Dad desperate to help 10-y-o DD deal with meltdowns

[Aguero16]

My 9-nearly-10-y-o DD is very spirited and totally lovely. But she has an explosive temper that is sparked by absolutely anything. Too much Marmite on her toast, wrong type of trousers for school, etc. They can last for 30-40 minutes and she totally loses it. They're full-blown meltdowns. She's had them since she was a baby.

She really wants to stop but none of the tactics I’ve suggested work: counting to ten, deep breaths etc. She is probably the most impatient creature on the planet and if something doesn't work straight away she's disinclined to persevere. This is something I've told her she'll have to work on.

She gets as upset about the havoc they cause as the rest of us and it’s really getting her down. As I said, she’s had them all her life and we all thought they’d get better with age but they haven’t

The weirdest thing with DD is that she never has a meltdown at school or other people’s houses - she saves it all for us, which I see as a positive, if rather noisy and stressful, aspect of the situation.

Any tips for my combustible girl?

id start by asking to have her name removed from your OP. Then Id work with her to think about what kind of things she really enjoys or what makes her feel really calm. You can do the same. Btw she sounds like my son who has ASD and who can also behave really well at school but it takes everything out of him to do so. It’s masking behaviour. He worked with a teen psychologist for a few weeks who was very helpful.

My daughter is a bit younger and awaiting an ASD assessment but the only thing that really works is identifying and removing the triggers. If you haven't already I'd look at getting her assessed for ASD as frequent meltdowns lasting that long is not normal for that age. Make sure whoever is assessing knows about autism is girls as it presents differently ( and masking in school is very common)

Is she autistic? Those little things can easily set off a meltdown.

Try and bear in mind how she likes things and stick to it. Preparation for changes to routines, visual timetable, low demand parenting (try Pathological demand avoidance methods).

Also read Ross Greens the explosive child. It talks about what must happen, things you can compromise on and things that actually don't matter at all so just let them go.

I would also suggest reading up on sensory processing difficulties and autism to see if any other traits your daughter has fits with these.

The aim is to avoid meltdown because once they've hit that point it's very difficult to stop, you just have to let them ride it out. Are there any early signs she's getting overwhelmed? (I get snappy and my dd also gets snappy and 'rude') so the we know it's time to dial things back to avoid a meltdown later on.

I had one of those, she’s 19 now and much, much better, so they do grow out of it. Low blood sugar and tiredness are still definite triggers though, maybe worth looking out for those.
Also, absolutely never respond in kind, walk away if you can, but never shout back. Things will escalate and you will honestly never win. You can go back when things are calm and discuss whatever the issue was. As she gets older you will more and more often have a sobbing pile of contrition on your hands. For whatever reason these children genuinely don’t seem to be able to help it!
Also, things get worse with hormones kicking in from 12 to 15, sorry!

Thanks!

Thanks everyone for your input. I hadn't even thought of ASD but it looks as though it accounts for the behaviour. Thanks so much.