I have a beautiful little girl who not long turned three. She has always been very determined and strong willed. But lately she has just been so challenging. Yelling and screaming at us all the time. She smacks and bites us. I’m not even sure what her trigger is most of the time. It’s as if someone flicks a switch and she completely changes. Once she is esculated it’s near impossible to bring her back down to a calm place. We are a very gentle family, we even refrain from yelling in our household. I am at my wits end and don’t know what to do with her. Her daycare educators say she is so good 99% of the time. Please help me.
1 Replies
This is typical behaviour of a child out of their zone of comfort. Basically she can't emotionally handle something, so she explodes, the outburst is way out of proportion to the problem. And over time, her fuse gets shorter too, so she's highly strung and just loses it at What seems like the smallest thing, or even nothing.
It's also very typical of girls to be perfect outside the home, and it's super exhausting, and they bottle it up until they get home and they just can't anymore. Try treating her like she's exhausted. Make things easy, offer cuddles, rest, a nice bath, not too many choices. Plan calm, rest days for you to connect. Help her become calm, keep those situations calm (don't escalate it with her). Say out loud 'yeah Im disappointed it's not pizza, but that's not a really big problem. I can handle that!' 'youre really sad about that, I can see your sad eyes, your tears, your unhappy arms are crossed, do you need a big cuddle?'
It's basically emotional regulation, but at 3 she can't do it, you just do it for her until she can.