Kid lashing out a siblings... How can I help her stop?

amother

Mon, May 03 2021, 3:07 am

My daughter is 10. I am pretty sure she would be diagnosed with ADHD if we went through the process, because she is very similar to me and I have a diagnosis, but we never bothered.

For a long time I noticed that she lashes out against her siblings. It has been painful to see her being davka mean and hurtful to them, and it even scared me at times to think that maybe she lacks empathy.

More recently she has opened up to us and basically explained that when she feels bad about something, sometimes she feels like the only way she can feel better is if someone else "feels" her pain. So yes she will hurt them, mess up their stuff, etc., till she feels like her pain is registered somewhere else.

She says that she knows this is why her siblings don't "like" her and she has "no friends in the family." (Something that I have to say I'm kind of relieved to hear that she cares about! Her siblings do like her but the rockiness of their day-to-day interactions is undeniable.) But she also says that in the heat of the moment, she feels like she can't resist hurting them.

She wants help resisting these impulses!

Does this type of behavior/thought pattern sound familiar to anyone else? Does it sound like an ADHD type thing?

Is there someone who can help guide me/us/her? In general she responds well to direct instruction, like if someone would give her a "How To Manage Myself" manual that actually worked for her, she'd be thrilled.

I feel like she is so open right now to strengthening herself and improving her behavior and relationships.

TIA for any advice!

We are in Israel, so ideally we'd work with professionals who live here too.

imasinger

Mon, May 03 2021, 6:44 am

Diagnosis is always helpful. You can choose what you think is right to do with the information, but knowing what a problem might be, and what solutions can help, is a good thing.

Are you familiar with some of the resources that can help parents help their kids with handling strong feelings more appropriately? Look into Zones of Regulation. Look into Ross Greene's The Explosive Child. Look into The Nurtured Heart Approach. Look into Jessica Minihan's The Behavior Code. Look into Siblings Without Rivalry. Look into what good therapists can do.

In our house, there were two simple rules -- No Hurting People, No Hurting Things. Those books helped me create a plan for how to teach those rules, set a situation up that everyone understood them, create a plan for how to handle it when they were broken, and help everyone move forward productively.

In our house, we also took all the help we could get -- therapies, medication, parent training.

Hatzlacha!

FranticFrummie

Mon, May 03 2021, 9:40 am

OP, she cannot just "want to have impulse control" any more than she can "want to learn Chinese" and make it happen. An ADD coach can help her learn regulating techniques, but until she gets meds, nothing will work.

If she has ADD, then her brain is not wired for impulse control. She is BEGGING for help, please get her evaluated and get her on the right medication. She will thank you for it.

Don't let her look back at her past, and know that all of this could have been prevented.

mha3484

Mon, May 03 2021, 11:44 am

Kids with ADHD struggle tremendously with emotional regulation. They are usually at least two or three years behind their peers if not more. Add in a hefty dose of poor impulse control and their self esteem just shrinks and shrinks. I have been there with my 10 year old son and its not pretty.

He has made tons of progress over the years due to medication, therapy and using the explosive child method. He still struggles but we make progress slowly over time.

amother

Wed, May 05 2021, 2:08 am

Thank you all. I will look into all these suggestions. I am very hesitant to medicate, at least as long as I haven't tried everything else and also because she does seem to do so well so much of the time. Especially with our latest progress where she is confiding and we can discuss the issues. For example, yesterday when she was unable to concentrate on reviewing for her test and was just getting frustrated instead, and she was on the verge of letting out these negative emotions on her sister:
1) I let her smash an (already broken) egg against the wall outside.
2) We talked and figured out that the reason she wasn't able to concentrate because she was having so much anxiety over how she would do on the test. So I communicated with her teacher about her concerns and that alone actually alleviated her anxiety, so that later in the day she was able to review her work calmly.
No siblings got hurt, she studied for her test and feels good about herself.
But I do think we can probably address these patterns more globally.