Child rages
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Anonymous
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Hard to know if this is normal without more context. How often are we talking? How long are the rages? What happens during them?
I feel like a 7 yo kid getting rage-y from time to time when hungry, tired, sick, or just….pissed, is reasonable. You just do your best to sit with them, and teach how to regulate themselves better by scanning their body to see if they are hungry or need a rest, by talking out problems with classmates instead of letting them stew, by taking a deep breath before they get angry, etc. But every once in a while people lose their cool….we are humans and kids should know that you are not afraid of their emotions so that they can express them freely. If the rages are getting in the way of learning, friendships, daily peace at home…then yes, a therapist is where you should start. And talking to their teacher to thoroughly understand what they see in that setting, too. |
Anonymous
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My son used to "rage" at that age. It was awful. He outgrew it around 4th -5th grade. Unfortunately I can't even say "we did this" or "we tried that" because it seems like what worked for him was just outgrowing it.
He is now in his early 20s and doing fine: in college, has held part time/summer jobs, never been in trouble with the law, has friends, etc. |
Anonymous
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The zones of regulation curriculum is helpful. It’s about recognizing where you are and the best strategies for you personally to calm yourself. You could do it with your child or an OT (or likely other types of therapists). Lots of schools use it now too
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Anonymous
+1. Had no idea that anxiety presented like this until my child acted out like this. |
Anonymous
| What behavior is considered rage-y? I have a 7-year old that will have emotional meltdowns but there's no physical manifestations apart from stomping away. Just loud crying and talking from negative self-talk to accusations and blames and how unfair life is, etc. |
Anonymous
NP. This, above, is fantastic advice, OP. Please do this, and start the log now. Don't just start with tomorrow, but sit down now and write out what you can recall from recent rages re: time, triggers, food that day, sleep that day, etc., then do it in real time starting tomorrow. OP, you're currently looking for a therapist -- if you can walk in the therapist's door the first time and have this kind of detailed log in your hand, you will already have a head start. A therapist is likely to advise you to do this anyway so start now. Like PP says, noting patterns can help uncover triggers, which you then can learn to deal with if possible. The last sentence above is especially great. |
Anonymous
| Mine had them a lot at 5-7; age 8 is going much better but she has since been diagnosed with anxiety and ocd. A lot of it is just over reactive nervous system. A lot builds up during a school day and the pot boils over at home. |
Anonymous
| Have a 7.5 yo and life is so much more peaceful and calm in our home after therapy for our son and a parenting class. We did the whole Neuropsych with no conclusions. |
Anonymous
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We use a similar approach that a PP uses. We talk A LOT about feelings. And I try really really hard to narrate my own feelings when a situation is escalating I’ll say “ larlo i need to take a break. My heart is beating really fast, and my face feels red hot. I’m going to sit on the couch and take some deep breaths. When I’m calm I would love to talk with you. Would you like to sit with me as well?” We have talked about a “tool box” and we talk about getting into the tool box to get what we need. The tool box is “filled” with self regulating items. (Deep breaths, a weighted blanket, taking a walk outside, horse breaths, and a count down 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can touch, 2 things you can smell one thing you can taste).
Our OT uses the color system red, green, yellow. Red is you’re moving too fast or too angry, green is moving at right speed and yellow is slow. When he is having a melt down I usually say “ I would love to talk with you, but it’s really hard to talk when you’re yelling.” We’ve been talking about melt downs and if he is melting down a ton over something silly I’ll say “wow you’re a Florida snowman right now. You’re just melting down. When you become a New York snowman we can talk!” He thinks it’s funny and usually will calm down and is able to talk to me. It’s hard and exhausting. |
Anonymous
| This may sound old school but adequate sleep and exercise make almost everything better for young or old. |
Anonymous
| A book I read but can't remember the name says when they rage, don't react. You tell them you understand they are angry, and you want to "help" them by sending them to their room and when they calm down, you can communicate again. Something like that. Been a while |
Anonymous
What parenting class was it? |
Anonymous
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PEP has good parenting classes.
https://pepparent.org/ |
Anonymous
Mine just screamed at me I don’t care about the zones. |
Anonymous
This is good advice. Op, my kid is 6 but we ended up getting an anxiety dx and asd level 1. She’s also highly sensitive. In addition to OT, parent coaching, and therapy, which led to a lot of the advice in this thread, we also realized we were over validating the feelings which turned into validation of the behavior (even though we’d say the feeling is welcome and the behavior is not), and more importantly that my DD was depending on our engagement in her rages because that was our pattern. Red zone /green zone would make her really mad (like a PP shared) so we finally said that meltdowns have to happen in your room and we can hang out when you are done. We usher her to her room (sometimes with a negative consequence for not going) and VERY quickly realized that she really just wanted our attention. I’m not saying she was being manipulative at all but I do believe we just got in a pattern of behavior and our own sit and regulate with her approach wasn’t working, perhaps because she is neurodiverse. |