Anxious Y6, worrying behaviour

[LlamaofDrama]

My DD is Y6. She's bright, hard working and high achieving. She also puts huge pressure on herself and when she can't meet the standards that she has arbitrarily set, she can't cope. Then she cries, scratches herself viciously and hits herself. This cam go on for over an hour, and in ther moment nothing we can do helps.

It's worrying me, I'm concerned she's heading into self harm territory and I don't know how to help her. DH thinks it's more attention seeking, but I don't think it's considered enough for that (she's never one to make a molehill out of a mountain,
she's certainly capable of upping the excitement level).

Can anyone suggest? I think she needs both coping strategies to handle the stress and better skills in setting standards, so that she doesn't set herself up to fail.

Gosh that's such a difficult situation and one that I haven't got any experience of.

When I've look at A Mighty Girl fir ideas on how to help our DD with her problems I've noticed that they do have some books on this.

I don't know if they'll help

@BunnyRuddington thank you! Those look great, I'll get her some of them and drip them out gradually.

Are you unintentionally putting pressure on her. Like me mistakenly last week during assessment week. Try hard as this sets you up for next year's sets etc.

Good question @Christmasfairy2020. I try not to. I focus on effort, praise her for effort not for results etc. Her secondary doesn't set in y7 and there's no sats so there's not much actual measurement this year (she's gutted, she wanted to get 100% and be top...) she doesn't have exams coming up in music due to covid so there's no pressure there.

This morning she wanted to reorganise her storage in her room, and melted down because it wouldn't be perfect. Not really badly today, but tears, and scratching at herself which is horrible. It's always hard to know what is hormones, what needs support, what needs a kick up the bum and a clear instruction to snap out of it...

Can you get her involved in something that she can’t get 100% at? Art or drama or something more subjective? Maybe it would help for her to understand you can do something for the enjoyment and activity itself, rather than the end result and achievement. And try and model the same behaviour for her - show yourself failing and being ok with it. It sounds tough - good luck

No sats but assessments. My dd aged 11 had a week of exams last week x

Has she got many friends. I've let my dd sleep out tonight at her friend's as its been a shit year and won't know anyone at her new school. Ask her how she is feeling about starting comp etc. Failing that take her Starbucks and get her a cookie and cream frapachino

And some fidget toys

I think lockdown will be putting more pressure on things like having a perfect bedroom. We have never spent so much time at home as we do at the moment. I also have a very academic child and they were never truly happy at primary but the transition to secondary has been great for them.
I would try to gently support them through the next term in the hope things will naturally improve once they are in high school and lockdown has eased.

Thank you all, lots to think about. She does do lots of performing art type stuff, music, drama, dance and expects to be a. The best and b. Perfect. Aiming for the unachievable isn't great and while she can talk the talk about it not being possible to be perfect at eg music, she still gets upset when she isn't. I sympathise with her about the frustration of the gap between what you see in your head and what you can deliver, and she knows that I feel that too, but again, she expects that she can just do it all perfectly. @Christmasfairy2020 yes, lots of friends, thankfully, and they're all going to the same secondary so that's going to be a big help with the move. She's excited about it and ready to move on, but I know she'll be scared of making a tit of herself by not knowing her way around or how it works. Her biggest fear atm is embarrassment and she can't get her head around that people are just less interested in her than they are in themselves.

@EasterIsComing thank you, that's reassuring that secondary can help, not make it worse.

My ds suffered with anxiety in yr 6, he punched himself and called himself stupid, wanted to die etc. We paid for play therapy (like counselling, but less intense as he painted/crafted while talking to a counsellor) and it really helped.
It might be a hormone surge or related to stress of going into secondary? My ds has definitely calmed down now, but if it repeated we’d go back.