is with friends which stops her crying if she's hurt/sad but she doesn't need to use it at home. She's very aware of her feelings and emotions, just seems unable to control them or reign them in sometimes.

@BertieBotts I'm glad your DC is able to deal with things a bit better. I have a niece of the same age who suffers with anxiety and gets very bad stomach aches as a result 😢. I do wonder if DD is anxious about certain things but is just not able to articulate it?

@CallItLoneliness thank you so much for your response and for sharing your own situation/m. Was there anything that helped when you were a child? I wouldn't even knew where to start, looking for a child psychologist.

There's lots of books out there to help kids with big feelings, it's worth a google, a lot of them are workbooks where your child can write her feelings down, which helps. When DD was 8 or 9 I got her one about anxiety (she was having meltdowns sometimes in school) and that seemed to help.

Thank you @Echobelly I'm definitely going to have a look!

Tiredness. Hunger. Anxiety over "changes in plan".

I wouldnt punish because I honestly dont think it will help voice of bitter experience, better to work out what the triggers are so they can be mitigated/avoided.

I absolutely agree with you @Porcupineintherough - just trying to figure out how to do that 🙈

I always feel really terrible after losing my temper or removing something that she likes, because she is being disruptive and very illogical. It's just hard to keep the head sometimes - and I'm actually quite a calm person - I HATE getting angry

one of the things that helped me most then and still does now is acknowledging that I might find the change in plan difficult, and that I was/am not bad for feeling that way.My eldest is a bit the same, and acknowledging his feelings seems to help, too--even naming them as "big feelings".

I was just looking in desperation for similar threads after my eight year old daughter had a massive meltdown on the evening of her birthday and was completely out of control with it..
She sounds almost exactly like your daughter OP. Although she doesn’t do many extra curricular activities as she gets anxious about trying new things, and I just found out she dropped out of the school council she was elected for last year..
Also v academic and does well at school, sociable with lots of friends. Definitely competitive and puts pressure on self. Some sensory issues around clothes, not good with transitions in activities.. and the meltdowns! They had got a lot better recently to the point I thought we’d turned w corner then today we had “Mummy I’m only 8, I don’t know how to control my emotions”

I have wondered about asd but no idea how we’d get that diagnosed without a referral from school or something - isn’t camhs really over subscribed?
Anyway OP, you have my sympathy - it’s upsetting and hard to know how to help them help themselves…

She sounds like my 9 year old DD. She is autistic.

@stargirl1701 how did you go about getting a diagnosis? We’re the school involved?

My dd was exactly like this at that age with anger telling me she didn't want to be like that but couldn't stop it. She is also a perfectionist.she was diagnosed at 11 with high functioning autism. I paid privately for an educational psychologist assessment who then suggested an asd assessment.My GP then requested an assessment which was completed a few months later. She was perfectly well behaved at school.girls with autism can mask very well at school but then explode at home as a release.

Thanks @gonnaboek I am definitely going to try to do this. Assume you found it useful to have a proper diagnosis?
@sleepfortheweek sorry to highjack your thread but hopefully useful for you too!

Hello, I have a child like this too, he is autistic. I'd suggest using some autism friendly techniques as they can work for any child - children who aren't autistic can still be delayed in learning to cope with emotions.

Look up zones of regulation. It's based on 4 colours which refer to different emotions. When you are having a meltdown you are red, when you are getting anxious you are yellow, when you are ok you are green. The idea is you help the child match their emotions to the colour, this makes them more aware of their emotions. Then you can work with them to spot when they are on "yellow" and to take action to get back to green (like going for a walk, taking a break from homework).

Also making everything predictable, using timetables and giving lots of notice if anything has to change. If there's an unexpected change to your schedule, plan ahead to soften the blow. So for example, if you need to go to the pharmacy after school ask if she'll help you choose a dessert for that evening, go to the pharmacy on the way to buying the dessert.

It's worth being aware that girls with autism are often missed or diagnosed much older because they tend to mask their autism better than boys. That's not to say your DD has autism of course, there could be any number of reasons for her behaviour and she may just grow out of it, but it's worth having the thought in mind as she gets older.

My nearly 7 year old is exactly like this. After a lot (several years) of considering it/ wondering we have referred her for a neurodiversity assessment. In our area you can self-refer (check your council website, that’s where the information is here). It’s a 2 year waiting list so plenty of time to see if it’s something she’ll grow out of. In the meantime we never ever spring surprises on her and try to make sure she doesn’t get hungry or too tired (she also does/ loves lots of activities)