Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion tantrums

My 7 year old is always throwing tantrums and I just don’t know how to teach her that it WON’T get her what she wants. You would think by how intelligent she is and time after time of being put in time out, having things taken away, and not getting what she wants would clue her in. My 4 year old gets it. The most common reasons she throws a tantrums is when we have to do errands (she thinks she should call the shots on what we get to do and not do that day) If I have to go to the store she will just say “no I’m busy”. Doing whatever it is she is doing at the time. When go together as a family somewhere she throws fits when leaving. For instance we went to the beach over the weekend, we tell her we are leaving and give her the 5 minute mark. And what does she say? “NO IM NOT LEAVING!” We then have to pick her up and carry her to the car. And lastly she loves her brother and gets along with him a lot of the time but she bosses him around like crazy, when I catch her bossing him around I give her a warning to stop. And what does she do? She does it again! She completely ignores what I tell her and she just does it again she don’t even care that I am in the room! So I then have to drag her to her room to give her a time out. She won’t take her time out on her own I have to physically carry her to her room. When in her room she throws a tantrum until she calms down. After she calls down I take her privileges away (video game, TV watching or toys taken away, whatever she cares about at that moment) Yet day after day it’s a repeat and now that school is out...it’s even worse. I feel like I am failing here. How do I teach her that these tantrums will not get her what she wants, and that she doesn’t get to boss her little brother around or dictate our daily schedule. I really feel like I don’t know what I am doing here. We don’t spank, we’ve tried in the past. It didn’t work and my kids have very sensitive and fair skin and I refuse to go down that road. One would think that K is being spoiled but we don’t spoil her! She doesn’t get stuff except holidays and birthdays if she wants to buy something she earns it through chores and it takes her 2-3 months to even save up enough to go buy something. I never give in to her. So what am I doing wrong? How do I teach her that these fits get her anywhere and how do I get her to stop being so bossy? My 4 year old once referred to her as angelica off of rugrats
She isn’t like this ALL the time when she isn’t acting this way she is very sweet and loving, however these past few weeks she has been acting like this most of the time.

Here's what a lot of posters here have discussed trying to adapt to
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....0659/Nurtured_Heart_Approach_in_a_N.html

It's called "Transforming the Difficult Child; the Nurtured Heart Approach."
It's been described as a "Super Parenting" technique. It very much makes the parent responsible for setting the kids up for success -here's one difference- in our eyes and in their own eyes.

I don't think you're doing anything wrong. I think if you're trying something that's worth doing there's going to be a learning curve. Also, here's a chart of gifted personality types and the best ways to reach them:
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10114.aspx

Also, here's some phrases I've heard. See if they fit she has "high sense of entitlement", and she's good at "lawyering". Just telling her "stop" doesn't change the way she thinks. (the way you think turns into the way you act). But even kids with big thoughts don't think about how they're acting all that often - it's just not that interesting to think about. Soon enough she'll make that change where she thinks about how other people see her (not you so much of course). Then later she'll be completely grown and think a lot about how she acts and what it means. And trust me, it's a much less interesting thing to think about.

My DS6 is just like you have described. Keeping him busy (very little screen time ie TV Computer iPad etc) works best for him. The days I get busy and can't keep him busy without TV computer etc. I know I'll be paying for it.
Unfortunately my library doesn't have the book Transforming the difficult child. Good luck!

Hang in there, MOM2KC! My son is 6-years-old and has problems with controlling and transitioning from one activity to another. He doesn't throw tantrums, but he definitely digs his heels in. His teachers at school tell me that he hates leaving a preferred activity to do something else. He loves to be in control of everything. I don't think that's different from any child, but everything he does is bigger and better. LOL

We use a combination of time-out, taking privileges away and positive reinforcement. We've found that giving positive reinforcements work much better for him. He has a little chart, and when he does something the FIRST TIME HE'S ASKED (rather than the 8th time) he gets a sticker. When he gets a row of stickers he earns a privilege...something he really enjoys doing. We saw results immediately. He doesn't always do things the first time he's asked, but when he's reminded of his chart he usually snaps to it. We really made a big deal out of it in the beginning. Everything he did the first time he got a sticker. He loves all the positive reinforcement he gets from it. We got this idea from studies of kids with behavioral issues and it's worked really well for him. I don't know if this would work for your daughter, but it's definitely worked for our son.

Good luck!

I only mentioned THAT book because several people here are using it and trying to implement it so the threads come up ever so often and it's kind of like if you're in a local book club and you're all on the same page.  It's just a reference.  My husband only knows the outline and he thinks it's only about focusing on the positive.  I like the thread the other day that hinted that it was about brainwashing your kid into thinking they were well-behaved.  What it actually is is about setting the bar low during the difficult times so that they accidentally comply and then pointing out their co-operation.  Then during the good times mention the things they are doing that are not good or bad.  Which is most things kids do, it's not good or bad- like i told my son- you splashed that water with that shoe.   It backfires though because he thinks I'm interested in stuff I don't get.  Like he says "watch this" and then chews his food.  

I think it's so they hear their mother's voice when it's not being bossy or disciplining, so they know what you really sound like.  The book says it's so they know you're interested them, not just in their good behavior, bad behavior, performance or production.  I think it's so they can hear your real voice.  A (childless) friend thinks that's why it's important to read to your children, not for their vocabulary, but so they can hear their mothers voice how it really sounds.  Maybe kids do want to hear their mothers voice when it's not a conversation, when it's not important.  I like hearing their voices when they're "chirping", that nonsense mix of sounds and words and songs they make at random when they're happy.  I don't think seven year olds still do that, right? The vrooms and beeps and making objects talk to each other and telling fragments of stories to absolutely nobody, just to say them.

Oh my gosh, I'm not trying to say you don't read to your kids either or that reading to your kids will stop meltdowns I'm just rambling on about why I think the nurtured heart approach says to "narrate things outloud that you see you see your kid randomly doing". Or something like that. I think it's because kids like to hear their parents voice frequently in an indirect and non- meaningful way and I compared how they must feel to the joy I feel in hearing my kids meaningless chatter. I'm a quit typing now until I can speak more concisely.

What we do for the positive reinforcement is of course praise, and they get quarters. For chores and good behavior they get quarters.. the more impressive the good behavior or the chore they get gold dollar coins.
As for reading, we do a lot of reading and I also lay in bed with the kids for 10 mins each at night and we talk about the day or what ever else they want to talk about.
K was playing a team player video game with her brother this morning and she was yelling at him for not going where she wanted him to go, I gave her a warning and she did it again so she spent about an hour in her room throwing a fit. After she calmed down I let her out and she was extremely good and sweet. she said she was sorry, she ate lunch and we all went for a pleasant walk. Her punishment is that she can't play any video games today. Maybe I am doing this backward though..maybe they shouldn't be allowed to play video games at all unless they do something to earn it. Just thinking out loud here.. we have a doctor appt. in about an hour here so we will see how the rest of the day goes. I am thinking after the doctor of visiting family and taking them to play with their cousins. We will see how she reacts when we go to leave... When we do go to leave, since she is already grounded off of video games what is the next step no tv, video games, computer time for the rest of the week? Though I assure you this isn't all she does it is just her
favorite things to do that I consider privileges.

thank you for all the advice and the references, La Texican I will look into that book. K's personality is unique in that she only cops this bossy attitude and has these meltdowns with us (my husband and I) She doesn't do this with extended family and she is very close to my extended family. She wouldn't dream of acting this way at school. She is very shy and well behaved at school. Her kindergarten and first grade teacher both complimented me on how polite and well mannered she is, her first grade teacher even called her "So proper and polite." The students at her school get coins when they are caught with good behavior and K gets those coins on a daily bases, they use the coins to fill up a jar to have a classroom party.
there have been mornings before school that she has had a meltdown and is crying all the way to school. When we park and she gets out the minute she steps foot on the school sidewalk the fit abruptly stops..!!! Like someone just pushed her "off" button!

The "tomato staking" I mentioned in the other thread (and I have not read that book and have no intention of reading it, just borrowed the idea from a thread in a homeschooling forum) is the opposite of our normal. Normal is you play computer games, watch tv, play with your toys all day and the exception is you sit with mamma a little bit for time-out. The tomato staking is you sit with mamma all day and the exception is you get short periods of doing what you want while I watch. I've seemed to have been trying various styles of "grounded" lately. Really, this is the third original consequence I've tried and all three turned out to be another form of grounded after I tried it. Mom says when I was a kid I would ask for a spanking over "grounded" because I would say, "would you just spank me it's over quicker".

Another thing I've talked with my husband about discipline because I've said, "really the kids are very good kids" and he said, "yeah, I wouldn't bother correcting every they do wrong if they weren't such good kids". Just thinking about it twists my mind up in knots.

I agree La Texican that I am basically looking for different ways of "grounding" her, I didn't think of it that way.. they all really boil down to the same thing. So I guess I just stick to what I am doing and really emphasize the positives. The rest of the day today she behaved quite well and I told her how proud I was of her and gave her a gold coin. She was smiling ear to ear. I am just waiting for the day it dawns on her that her melt downs get her no where.

Someone else in another thread made a useful distinction between a tantrum and a meltdown, which bears mentioning here. A tantrum is a ploy, and a meltdown is an excessive but natural emotional response. A tantrum is about obtaining something, where a meltdown usually has no goal. Tantrums are easily controlled, where meltdowns are characterized by complete loss of control (like the analogous nuclear event).

It's a necessary distinction because the strategies for dealing with both are very different.