My 7 year old is violent to me

[Thisisme2026]

Looking for advice on how to diffuse these situations.

My daughter of 7, an only child, is very agressive to me when she gets no for an answer, or something doesn’t go her way. Not always but very often.

She will hit, push, pinch and kick me, pull my clothes or throw my phone etc on the floor. My response is usually to back away whilst telling her to stop, or grabbing her hands to stop them from hitting me. I’m not proud of it but sometimes my only defence is to push her away when she comes at me, only for her to manically continue advancing!
There are hurtful words too such as worst mum ever, it’s her dream to hurt me etc. I know these words are said for affect but still!!

The worst part is that she doesn’t stop for maybe 10 or 15 minutes- she will continue the agression and screaming until I have to pick her up and put her in her room or she slams the door herself.

There is no set pattern to this behaviour either, can be after school, a morning, a weekend, any time when the word no is not to her liking!
With her dad she does not behave the same because he does not tolerate at all, we do not believe in hitting either and only occasionally will I respond back with a pinch, or pull her kicking and screaming to her room when I boil over and lose my cool.

Once she has finished this behaviour she often says sorry later, or writes me a letter to say sorry. But then it happens again and again. Whilst we don’t use punishment, there are consequences such as no tv, missing birthday parties etc but she almost doesn’t care, even though they are things she wanted to do before.

I suppose I am looking for suggestions to diffuse these episodes at the time. Calm words to calm down, walking away from her, locking myself in the toilet while she’s kicking the door aren’t working. There is a lot of love between us and most of the time she is a lovely bright girl who is fun to be around, but the person she is when she is hurting me is not fun at all.

Speak to a professional child psychiatrist.

Look up non violent resistance. And stop pinching her back.

Sounds awful for you , seems like some real trouble regulating herself and she is not in control. Have the school every raised any concerns?
I would say talk to the school, and probably the GP too.
It's not something you are doing wrong, it seems like you are having a difficult time and dealing with it as best you can. But you do need support.
If she is masking well at school and exploding at home then it will be more tricky to convince people, but you need to persevere until you get a solution.
Good luck!

OP, what is her DF doing that means she doesn’t do it with him? As for “only occasionally will I respond back with a pinch,” you are in effect letting her know that pinching is an OK thing to do. I don’t think school will be very sympathetic, if she pinches a classmate, is told off for it, and tells them that her DM pinches her. Rather than dragging her kicking and screaming, why don’t you simply take yourself away from her? While she’s getting a rise out of you, she will continue this behaviour, but if you absolutely stonewall and it has no effect, you might find it stops. You’re the adult: sometimes, strategic deafness or taking yourself away from the situation is required. At the moment, it sounds like war in your house when she starts to kick off. As far as saying no goes, give a reason - “No, you can’t have sweets because it’s dinner in ten minutes; no you can’t watch another telly programme because we agreed two programmes “ - whatever. Obviously children want things that they shouldn’t or can’t have, but if you set clear boundaries and give your DD a reason for your “no”, then you’re engaging with her and giving her respect. The worst possible answer ever is “Because I said so”.

My daughter was almost exactly like this last summer and it took a huge toll on me. She would attack me and keep coming and coming at me and like you I ended up pushing her away a few times. She couldn’t articulate anything about what was going on with her or why. We worked a lot on calming techniques when she wasn’t in a rage, but if she started to get angry I tried to separate myself as quickly as possible. We also put her in play therapy which I do think helped although I still don’t quite understand why or how! Gradually things got better and now she is a normal stroppy 8yo and hasn’t been violent to me in months

I think you need to seek professional advice for this, and pretty urgently.