Anonymous wrote:Op here - I was talking about my own anger but in response to child's frequent tantrum/meltdowns over what should be happy family experiences.

I have a short fuse in general. For me, when I'm physically uncomfortable, it's the worst. Like if I need to go pee and my DS isn't ready to leave or if I'm hungry and we are getting home and kid won't start homework. Self-knowledge is the key! Because I know these things about myself, I try to avoid those situations now. I go to the bathroom before I pick up DS. I eat a small snack before I say something I regret to DS.

I can appreciate that you have a certain image of how these "happy family experiences" are going to go. You need to let go of those images. They are not helping you and in fact they are setting you up to feel angry at your child for "ruining" that dream. I'd suggest you consider going into family events with lower expectations (it will be what it will be) and/or not expending a lot of energy or expense on them, so that they are more modest affairs.

Yes I used to get really angry too and then my 8 year old dyslexic / AFHD daughter broke down one day in the car after having a meltdown about her snack being wrong. All she could say was that she must be stupid and crazy since she can't read or control her temper like normal kids. It was a terrifying glimpse into her self- concept.

That was when I started working with a parenting coach and therapist to help me manage myself. And I became relentless in finding extra curricular where my daughter could excel.

Before that I was so focused on school. I really didn't understand the huge impact of these challenges. I thought we could fix this with some tutoring.

And I try really hard to see my daughter through the kind eyes of her extracurricular teachers. My own perspective tends to be harsh and judgmental and I always see the deficits. And that is exactly what I don't want to share and am still working on.

Anonymous wrote:My kid with dyslexia and no ADHD gets so wiped out and demoralized at school that he sometimes has no resources left to hold it together with us. We can tell when he is struggling at school because he starts getting angry and weepy at home, and we start to hear reports of behavior at school. It's always about the dyslexia at the root because school is so hard and frustrating for many dyslexic kids. Having a tutor my kid truly loves and trusts helps enormously - she makes him feel smart and competent and also takes the homework conflicts out of our relationship with him. I say all this because I think we can underestimate how much the frustration of being a dyslexic in a typical school can impact kid's behavior.

Great post - on several levels.

My kid with dyslexia and no ADHD gets so wiped out and demoralized at school that he sometimes has no resources left to hold it together with us. We can tell when he is struggling at school because he starts getting angry and weepy at home, and we start to hear reports of behavior at school. It's always about the dyslexia at the root because school is so hard and frustrating for many dyslexic kids. Having a tutor my kid truly loves and trusts helps enormously - she makes him feel smart and competent and also takes the homework conflicts out of our relationship with him. I say all this because I think we can underestimate how much the frustration of being a dyslexic in a typical school can impact kid's behavior.

Anonymous wrote:Op here - I was talking about my own anger but in response to child's frequent tantrum/meltdowns over what should be happy family experiences.

I think first of all, it's important to recognize your kid is not doing it on purpose, she really is having difficulty controlling her own behavior. She may look like a big kid, but her emotional maturity is more like a much younger child. Remembering and internalizing this idea helps me stay calm through my own kid's meltdowns.

Second, you can help learn to better control her own behavior. Staying calm and in control is important. Are you giving into to her tantrums, thus showing her she can get what she wants? Or are you giving her negative attention through your own reactions, thus showing her she can control you with tantrums? If you are doing either of these, stop.

Next, identify the situations that cause her to meltdown. ADHD kids get easily overwhelmed by noise, unexpected events, frustration etc. The better you can identify these situations, the better you can prepare for or avoid them.

Then you can institute a behavioral program for managing the tantrums. Offer praise/rewards for going a day without a tantrum. If she does have a tantrum, suggest she go to her room to calm down (this is not a punishment or a timeout, it's a "stress break").

During and immediately after tantrums, kids are not available for learning. But once she is fully calm, you can talk about the situation. Why did she get upset? Did getting upset feel good? Did she get what she wanted? If she didn't, what could she have done instead that might have worked better?

Behavioral therapists can help you with a lot of this.

Mom of an ADHD/ASD kid here. Medication for him and for me helped. I don't know what your DD's behaviors are or what buttons she's pushing but the impulsivity, general negativity (blaming others all the time), and lack of giving a crap about his behavior made it really unpleasant for all of us to be around DS. I love him and would jump in front of a car for him but on a daily basis my own nervous system was constantly on edge waiting for the next shoe to drop in terms of him doing something to one of his sibs, us or another kid. Meds have been life changing for all of us. He's still who he is but he has a bit of space to pause and use the tools he's learned rather than acting like a tornado. I'm also a bit less revved up by it all since I'm on a low dose SSRI. I'm not saying meds are for everyone and we tried every other alternative first but for us it really did help. Good luck OP!