I tried to post almst the same response as joemom....but it didn't post for some reason!!
If she is on meds, that may be when they wear off and she really is ravenous...maybe a PB & J and some milk, given with a time limit of say 10 minutes to take out the stalling factor...would get her to bed sooner and in a better frame of mind than the tantrum...and you could save your eardrums too.
The tantrums at other times may be frustration, or inability to control emotions...ask the dr about adding Tenex (guanfacine), this drug is said to help with aggression, anger, calming, and many other things..it is also on the Walmart prescription list I believe..
Does anyone else have a problem with their children having nasty tantrums? My daughter is 8 but she can throw down like a 2 year old when she wants to. I mean crying and screaming LOUD. She doesn't ever hit or get violent but she makes the most horrid faces and sometimes I just about lose it. This happens in public, at friends, at home. It seems like it happens more when she is tired or over stimulated but still, at this age???? I know ADHD kids can have a hard time with their emotions but it just about drives me nuts and people just give me the dirtiest looks. I finally popped her the other day when she had a screaming fit because she said she was hungry at bedtime (another one of her fave. things to do) and I told her too bad. She screamed so loud I thought the neighbors would call the police! Does anyone have any suggestions for how to calm her down and help her find other ways to deal with her emotions, I just see this getting worse with puberty.
Does she do this at school or is it only for your benefit? Also, does she take meds? If so, could it be possible that she is actually hungry at bedtime.? My little guy is hungry too and we just plan on having a quick snack and a warm milk each night.
My guy does not have temper tantrums but he can be hyper and jumpy when the meds wear off, I give him a little magnesium and he seems calmer.
No experience with Adderall. Ritalin was horrible though, she was a zombie, she could sit with her hands in her lap looking at a wall for hours and she said she felt "gloomy" all of the time, we experienced weight loss with the Ritalin.
She is now on Strattera which seems to be doing good for her, she is still getting straight A's but isn't a zombie although her P.E. teacher says she is a little lethargic. DUH, she is on medication to make her LESS active. Anyway, since the switch she has even gained 1 lb!
The tantrums at home continue though, had one last night at 11, 3 hours past her bedtime because she wanted to watch a show about cookies.
We went through massive rages (throwing things, slamming doors, yelling, hitting) last year (age 9) while my daughter was failing school. She has always had frustration issues, but school failure added anxiety, depression and full blown defiance to the mix. We did a mix of things to deal with this:
We found that our presence made the anger period last longer and get worse. It was like she did not want to be the only one angry and would provoke. Also, us yelling would only escallate things worse and lengthen the rage. During a calm period, I would tell her that it is normal to feel anger, but she would have to get better about how she expressed it, and that when she was angry I would have her go to her room to calm down (not punishment but a haven). Then when the rage would start, I would calmly tell her to go to her room to calm down and I would leave her alone where ever she was. This is hard if you think they will do something dangerous (we would leave the parent that she was not mad at some where near. Adter the rage, I would praise her for getting a handle on her anger and calming herself down.
We added the marble system for positive behavior reinforcement (see the first thread on the parents board). With all the things she would get rewarded for, she would lose marbles for rages.
All of this helped quite a bit and reduced the frequency and length of the anger (note anger- not rages anymore). Then we got accomodations in school to help with the problems there and we had her evaluated for ADHD (had to rule out bipolar because of the rages). We started concerta and guanfacine (Tenex) and things have been wonderful. My daugther is now successfull in school and happy and fun. The issues with school have cleared up so the cause of frustration is gone and the anxiety, depression and definace are gone as well.
I know this is long-sorry about that.
vickie39051.3400925926Last week I could have posted the same thing...and I even used the sameWell, my son is almost 9, he went to school this year and brought home somebody elses attitude. He is beligerent, he is angry most of the time about something and he cannot tolerate being instructed to do something. I am not sure how to remedy this. It happens less at school then at home. My thinking is that it may be hid medication ( fairly new for him 6 months now). WEe have gone to our peadiatrician who thought it might be the dose, so he increased but we have not seen any improvement and we are at our wits end.
my son used to have tantrums too. They got so bad, that I finally told him he had 10 minutes to get it out of his system, I would tell him his times up, he would stop or end of with an hour in his room. We tried everything before resorting to this, and it didn't work. The last straw was when my daughter was hiding under the kitchen table, saying I can't take this anymore. Well he spent 1 or 2 hours in his room, and his temper tantrums stopped. Amazing isn't it. I guess he had more control over them than I gave him credit for.Your daughter sounds just like my son. He is also 8 and his tantrums are worse than when he was 2!! The marble system does seem to help, and this week I've had the hold of telling him he's nto going to sleep over at his friends on Friday if he doesnt cut it out. He does have control over it and I really think it's mainly for me he does it. Anyway he doesn't get his reward if he does it, and I think he is learning this slowly. Trouble is my little one has learned the behaviour from him and now HIS is getting worse ....
BTW welcome to the forum!
Well Jared doesnt do it at school, but he has not hesitated to do it at friends houses. In June we made the switch from Concerta to Adderall XR. He has had his dose increased twice since then. He is able to focus at school and does well there, but I really think he holds it all together until he gets home, then he just cant do it anymore and lets go.
Has anyone else seen any attitude/emotional effects from Adderall XR vs. other meds? My son is quite underweight as I am sure most of your children are, so it makes it hard to figure out dosing with him.
Glad I am not the only one! She mostly throws the tantrums just for me! Yay! But it can happen anywhere, as long as I am there. When she is at school or at a friends or neighbors they always tell me how polite she is. We just made the switch from Ritalin to Stattera over the summer so I don't know if it is the meds or not, she has always had bad tantrums. Most of the time it is out of frustration I think, but there are times when I swear she does it just to be bratty. Especially if we are at our neighbors house and she isn't ready to go yet. I told her that we were going to start the marble system and how it worked and she threw a tantrum about that and said she would rather just be grounded when she is bad. That is because the neighbors watch her while I am in school so she gets to play whether she is grounded or not. I am glad to hear that others deal with this, it is so embarassing to have an 8 year old kid meltdown in the middle of Target!My 13 1/2 year old has huge melt downs and its out of shear frustration. He doesn't do it anywhere else, just for me at home!!!!! I am so lucky !!!!!!
The other day the tantrum was so bad that I rang the child mental health unit who then told me to give him a drink of water and tell him I was going to ring the police / ambulance if he didn't calm down in ten minutes and they would take him to hospital where he would be calmed down! I said it calmly (I had been crying on the phone for an hour!!) and set the timer. I came back and told him that he had 2 minutes and then at 91/2 minutes he stopped. He was so frustrated but that behaviour is unacceptable. We are in Australia so I don't know if you would have the same sort of support. Re-bounding from meds is huge as well as the stress build up at school. She does it because she can. It's a power struggle. The more they see it gets a reaction, the more they do it. Our son does it when he is backed into a corner. He is like a 2 year old and it so upsetting. But it is not acceptable. I always in the past have lost it with him. One time at 2 in the morning when he was just out of control I hit him and he just smiled mid tantrum and said, "can you make it harder?" He was in control!!!!!! Look into the rebounding and talk to your doctor.
Daniel's were bad but gets less the more language he develops. In our case he only does it with family not at school. Oh, yes. My dd had a classic tantrum at Thanksgiving dinner. I cut her major slack though because we had been on the road 5 hours to get there and we were up late the night before. I also hadn't given her her afternoon dose because I wanted her to be hungry to eat the dinner. Luckily, SIL and family are very, very understanding because they deal with the same thing with their son, who is the same age. Their kids were acting up too! So we just drank some wine and tried to ignore them as much as possible! At one point, somehow dd's ring was pulled during roughhousing so that it pinched her finger really bad. Boy, was that a screamfest. Then she wouldn't let anyone help her. I tried to gently help her, but she bit me (noot very hard, but still), so at that point I totally disengaged! I started doing dishes--everyone else somehow held her down and dealt with the ring.....I swear, I wish I had it on video.