Diary for behaviour issues/triggers

[MooMummyMoo]

Looking for some help. My DD's behaviour is becoming quite challenging (she is only 4, and small, so I know it could be a lot worse, but it's bad enough). In particular being violent towards her younger sisters.

I have seen people recommend that you start a diary so you can identify what the triggers are and then hopefully prevent future attacks.

My question though, and I hope this isn't completely stupid... But what do you put in the diary?? I am not sure what is of relevance and what isn't. Do you go top line e.g 'quiet day at home' or detailed e.g 'quiet day at home - breakfast, followed by 30 mins of tv, then got dressed, played with a tambourine, then the see saw....'

I have no idea how to approach this. Can anyone help??

(And again apologies if this is a ridiculous question, but I really am lost on it)

I used to write any issues that seemed out side of "normal" to me, what had caused them [if I knew] and how I dealt with/managed them, I included the last bit to show I was being consistent.

Hope that helps

I found a diary programme for my computer, I bet there is an App

It saved automatically so I could quickly make entries whenever I had a moment or if something particular cropped up everyday

Really useful, thank everyone. I think partly I might be prevaricating and I'd be better off to start recording something/anything, so at least I have made a start. A pre-done sheet sounds like a good time saver.

Tomorrow's job (in between the fire fighting)!

Hi and snap, DD also 4, behaviour challenging and her SN nursery and us are recording for just over 2 weeks now. We have a sheet for every 24 hours, the hours are across the top in columns. Then the rows for Sleep, bowel motions, meals, behaviour ( this is a wider row gives a chance to put a bit more detail or note happy 1/2 hour then restless 1/2 hour) and responses (responses divided into the strategies we use - safe space, chey tube, outside, food, drink, deep pressure etc plus comment. I write on the top of the page the basic structure of the day - eg nursery day, or nanny 12-3 etc, I mark in things regarding what shes doing: out, TV, playing etc

Basically I put ticks in for sleep, mark off bowel motions (we think she may have tummy trouble which is why we are recording this) under behaviour we have codes for Calm, Happy, Headbanging, agitatated we often put footnotes and describe a tantrum in more detail on the back what we thought set it off, how distressed etc, what shes doing during the tantrum, if something actually worked to calm her. We tick off what responses were made to any tantrums.

Im recording meals in a separate diary a page a day.

The sheet for behaviour came from the behavioural psychologist and its pretty easy to do once its set up. I dont mark hour by hour, just check my watch to note the time for particular episodes, then put those in 2-3 times a day.

Im finding the spreadsheet makes it easier to see trends than sifting through lots of notes for each day. So for instance its clear now she gets stroppy towards hometime at nursery and will bang her head if shes not heading out to the bus quickly enough. I also think there may be a correlation between really bad days and not having had a BM for more than 36 hours. The behavioural psych will analyse the spreadsheets in more depth maybe even in conjunction with the more detailed diary of what shes eating.

Long essay but I have been wanting to do this for ages but couldnt work out a good format, I find this easy to do and easy to look over and spot patterns even tho Im leaving the analysiing to others