Where has my sweet girl gone and what do we do?

[helpmeCalifornia]

I’m posting about 4 year old (5 in August) who we are having some real behaviour issues with lately and I feel so sad and wonder where my sweet girl has gone.

We’ve always leaned towards gentle parenting but still with clear boundaries, natural consequences (not saying we didn’t get it wrong at times too) and in the main she’s always been a confident, happy, loving little girl - yes strong willed and the odd toddler tantrum but never anything to worry about. Since 4 though it’s like things have got harder and harder.

She gets so angry all of a sudden. Usually when things stop going her way, we have to stop an activity she’s enjoying or increasingly when it’s time for baths/ hair washing (which she used to love). She gets really shouty, red in the face and starts hitting out - she will most of the time hit at air/ cushions etc or make it look like she’s about to hit us but not actually do it but increasingly she’s actually hitting or kicking.

She’s also just so demanding of our time and attention. Like I know that is standard for 4 but she has no ability to play independently, and it feels like however much we play with her it’s never enough. The second we have to stop whatever it is we’re doing she’ll go to ‘just one more, just this, just that’ and then if that doesn’t work it’s either anger/ hitting out or occasionally just sobbing and wailing about how nobody cares about her.

She’s bright - I know everyone thinks that about their children but she definitely is. There’s no issues at school her teachers report a complete angel who has lots of friends, follows the rules and is exceeding expectations. She’s happy at school and has always enjoyed going though she does seem exhausted afterwards which is fair enough as she’s one of the youngest in the year. I do wonder if there’s an element of ‘restraint collapse’ sometimes although tonight for example she was delightful on the walk home, helped me make dinner, played so nicely with me and her dad in the garden and it only kicked off when it was time to stop.

So on that note - after having the nice time playing tonight she was angling for just one more just one more game - she had warnings about after each person has had one more turn that’s it, with a reminder each time. But when it was time she got angry, started hitting out and then chased her dad as if to kick him. Then hit me on the arm really hard - enough to leave a mark.

I did really shout then - just ‘WE DONT HIT’ and her dad and I went inside mostly because I needed to calm down and I thought in the moment that that was the consequence moving away from her/ ignoring. She threw herself on the floor and there was a lot of loud pretend crying and wailing about how I don’t love her, nobody cares and ‘I’m scared out here’.

I calmly told her that I had moved away because she hit me, it hurt and that’s what happens when you hit people they don’t want to be near you. Probably the wrong thing but honestly I just don’t know what to do at the moment. All you ever see is ‘it’s ok to be angry it’s not ok to hit’ type scripts but they don’t seem to be working or sinking in.

When she came in we talked about it again but she just wanted to talk about how the ball had hit her during the game and nobody had said sorry (I’d stopped, checked she was ok and she’d laughed and wanted to keep playing) and then just wanted cuddles and was saying ‘do you forgive me’ but as soon as it was time for bedtime it was back to pushing her luck, refusing to go upstairs, ‘just let me do this’ and when none of that worked ‘I hate you I only love daddy’. Although small mercies no more hitting I guess.

There definitely needs to be firmer consequences I know - in the moment there didn’t seem to be an obvious one other than ignoring the tantrum and withdrawing for a bit, then following through on bedtime. We’ve never done time outs, naughty steps etc and I don’t really believe in them (and we haven’t needed them up to now!) but clearly what we’ve been doing isn’t really working so maybe I need to get over myself.

As I said she’s fine at school and also in any other setting than at home with me and her dad.

Because it might be relevant - try to keep screen time to weekends only - don’t set any particular limit at the weekend but it’s naturally limited by the fact we’re out and about and doing lots of other stuff. She eats a really healthy variety. Sleep has always been a challenge, not so much going to sleep but staying asleep she still wakes multiple times a night.

She’s clever, funny, so determined and resilient, absolutely full of creativity and fun and very loving. I just hate this behaviour currently and feel so worn down by it. It’s spoiling every nice time we have together, every outing etc however we’ll things start we always seem to end up with tantrums and her being angry/ aggressive.

I don’t even know what I’m asking! Just where have we gone wrong I guess and how can we make it better?

With her age I’d question if actually she’s finding school quite tiring/challenging but is masking her issues at school and letting them out at home.

Whats home life like? Busy/quiet, routined/ free flow?
id try ti have a fairly structured routine, try to stick to same times order etc. When she plays up give her a warning - eg do that you will Sit out for 5 minutes etc. then stick to consequence if needed. Try to stay calm during. If she hits take her out the room and sit in the hall with her u til she calms. Try to prempt issues and use distraction

Thank you.

Yes it could be that. She was very ‘ready’ for school nursery at 3, she absolutely loved it and thrived there, so I never really questioned her readiness for reception or thought about deferring. And actually for the first term I think she found it a pretty seamless transition (a few toilet accidents in the first 2 weeks which was unusual for her but soon stopped). I do get the sense things have really stepped up though, more being asked of them and they’ve started doing things like going to assembly, joining in some playtimes on the ‘big playground’ etc so I think it is all getting a bit more intense for her.

Home is fairly structured/ routine in terms of bedtime, meals at same time etc. You have reminded me though that we went through a phase of having an actual step by step routine written out for after school (it was when we had decided to cut out tv/ screen time in the week and also when she was demanding endless snacks but not eating dinner so I was trying to make it explicit what happened when) and actually that really worked for her and seemed to make things go a lot smoother. I can’t even remember when/ why we stopped but I’ll give it another go now.

She sounds neurodiverse to me, and as though she’s masking at school

I’ve just re read your OP and she actually screams neurodiversity

Ridiculous- she screams an overtired 4 year old.

I think she's tired.

Anyone when they're tired finds emotional regulation more difficult and this is much worse for small children who have only got a gentle grasp on it at the best of times.

I don't think you're doing anything wrong with having gentle but consistent boundaries and focusing on natural consequences. I wouldn't punish her inability to regulate her emotions.

I'd continue using natural consequences, moving her away, modeling appropriate behaviour (using dolls to role play this at times when she's calm can work well).

Mostly though I'd change up her schedule to include more downtime. If she's been at school all day maybe she doesn't need to help make dinner and then play in the garden, perhaps having dinner and then going up for a bath and stories is a better option.

Do you think?

I have started to wonder lately.

Never had an inkling previously - no sensory issues, no issues with eye contact, she’s really outgoing and sociable absolutely thrives on being around other children (we are unable to have anymore sadly). Always met her milestones on time if not early. Eats really well. So affectionate. No particular special interests or fixations (beyond just what any toddler or pre schooler would have). I fine with change, can be flexible eg copes absolutely fine with late bedtimes or different food on holiday, or accepts if plans have to change eg her swimming class gets cancelled last minute when we’ve already packed the bag to set off there.

But lately I just wonder - I feel like there’s something niggling.

She’s also crazily competitive - something neither DH or I can relate to. I know that all children want to win in games for example, but this is just a bit beyond that. She has a friend she’s known since they were weeks old, is her best friend and she loves her. However she really does set herself up in competition with her all the time and if I ever say anything even vaguely positive about this friend it really sets her off. So if we’re walking home from school and the friend hands me a daisy she’s picked and I said ‘thanks X that’s so kind’ then all I’ll hear all the way home is ’why dont you say that to me? X isn’t kind, I’m kind, why don’t you think I’m kind, why do you love X and not me?’ It’s so out of proportion with what’s happened. And if X comes to our house for a play date she just can’t seem to cope with it somehow, gets so overwhelmed and ends up just wanting her to go home even though she’s begged for the play date and been really looking forward to it.

I don’t know if it’s ‘enough’ though or what my next step would be even if it was.

Did she start school in September? And she’s exhausted managing a massive life change. Reception year (and year 1) can be like this, kids hold it together in school and the fallout happens at home where kids can safely express upset or exhaustion. As professionals say, all behaviour is communication - you just need to work out what she’s expressing. It might be that she feels she has very little agency or control at school so is being more controlling at home? Or she’s trying to negotiate children with mixed behaviours in school with little escape so it all spills out at home. It might be just plain exhaustion, in which case a regular early bedtime is the answer.

It sounds like her self confidence is quite low

I think she is overtired. The waking in the night might be due to being overstimulated in the day. I think games before bedtime in the garden might be too much after school.
She doesn't sound especially neurodiverse (having two neurodiverse children and one not(although possibly adhd) but she does sound like a very empathetic sensitive child who can't bear the thought of getting things wrong or people thinking badly of her, and possibly has sensory needs - feels like she has been hurt when no one hurt her etc.

Recommend weighted blanket, lots of hugs, animals, baths water in general, climbing and very early bedtime. I used to lie in bed next to my daughter telling her made up stories until she fell asleep, aged SIX! Also a lot of co sleeping made for better sleep.

Consequences absolutely didn't work for my daughter she was humiliated by any of the" if you do this then", not did rewards. It all reinforced a fear of being "wrong" and made her upset and rebellious. Leaning in sort of worked but it took me a while to understand how to do that. I suppose it was thinking of things from her point of view which helped perhaps? Structure and routine good but sort of in an effortless understated sort of way.

See then I flip flop and think actually of course it’s this and not ND!

I guess the only reason I do question it is there’s a fairly strong family history of ND on her dad’s side.

Affectionate children can be neurodiverse!!!!

Sounds like normal 4 year old - often a difficult age. If she had a sibling she would have been hitting them instead. Can she have more friends over so less tiring for you?

No one said they couldn't be.

I can relate to a lot of what you have written. I have a 4 year old, 5 in August.

I think we are having restraint collapse too. Things are definitely worse at the end of half term and if there has been something difficult at school. She's good in school but we know that she doesn't communicate her needs well to the teachers so we have to keep reminding them that her being happy and smiley doesn't necessarily mean she is happy and ok.

Poor sleep here too and she is definitely worse on weeks where she has had poor sleep every night. We are working on it but it can be a challenge. She has a few health needs that impact her sleep and also cause her pain which the feeds into her behaviour. It might be worth checking in with her that there's not any illness or things like that going on. We had two incidence last year where poor behaviour and being unreasonable was as a result of her consuming foods she was allergic too. Once to a nursery issue, promptly resolved once identified and a second time when we were trying to do a food ladder.

I would have a word with the school, after an incident where my daughter bit me for the first time since being about 12 months in a complete rage which was triggered by an incident in school they have done a few sessions with the class on emotional regulation. This was an incident where her smiles were taken as ok when instead she was frightened and scared.

I see gentle parenting as the starting point and we do find that we are starting to have to be a bit firmer with her. We don't do naughty steps but we sit her on the floor next to us if she flies into a rage and wait for it to pass before talking to her. Keep her safe but we are at a distance where she can't try to hit us. We move her away from us rather than us away from her because we found it was better at breaking the cycle as she was still in the space and the moment of the rage.

We had quite a lot of rage in the first half term of school and issues with transitions at home. We made a pom pom chart where she could get 15-20 pom poms over the course of the day for cooperating. The list was broadly an activity list of what we had to do in the day. Get dressed nicely, sit at the table for breakfast, eat breakfast, as well as more open ended ones like being helpful. It really helped to reinforce the good behaviour and make the transition from breakfast to getting dressed to leaving the house easier and again in the evenings. We went through everything at the end of the day and it was nice to finish the day with the positives. At the end of the week we added up how many she had and she tried to get more than the last week each week. Not counting until the end of the week allowed her to have good days and less good days and time to learn and adjust. We did it properly for I think 4 weeks by which point life was easier with her. We half did it for another 2 weeks and it's been left then. We have used pom poms a couple of other times in the past with her when wanting to change the balance of behaviours but again for a course of a few weeks.

We are quite strict with TV and tablet time too but still include some limits at the weekend too. If she's having TV for a longer time we put on things like junior bake off or the masked singer and that seems to be less stimulating and she's more like to have enough compared to some of the more 4 year old targets shows. It might be worth having a look through the content she's consuming and whether any are particularly stimulating. We are very strict with paw patrol it's like a drug for my daughter and no matter how much she has it's not enough and her behaviour suffers as a result. Other shows don't have the same effect so we direct her towards them.

For us it has been trying to figure out what is normal 4 yo and what is something that needs further exploration. The first term we were more worried but how she has been over the last term I'm less worried and there now usually seems to be a cause and effect to her actions. Emotionally and socially she definitely is more 4 year old than 5 year old where as there's other skills where she's more 5 year old than 4 year. We have put quite a bit of time and effort in supporting her emotionally and socially and championing these needs with the school. She was having issues with having no one to play with at lunchtime. She was near other children but not engaging with them. Staff saw her with children and assumed she was fine but to her she might have well been sat alone. The teachers asked the lunchtime staff to try to start a game off at the start of lunch to get the children engaged and that helped not only my daughter. I had reports from other mums that their child wasn't complaining about lunchtimes as much in the days and weeks after this was implemented.

Sorry for the essay!

Having observed five grandchildren born in a six year period. They've all been like this when starting school full time. It helps a bit when we have them, but they're still unpredictable. I've put it down to tiredness and having to fit into a schedule at school. They then let it all hang out with family.

Sounds very similar to my overtired 5 year old (March birthday). He finished the term tired, we've then had a busy Easter and he went back to school yesterday and despite being great at school was an emotional mess all evening (and is the same whenever he is chronically tired). Lots of chilled evening coming up and he'll settle down again as I'm sure will your daughter (and by chilled evenings we do things like hamma beads, cooperative board games, reading etc and then save the things we love, hiking/biking/being really active, for the weekend when we can have a more relaxed pace to the day and more time for transitions).

My DS is a year older - also an August baby. We had something similar last year and I think tiredness was a massive part of it. Nothing major had changed but there was much more time running around outside, slightly later nights and earlier mornings because of the light outside, and a bit of a ramping up of things at school to prepare them for Year 1. It was tricky but it did pass.

Every do often you need to crack down on behaviour and let to hem know firm rules and boundaries. Sounds like your first time needing a crack down

@HeyCooper yes she started in September. She loves it, as in she’d be disappointed if I told her she wasn’t going to school tomorrow, but I know that doesn’t mean that it’s not still exhausting for her.

As for confidence - she’s confident meeting new people, she loves to perform and she’s the first one to volunteer to get up on stage and things like that. She’s also really physically confident - the girl has no fear when it comes to climbing, jumping off various obstacles and heights, jumping into water etc.

But yes, she hates to be wrong, hates anyone not to think she’s ‘perfect’. Like she’s an angel at school but mostly because she would absolutely go to pieces if she got told off or if her name got moved off the ‘sunshine’. It just wouldn’t happen, which I suppose is telling in itself really. Like even her perfectly angelic and sweet little best friend has had a warning once, and at least outside of school she presents as a far more easy going child than DD. So really DD is probably policing herself much more strictly and maybe feeling a bit more anxious because I just know she’d be utterly distraught at the thought of being ‘in trouble’.

She’s always been really resilient with things like e.g learning to ride a bike - she’ll keep going even when it’s hard. Even that though, because she did it quite early I remember her saying ‘nobody else in my class can do this can they mummy?’ She absolutely can’t bear it if someone can do something she can’t do - but it usually makes her more determined to master it. I don’t know where it comes from though - we’ve never really compared her or told her she has to do this thing because those other children can do it. It does feel like she needs that validation but I’m not sure why, or how come she isn’t getting it from us when we so completely adore her, give her so much of our time, attention, encouragement etc. We’re obviously getting it wrong somewhere though.

My dd has ASD so this might not work for you. I tell the kids "if you do this, I'm going to stop talking to you" warn them once more then ignore them. They are like the fire triangle and I remo e the oxygen. My kids like firm but fair boundaries. Especially whrn kicking off.

I didn't find explaining about feelings and boundaries in the middle of drama goes in at all. Feed her, then explain it when calm

She sounds like a normal child. I'm sorry but there is so much handwringing and catastrophising in your long posts. She's just a tired four year old. Sometimes you just have to think "what would I think if she were a puppy?" to bring you back down to earth. She's started school, she's tired, she's a child. She might also be picking up on your "where did it all go wrong?" vibes. I know this post will sound harsh, but think of the granny PP who has just seen this with five grandchildren in a row. You must hear this from other parents too?

@Nettleskeins oh absolutely! Sorry that was really ignorant sounding of me.

And thank you for your suggestions too.

In fact thank you everyone - I feel so much better for posting and am so grateful for all those who said they recognised some of the behaviours and for all the suggestions. I’m going to have a good look through again tomorrow after I’ve hopefully managed to get a decent sleep!

I could have written this word for word when my daughter was 4/5. On our case she does have ADHD and these were the first signs. We had no idea back then, hindsight makes it clearer. Her emotional outbursts were rooted in what she saw as rejection when we ended play etc.
She might just be overtired but certainly worth keeping an eye on things.

I think people get hung up mistakenly on the efficacy of reward charts. The reason it "works" to start with is that your child gets positive communication with you when they put the pompon in the jar or whatever (I presume most people don't do it silently) But it is just another way to say I'm listening and interested in you, active listening is the key not the pompons! And after a bit they crave the engagement more than the pompons. So the rewards themselves were a red herring. And then the more you engage in this form it becomes almost contractual. Which is corrosive, imho. I don't know really. Children want approval they need approval but it can backfire.

How to Talk So Children listen is a wonderful book by Faber and Mazlish.