My 8 year old daughter has recently had massive behavioural changes. My normally happy easy little girl has become moody, defiant and emotional. Everything has become a chore or an argument, simple requests like "go get dressed" end up in her at first refusing then chucking a tanty and yelling and slamming doors. 5 minutes later she will be in a flood of tears because she couldn't find the top she wanted to wear or the fact her younger brother "won" at getting dressed first. Everyone including her family, friends even random strangers seems to be 'picking' on her, but she cannot give me any specific examples when I talk to her about it. There have been no major changes within our house and other than school holidays, which they attend vacation care and we leave the house and get home at the same time as normal, there have been no changes to our routines. Do I take her to a doctor or an exorcist? Is it a phase or a permanent personality change?
5 Replies
I think your little girl is starting (very early stages) of puberty and the hormones are making her quite emotional and hormonal. Don't panic, but it's going to be quite a ride...
Strap yourself in for the ride, mate. It's about to get bumpy 🤣
In all seriousness, it's likely hormonal. I have 8 and 10 year old daughter's, my 10 year old has always been highly strung but this 8-9 yo phase was insane, things are starting to settle again now, probably the calm before the puberty storm lol. My 8 year old is at the start of this phase, as an ordinarily pretty easy going kid her rage tanties caused by mildly inconvenient or frustrating situations have been pretty unexpected and hard to deal with tbh. Like, its a hard balance between 'your feelings are valid' and 'Sorry, I can't let you lose your shit like the Incredible Hulk because your sock won't go on right'.
Sometimes they need comfort, sometimes you need to ignore it.
I would, just as a precaution, do a little digging to see if there's anything going on at vacation care. Kids can be a bit funny in these environments, particularly if they all come from different schools. Trying to establish the social pecking order so to speak!
I'd be pretty will I g to say this the is just a normal bit of over emotional, overwhelming sensitivity. Possibly even a bit tired.
You could look at emotional regulation and give her some coping strategies for when she's frustrated or upset or angry. Ways to help her find calm again. Naming the emotion is the first and most important thing you can do with her. Then help back to calm. There are a lot of strategies but don't expect her to be perfect, its OK to go through emotional bumps.
Is there something going on at vacation care? Please take her to the drs and maybe headspace.
Welcome to hormones! Just a word of warning though, that was when my autoimmune disorders started, my emotions were off the charts. If you're even slightly worried about those big emotional swings, pop off for a full check-up with the Dr. I unknowingly had Hashimoto's thyroiditis for a number of years and was in quite a bad place when it was finally picked up at 16 yrs old.