My daughter has been bored out of her mind and recently after seeing a friend who does school at home and her Daddy leaving for 6 weeks that she isnt going to behave in class. She is going to act crazy and misbehave when the teacher is trying to help the other kids. On days she goes to school it is spilling over to our house where she is mean to her sisters and brother and disrespectful. She is tired and always acts better after a nap. They have moved her to first grade reading and she will be doing first grade math also. It has been a recent change but hasnt help as of yet.

The teacher says Trina can be a joy and a terror in a flip of a switch. She cant control her and wants to have this meeting but I dont know what to expect as Trina is my oldest of 4. Any advice would be helpful. Thank you.

I don't imagine that you have control of the fact that Daddy is gone for 6 weeks, and unless you're interested in homeschooling, you need to send her to school. They've addressed the boredom in school with the change to first grade subject acceleration.

The thing that you do have control over is that she's tired, and you know that she acts better after a nap. Overtired children are fussy/tantrummy/miserable . . .

If she can nap every day, or even just an extra day or two out of the week, that might improve the situation. The other thing you can do is to put her to bed earlier -- even 20-30 minutes earlier might do the trick. Overtired children don't sleep as well, which keeps them overtired.

Great book:
Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth

Written by a physician who specializes in pediatric sleep; very science-based; no kooky gimmicks.

parenthetically: (we use melatonin from time to time in our house, it's well studied in kids and comes as a 2.5 mg chewable)

Good luck!

She goes to bed at 7 and we do naps after school most days. But she hates going to bed so early so she trys to fight it. I am trying to fight the tiredness level. Thank you. She shares a room with her little sister. I am going to try to let her go to bed at 7 and put her sister down after she is asleep. Maybe that will help.

For what it's worth, my kids only fight bedtime when they're overtired. Usually if they're tired (and not O.T.), yawning, zoning out, etc., they can't get to bed soon enough.

Just wondering, because this exact thing came up in my practice with another kid recently, was she napping daily, then started a kindergarten where the kids don't get a nap time?

edit: never mind, I re-read your last post and see that she naps. I'm kind of tired myself :-)

Thats ok. I am up for any help. I know she has never slept through the night on a regular basis in her life. She also has reoccurring night terrors. I do everything to try to reassure her even without the night terrors she wakes up and plays too. But she has never besides when her Daddy wasnt home for a couple of months right before summer had this many problems. But she was starting to have issues before he left and I know that didnt help any. But I dont have control over his work schedule so I cant change that. If we could I know both of us would.

The Weissbluth book changed our lives.

Thank you I will read it. I am up for anything.

I agree that the sleep issue is definitely the one to tackle. Once your child learns to sleep through the night, a lot of these issues will go away. A 7pm bedtime seems pretty early for that age (unless she has to get up at 6am), and with the naps, I'm not surprised she can't sleep through the night.

I'd suggest that you don't try putting the younger kid to bed after the older one is asleep, because the older one is likely to resent that, and one of the ways she might rebel is to keep herself up later and later.

Inexplicable bouts of irritability is how my daughter announces her lack of sufficient sleep, so they go hand in hand.

How is her diet? Just thinking sugar, cafiene, dyes, etc or a food sensitivity can cause sleep issues and attitudes that change like flipping a switch. Has she ever been tested for allergies?

She eats anything and everything. No sugars other than fruits and the very occasional piece of candy, cake or ice cream. It is not even once every 3 months. She hasnt had cafienated drinks in her life and even non caffinated soda's she has had maybe 3 or 4 times in her almost 6 years of life. I havent started looking at dyes, but since it has been suggested recently by friends I had just started looking for the red dye 40. She has excema, and allergic to bynedryll, but that is it for allergies so far. She doesnt get seasonal allergies like her younest sister, her brother and I do. But she has never been tested.

Some kids who are allregic to benadryl are really allergic to the dye . . . have you ever tried the dye-free liquid or tablets? (1 tsp benadryl = 1/2 adult tab).

No I am to scared too. But I may have them check to see if she is allergic to the dye that way I dont have to be afraid. I refuse to have it in my house. They take clear claritin for kids instead.

My dd12 is allergic to Benedryll... the reaction is awful!


Anyway, I was thinking if you could document what she eats, sleeping patterns, behavioral issues for a couple of weeks, you might be able to see a pattern. It isn't always junk food... sometimes it is something common and even "healthy" like soy or wheat. It also may not be a full on allergy, but a sensitivity that just makes the child feel unwell.

Just a thought.

Thank you. I will. We dont eat much she hasnt ate her entire life though so I dont know what it could be.

The SST is on the 8th she has gotten better in school but her Daddy comes home on Tuesday and she is already acting out more at home again. So I fully expect school to go back to being crazy once he is home. The teacher has started letting her help teach the other students, she is in first grade reading and they just up her to a higher reading group, they say she is ready for first grade math but the first grade teacher wont accept her into the class for math because they dont have math groups like they do reading groups. Would I be in my rights to demand they take her for first grade math? Or atleast test her for it. She is doing really well in math and loves math more than reading. She says that the new reading group is more challenging for her. I give her a scale of: to easy : just right : or hard. She says the new group is hard but not to hard. So I am ok with that. What should I expect and what will they allow me to do? I dont want to step on more toes than I have to but I am unwilling to have her not challenged.

If the behavior is really as disrupted as it sounds in your post, at home and in school, it might be helpful to get a private assessment. You could ask your pediatrician for a referral to either a child psychiatrist or look on this site for a child psychologist that works with gifted kids in your area.

I read in one of your posts that your daughter has never slept through the night and has night terros. Not sleeping and irritability could be related to anxiety, ADHD, or Sensory Processing Disorder, or perhaps something entirely different.

Having gone through something similar in regards to behavior issues at that age, professional advice was really helpful. We were able to keep a handle on the behavior through specialists with non-drug interventions i.e. diet, therapy, etcetera, until age ten. (My spouse's work has also involved weekly business travel since our child was an infant.)

Thanks. I have an appointment with the doctor on Wednesday and she is currently seeing a family therepist by herself. I prefer no drugs so I am very glad there is hope. We are a military family so I am use to her behavior changes when Daddy leaves and when he comes back it has just gotten more extreme. I dont cater to it but I do talk to her about it. I hope between advice on here, her doctor, theripist and school we can come up with a good solid plan. Thank you.

If she's ready for 1st grade reading and 1st grade math, then it sounds like a grade skip is probably in order. You could ask the school to evaluate her with the Iowa Acceleration Scale to find out.

Warning: many schools are steadfastly against grade skipping for a whole raft of foolish reasons.

We had the SST today. While we didnt talk about a grade skip, they said that they would have her possibly in first grade math by January. They gave us 2 different programs to work on her social skills which she is behind on. She has no ability to stop from being on top of her friends. She likes to be a show off and acting crazy and overwelms other kids. They also gave me paperwork for the GATE program. I am pretty much not sure if they are going to challenge her or not. How long should I give them before I give up and yank her.