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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My DS went through this at age 9-10 in 3rd grade but also had issues at school. He did therapy with a male therapist which made a big difference. We focused heavily on sleep routine, strict screen limits, not allowing hangry meltdowns, and lots of routine, structure, and physical activity.

Most importantly, he needed to learn how to deal with frustration and managing emotions. We stressed that he had to be allowed to experience his emotions, particularly negative ones, but had to learn new ways to deal with them. He needed to be validated when he experienced anger, sadness, frustration, annoyance, or boredom. [b]Too often parents want to stop the emotion (bc it makes them uncomfortable) rather than teaching and modeling how to deal with that emotion.[/b] For example, if they never experience boredom, they don’t know how to deal with it. I had a rule that no screens were allowed on car rides. They were forced to experience boredom which believe me, was previously a huge trigger of crazy behavior. Now he is fine with it.

My kid also finally understands how important exercise and physical activity is to managing tough emotions. We allowed him to walk home from school everyday in 4th and 5th grade. We got a backyard trampoline and he would jump on it daily to decompress. He would bounce a ball in the basement when he was mad about something a kid did at school. We did family bike rides. In the summer, he did all day outdoor camps. He was so tired at night that going to bed finally became easy. He now does 2 sports and it’s been life changing.

He is in 6th grade and back to being a kind, considerate, and well behaved kid. He even recognizes the difference. [/quote]

I just wanted to highlight the bolded because I think it's a huge source of anger in kids this age. Especially because most teachers will absolutely "shut down" certain expressions of negative emotion (which I'm okay with because in a classroom you can't have everyone expressing their bad feelings everywhere all the time -- you have to impose limits). If parents also shut down these feelings or reject them kids become angry because they have nowhere to express stuff like normal fear or frustration or disappointment.

I also found that as we worked through this with our kid we realized that our own emotional regulation was really important to that process. I think I'm actually reasonably good at being an emotional support and a "safe" person for my kid to express negative emotions to. Except for certain times when I'm tapped out because I'm not getting enough sleep and I'm super stressed at work. Turns out my kids angry outbursts were most likely to happen on days when I was basically rejecting her expression of emotion because I was struggling with my own emotions. Like I find whining deeply triggering when I'm tired and stressed (I think this is true for a lot of parents) so on those days I was way more likely to respond to even a hit of whining with resistance or criticism instead of just listening and accepting.

What worked for me was learning to be more self-aware of how I am feeling so that I can better communicate in a way that doesn't totally shut my DD down. Like sometimes I'll just tell her "I totally get why you are upset about what Larla said at recess and I want to talk about it with you. But I had a tough day too and I need 20 minutes to take a shower and get a snack so that I am in the right mindset for that. Would you like a snack and a podcast to relax while I do that and then we can talk?" Yes it requires more work to think this way and communicate this way but it helps everyone get what they need without blow ups. And ultimately gaining that level of self awareness has been good for me too and I think having my kid watch me work through that stuff has helped her as well.[/quote]

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