Lots of temper tantrums with 6 YO daughter

amother

Wed, Jan 01 2025, 9:37 am

Hello experienced moms!

I have a delicious, kind, wonderful daughter. She is an agreeable, upbeat, considerate child who follows directions 90% of the time. However, there are times when she becomes completely unreasonable. For example, this morning she wanted to come into our room and we told her no and that it was not wake up time yet. I reassured her that when my alarm goes off, I will come to her but that she must go to her room or go play. She said every toy in our house is babyish and proceeded to cry and scream. She eventually resorted to saying she will tell on me to my husband (this is what she says when she is out of ideas) and then my husband got involved telling her that is unacceptable, threatening to take away special things, etc. It ended up just going and going until eventually it was time for me to get up. I then invited her into my bed because I thought maybe some physical touch and calm would help her reset. I explained that she was invited into my bed now since my alarm had gone off. After that, a meltdown about getting dressed started (it's too cold, she isn't getting dressed, etc.) I did a count down and basically to make a long story short, I left the room and she kept crying and screaming, which I ignored. I just kept repeating that if she is not dressed by the time Tatty goes to shul, she will be staying home from school and not playing or watching. She in the end got herself dressed but with lots of tears.

These kind of meltdowns after meltdowns happen with her, and I truly don't know what needs she is trying to communicate. She is an anxious child who is a pleaser, and when these things happen, I am unsure what anxiety she is trying to abate or if it is just impulse control issues coming up.

She has no issues in school and I am told she is very agreeable, no meltdowns, does well academically, etc.

Any thoughts or help are welcome!

amother

Papaya

Wed, Jan 01 2025, 10:00 am

Is this new?

Anxiety is a sign of fight-flight, and emotional regulation issues are also a sign of fight-flight.

In the first example the anxiety is just the script. My brain wants mommy's bed, not getting that is causing me tremendous distress = meltdown.

The getting dressed example sounds like just plain dysregulation, but it's possible there was some kind of script triggering the distress, though the script may have just been "I don't want this now" .

The reason the threats and bribes and reasoning isn't working is because she's in amygdala hijack and can't engage her rational, logical brain. Fight flight also causes her to be "stuck" and trying to get her unstuck just increases the distress.

From a behavioral perspective, The Whole Brain Child talks a lot about how to get kids out of amygdala hijack.

From a more biological medical perspective, you want to figure out why her nervous system in stuck in this mode and address that.