DD is 10 and for the last few years her behaviour has been up and down. For the majority of the time she is sweet and well behaved, but around 10-20% of the time she is angry, cheeky, bad tempered, abusive, insolent.
It usually starts when I ask her to get dressed. It’s as though getting dressed stresses her out, or is a trigger for something. This has gone on for years. She loses her temper, says she doesn’t know what to wear, refuses to get dressed, says she doesn’t want to go out etc. I should say she does struggle with clothes generally. She hates everything I buy and will only wear the same 3 or 4 things. It’s a real battle to get her out the house and into the car. She usually calms down after an hour or 2, but today it is 10 hours later and she’s still in a temper.
She calls me and her little brother idiots and stupid. When she gets told off for shouting, she follows me around the house shouting deliberately. There’s loads more but too much to write here. Her dad tries to laugh it off and say it’s just what girls do and his sisters were the same at her age.
Today has been an awful day and she’s still going - I’ve taken her iPad off her. I struggle to think of other appropriate consequences. She doesn’t have a phone so it’s nothing to do with that. At school she is a model pupil and consistently gets great reports.
Can anyone please help me? Does she need a therapist? Or is it hormonal, even though it’s been like this for over 3 years and seems to be getting worse. I’m at my wits end.