Hi,
I'm at the end of my tether with my 7 year old DD and desperate for advice, please.
She flies off the handle into a terrible rage over the most trivial issue. It normally relates to control...she feels she HAS to be in control. It's like she has never grown out of the "but I wanted a blue cup, not a red cup/I want to do it myself" toddler tantrum phase?
She is violent, aggressive, yells and screams and says dreadful things. She destroys things in the house. She is constantly yelling at me to shutup and shoving me out of her bedroom - kicking me or pushing me. (We are not physical with her).
This morning, we didn't go the way to school that she wanted so she shoved me into the road twice, and tried to run away.
Eg I open her curtains, she closes them. I turn a light on when she wanted to do it: she will turn in off again to turn it on herself.
She is good as gold at school, she is a bright girl. I have raised the difficult behaviour at home with a teacher once and they were gobsmacked. She seems to have friends and enjoys school and the 2 hobbies she does after school.
I do try and built choice into her day, I try to give her autonomy but the challenges generally relate to getting ready for school. And if we only have 10 minutes til we leave and teeth aren't brushed etc etc then of course, I have to tell her.
I think part of it is separation anxiety? But I am failing. Some mornings I dread going into her bedroom. I am on eggshells all the time. I wake up in a good mood and BAM, I am getting yelled at or told to go away because I have done something benign like pick something up from the floor.
I've tried:
- Jollying along, turning it into a laugh (often works but I feel so fake and it is a massive effort to do it)
- Reward chart. Doesn't work. She wants to be the one to control it. Will remove stars, want to do her own stickers, etc, she takes it over and it defeats the point and becomes frustrating.
- Punishments. I try not to do this in the heat of the moment but sometimes the threat of screen ban/not going somewhere might work. But frankly she would have nothing left and we'd go nowhere with the way she is some days. If we confiscate something from her, she has now started doing this to us.
- Gentle...I try to be a bit more "gentle parenting" sometimes. Offer her a hug, say you are angry, etc, but she tends to lash out. I think she prefers to be left alone and it helps not to blow it up tbh. I don't like feeling like she is "getting away" with the way she treats us too?
- Good inside Dr Becky. It just doesn't feel "me". I couldn't move her somewhere safe in a tantrum, she would injure me.
- Threatened to phone teacher etc. Just winds her up.
- Anger techniques. I have tried to teach her deep breathing, count to 10, we wrote our own little booklets. I say I get angry too. But she just loses her head - frequently - straight to 10.
It makes my parenting very inconsistent because I am trying all these different approaches and I am just so god damn worn down. She's been like this since she started nursery around 6 years ago. Her temper does not seem to improve.
Of course she is not like this all the time; sometimes we can go a few weeks of excellent behaviour. Then sometimes it's every day, multiple times a day, losing her shit. I do love her very much, we spend a lot of time together and we are very close, but, combined with other things I have got going on, are pushing me over the brink. I blame myself and just do not know what to do.
HELP
PLEASE