Hi, my 10-year-old daughter (the youngest of 3 girls). She shuts down all the time. At home, it's usually small stuff, but it's happening at school more often. She's in year 5, so in 18 months off to high school.
Last week she was supposed to bring her English book home to make palm cards and practice her speech. She "forgot". So we spent the weekend rewriting, learning, and making palm cards. The teacher was happy for her to do the speech with just him. Then she wanted to do it to the class, then wanted just the teacher, and then refused to do it at all.
Then this week went to a Soccer Gala day, she's never played soccer or played a team sport. She played most of the morning with no issue. Then she had a massive tantrum threw her jumper and the teacher, then went on the field and sulked for the 6 mins she was supposed to be playing.
I turned up as she had two minutes left of the game. The teachers came and told me what had happened.
I took her away from the other kids and tried to find out why. Eventually, she said she was frustrated at the game. Well if your having a tantrum there's got to be frustration. After spending about 20 mins with her I had to leave to attend to an emergency. That afternoon the teachers told me she was well behaved.
She has apologized to the teacher.
She has also started seeing the school counselor.
Will she grow out of this, or is it something else?
1 Replies
Sounds like lack of resilience - coping with frustration and other big feelings. She will grow out of it faster with the right tools. I would go over what happened, then go back to the part before the tantrum behaviour and explain what she could have chosen differently at that point. I would set the clear expectation that she is responsible for her behaviour, and she is able to make choices (the understanding it is on her to choose strategies or not) give her the choices and ask her which ones she will use next time.