Parenting a 5 year old - how did you get through this?!

[Petalsandthorns]

Talk to me about what it’s like on the other side of a parenting crisis. Sorry it’s long. I’ve been back and forth about posting and still not sure how it’ll help but here goes.

We have two DDs 5 and 2. 2yo is totally fine (for now) but 5yo is another story.

She is very articulate, smart, perceptive, inquisitive, curious, gentle, friendly, kind, polite and in many ways very capable of talking about and understanding emotions.

Context - we moved internationally about a year ago, and she is halfway through her first year of primary school here (more like year 1 in expectations and structure than reception). We left my family who she was very close to, and that was and still is hard at times. We decided to move so they could also connect with DH’s family and experience life here but she is still sad about it often.

She’s always had tantrums and been sensitive which has been hard (really hard) at times, but since school it’s been increasingly extreme triggered by all sorts of things, out of control screaming, being spiteful and unkind, throwing things, breaking things, and then on the other side of the meltdown she’s guilty and shameful, talking about herself in hopeless and unkind words “I’ll never be happy” “I’m stupid” “I’m a terrible sister” “I’m useless” etc. She’s not heard that from us.

She struggles with transitions like leaving or going somewhere, always has done, but it’s getting worse. She’ll unbuckle her car seat, refuse to sit down, throw things around the car, etc.

She’s got separation anxiety, especially on school drop off but also sometimes when we go to work or one of us leaves for some other reason with lots of clinging and panic but is usually fine when we’ve actually gone.

Bedtimes can be horrific. Screaming, throwing things, out of control, nastiness, hysterical.

To make it all worse I really struggle with my own reactions to her behaviour, especially refusals to get ready and go to school/bed and other things like disrespect, spitefulness and rudeness, particularly if it’s directed at her sister (she’s never ever hurt her and never would but sometimes does yell or be unkind), and sometimes when it escalates find myself more getting very angry and feeling completely out of control, yelling, screaming etc, then obviously there’s my own intense guilt and shame as a result which I haven’t verbalised to her or shown her, though she’s seen me cry in frustration and exhaustion. My husband struggles too and gets angry and upset but we’re pretty aligned in how we handle it by and large, though obviously it’s a strain. We do our best to repair with her and apologise and try and keep working on it and be calmer and support her but it’s just so fucking hard.

I feel so completely emotionally burnt out by the constant ups and downs and volatility - there’s times when I’m always close to tears and struggle to relax with her even when she’s in a good place. Especially because my reaction to it all makes me feel intensely inadequate in a way I’ve not felt before. I’ve never found parenting so hard. Sometimes I feel this intense fear that this is it now, she’ll always be this way, or it’ll get worse and worse and our relationship will be destroyed and soon it’ll be her sister too and I don’t know how to handle it.

I think I need perspective from someone who’s made it through the other side.

Has anyone experienced a really extreme downward shift in emotional regulation and behaviour for their child in their first year of school? How did you get through it as a parent? Do they ever get through the other side or does it just keep getting worse? What would you have done differently?

I find it odd you are putting all her behaviour down to starting school, and not the huge upheaval of moving her to a different country and away from her family and friends. You mention she doesn't like transitions and has separation anxiety, to me that is a direct fall out of probably how she feels about the move. The furst year of school cancelled be really tough, is it a different language as well?

First you need to address your reactions I think. There’s no point being a kind and gentle parent to then fly off the rails. If you need to adjust your normal parenting style to be firmer then imo that’s better than that juxtaposition. You need to be consistent.

Things which help my 4 and a half yo regulate (he’s younger but started school last year)…
Mirroring his faces/ actions. If he’s sitting in a grump with a scowl on then I copy it. He thinks it’s hilarious. If he’s refusing to walk down the street and has gone to have a strike next to a wall with a grump face then I will dramatically join him and spread myself into the wall.

Talking about emotions at other times.

Having lots of books on different emotions and feelings; for you that might be moving house, starting school, anxiety, confidence.

watching Bluey - a weird one as screens not recommended but studies have shown it improves emotional regulation

Excercise and walking outside but not to the point of exhaustion .

dancing and watching music festivals. Talking about joy and choosing to be happy.

I didn’t mean to give that impression. Of course I think the move is a big factor which is why I mentioned it. Not a different language. I suppose I just thought not many people will have had a move at this age but pretty much everyone’s kid starts school at this age so more people would have advice on that subject but I’d very much appreciate perspectives on either.

Of course she has separation anxiety and struggles with transition, after moving country and leaving friends and family. I’d focus on one thing at a time, maybe bedtime? Does she need later bedtime? Whats your routine at bedtime and how does she fall asleep?

Totally agree. I know the extremes of my reactions are not helpful. I wouldn’t say I was a full blown gentle parent, but nevertheless it’s still a juxtaposition as you say so it is definitely something I’ve considered as particularly unsettling. Keeping the boundaries consistent is obviously better. I am trying to work on it and will keep trying.

Those are good tips thank you. Mirroring before she loses control altogether could be a way to pull her out of it sometimes. And we love Bluey in this house.

It sounds like she's really suffering as a result of the move and starting school. She sounds like she's working with trauma almost.

I would work on connecting with her. Try to spend one on one time together. Do lots of physical connection (brush her hair or get her to brush yours, swim together, hold hands, lots of cuddles, do face paints or let her do your make-up, 'paint' each other with dry brushes, draw on her back with your finger and get her to guess what you're drawing etc). Do quiet activities together so she has a chance to talk about anything she's worried about in a relaxed manner e.g. drawing together, building Lego, dressing dolls etc.

Make sure that you're explaining the plan for the day over and over so she knows exactly what's going to happen and when. Always include the information about who will be picking her up and when so she knows you're coming back. You could also try leaving her with something of yours to 'look after'.

Approach all of your interactions with her in the knowledge that it's likely fear that is underpinning the the behaviour. For example, reluctance to go to bed will be the fear of lying alone in the dark/being away from you/having bad dreams etc.

This is almost certainly not the case, but I would also think carefully about her interactions with DH's side of the family. If her behaviour has suddenly changed since you've moved...and you've moved to be near family you didn't used to see much before keep an eye out for abuse. I know it sounds alarmist, but children are most likely abused by close family members and your description of her behaviour does scream trauma to me.

I think you’re right a lot of it is coming from a place of fear, anxiety, uncertainty and framing it in that way might help me to react better. She’s had to adjust to an awful lot and I would class the move as a form of trauma. I know of course never to be complacent with abuse but I do feel as sure as I can be that’s not the case here - DHs family are amazing. I wouldn’t exactly say it’s a sudden change, she’s always struggled with transitions and been very sensitive in lots of different ways and has never been “easy” but it is getting worse with the unkindness, negative self talk etc.

Reconnection time it’s important for both of us and the ideas are really helpful. Thank you.

You mention that she has always been sensitive and struggles with transitions and separation anxiety - are you considering ASD/ADHD at all? This might be something to query with your pediatrician/family doctor, they may well say give it 6 months see if she settles down after the move, but they may also recommend some kind of support in the meantime. Or if you have the option, which might be much more feasible than in the UK, go straight to a child therapist or psychologist (IMO - as well as mentioning to the general doctor) - they often do a combination of therapy for the child/therapy for the family as a whole/parenting advice/observation of patterns and pointing out strategies or things which are helpful vs unhelpful, which is much more practical than any actual diagnosis at this age anyway.

The reason I bring this up is that we moved internationally when DS1 was just 5, and I had previously assumed that 3 being harder than 2, 4 being harder than 3 was just normal and then 5 being harder than 4 was partially a continuation and partially stress from the move. But although age 3 tends to be a bit more intense than age 2, most children ARE starting to calm down and become a bit more reasonable by the age of 3.5 / 4ish, and I hadn't appreciated that DS1 was already differing from the norm quite significantly at that point. I was quite a young parent and I think I was also feeling quite lost and ashamed about the reactions it would bring out in me, especially since I had felt extremely confident and positive about parenting up until that point. It was only a couple of years later when I found out I had ADHD myself that I put two and two together and realised he met a lot of the criteria as well, and now that I have two younger children who are both older than 4, I can see DS1's behaviour particularly between the ages of 3-7 was quite extreme. (As was DS2's - he is diagnosed now as well.)

The thing is that with this kind of thing it's a self-feeding cycle. The behaviour is extreme and may not respond to normal parenting techniques, which puts parents on edge and can sometimes lead to unhelpful responses (you're human, not robots) and then this leads to degradation in the relationship or the consistency of how discipline is enforced and this leads to stress in the child which worsens the behaviour. The parent gets stressed out by the constant conflict and difficulty and when you're stressed you're less able to parent well. You have to break the cycle, because a child of 5 is not capable of doing that themselves, but it feels impossible because it's like parenting advice doesn't work, usually it's because the majority of parenting advice is reactive (They do X, you do/say Y) and with this kind of thing reacting in the moment often is like spitting in the wind, you have to do a lot more proactively. I just honestly wish I had sought professional advice a lot sooner. I didn't know it was available or didn't think it would help, I suppose, or I assumed that if there was something underlying then nursery/school would say something and they didn't (they did with DS2!) but I now understand this is not necessarily the case.

Another poster mentioned trauma which is interesting, because there is this book which I did find really helpful, although it's no replacement for professional advice, it's called Big Baffling Behaviours by Robyn Gobbel, and she is a trauma therapist. The thing is that although it's possible DS1 did have trauma - his dad was emotionally and verbally abusive towards me and I don't know if he was abusive during contact visits but DS1 would frequently be distressed and even ill after them and then they all stopped - DS2 doesn't have anything in his life which could constitute trauma apart from possibly being in NICU when he was first born. And honestly I have had dark days where I worry about that, but I don't even think it was that. I just think that with certain ND traits it results in more sensitivity in the nervous system. The premise is that behaviours which are "big and baffling" are stress/threat behaviours driven by the nervous system, so they are seen in children who have experienced trauma, because their nervous systems are poised trying to protect them from the actual threat they have experienced, but they are also sometimes seen in children whose nervous systems are overloaded or oversensitive because of sensory overload or other ND needs. And certainly DS2 struggled enormously with school and still does although it is much better managed now, it is still a LOT for him to process, and this will come out in his behaviour. And any change to routine (e.g. family holidays) will bring out the stress behaviours. It's not because he's being wilfully bad, it's because he doesn't have his usual cues which help him feel safe so he's quicker to go into a survival response, and you can't parent that away because it's not learned behaviour, it's more like instinctive self-protection.

I wished I could give advise after ‘being through it’, but unfortunately we are still in a similar phase with my just turned 6 year old. I recognise so much from your post, including my own shortcomings. For us it also started with the first day of school (2 years ago), up to that point I would say we had largely avoided tantrums.
I’m sorry, no advise, but just wanted to say don’t necessarily focus on the move having caused this. I believe for my child it is mainly the relationships/friendships/jealousy/bossiness in school that is troubling them,

Have you read The Explosive Child by Ross Greene? I found it really helped me to understand that the blow-ups were not an attempt to get their own way, but an overflow of emotion coming out.

If she was constantly crying, you would feel compassion and want to comfort her, but because her discomfort and disregulation comes out as anger, you take it personally and react in kind, which is understandable but completely counter productive.

She needs you to absorb and dispserse her emotions, not reflect them back to her. She is not capable of learning while she's in the throes of a meltdown, so there's no point you shouting at her or telling her she's rude - she won't be able to absorb that and it will just add to her distress. Once you learn how to regulate your emotions in the face of her struggles, you will be able to help her.

@BertieBotts

Thank* *you so much for this response. I really appreciate it. I’m so glad you found some of the answers and the help you needed. So much resonates with me of what you’ve said. I have been feeling a lot of this increasing sense of “shouldn’t it be getting easier?!”. I feel like looking back when she was a newborn I had it all figured out 😂 and now as she gets older and older I’m increasingly at a loss. I do wonder about her being ND - I am diagnosed with dyslexia and on the waiting list for ADHD diagnosis (pretty certain I have it)- but yes it’s so hard with your first especially but just in general to know what is “normal” and what isn’t! I know all 5 year olds have tantrums and meltdowns but when do you know it starts to mean something else is going on…as this does seem like more.

I have reached out to the GP in the past few weeks and we have started her in play therapy, and I hope that will help. I really do want some help for myself too - and I feel a lot of guilt and shame around that I think, I don’t want anyone to judge me - but I know I need it. I will reach out again and I’ll get a copy of that book. Thank you.

Solidarity. It’s so so hard. School is so much for them to handle emotionally with the social side for sure, I know that has a big impact on my DD.

@DysmalRadius i haven’t but I’ll look it up. I know what you say is true and I need to do better

Feel free to PM if you want to chat more in a less public way. I am a long way ahead of you, I think - DS1 is nearly 18 - but the younger two are 5 and 8 so the 5yo stuff is still a fairly recent memory.

There are more things which help but I didn't want to bombard you with a huge list. That book is a good starting point, particularly if you don't know much about dysregulation, which I absolutely didn't when DS1 was 5, and I think it's even more confusing now because so much of parenting social media has started to use terms like "dysregulation" "nervous system" "meltdown" "restraint collapse" etc in a much more general way and this is a bit confusing IME. When I first came across the concept of dysregulation, about 7 years ago on MN actually, it blew me away and changed everything because it just joined a lot of pieces which had never fit properly together before.

Incidentally, if you're following much parenting social media, I would try to reduce time spent on this because I find such a lot of it is guilt inducing noise, including a good chunk which is unrealistic/unhelpful and you can run yourself in circles trying to apply aspects of different things which maybe aren't always compatible, or which need a sort of ingredient they don't explicitly mention because it feels too obvious to the content creator but as I have found, there are MANY things in life which seem to come naturally to everyone else which are completely unobvious to me. The most helpful and productive things I've found have been long-form (ie, books/courses/sometimes podcasts) but also actually just conversations IRL with people who I think are good parents, or one-on-one online with people who seem to have similar experiences to me. Even recently DH and I have been talking about some things which are going on with DS1 and he was able to point out from a sort of outside view that I have been trying to follow too many things at once and sort of run myself into a circle. He's not implying he's perfect as he would agree there are things I do better than him as well BTW but sometimes I do need his distance to point out things I can't see because I'm too close to the issue myself.

But also, don't worry if you're not there yet. DH and I get upset with each other over parenting stuff when it's too raw as well. It takes a lot of time and repetition and processing to get to a point where we can talk about some things.

FWIW, NT children who are not under great stress generally do not have meltdowns at all (but I know the way this word is used has changed - I once saw someone refer to a four month old as having a meltdown - so I reckon it does not have the wider meaning I tend to think of it as having) and the frequency of tantrums by age 5 is generally significantly reduced to the point that it might be once every few weeks, probably less than once a month unless they are going through a tricky time (e.g. new school/sibling/house/lack of sleep etc). So I do not think that actually it is normal for 5yos to be having regular tantrums and meltdowns. I don't say this as a criticism, but because I also didn't know! I don't know if it was my online spaces which were skewing more ND-heavy, but I definitely was assuming that DS1's behaviour was much more typical than it actually was. DS3 has just turned 5, and does still tantrum but rarely.