Hellobee Boards

I feel your pain. I don't know why some kids are easier than others. What kind of activities that your daughter is doing?
Did she go to preschool? How is she doing in kindergarten? Did her teacher mention anything to you?
Afterschool: my kids do karate. At that age, you learn to listen. you learn discipline and then you slowly learn combination...
Have you talked to her pediatrician?

I also wonder how she's doing in kindergarten. If she's doing pretty well there but melting down after school, it could be that she's using up all her patience and self control during the school day and coming home exhausted. Then I would consider asking your pediatrician for some resources for parent training/support. Parent training doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. It just gives you more tools that can be specific to your child to support their growth and behavior. But if she's also struggling behaviorally on the weekends and at school, looking more into her needs and behavior would be helpful. Your pediatrician can also be a good place to start with that and can give you a referral. Or reaching out to a developmental pediatrician or child psychologist in the community.

I have a five year old that is similarly difficult. We have been trying to figure out when we get “better” behavior, here’s some of our observations if it helps:
She’s better after eating more complete meals with protein and worse after sugary/sweet snacks/meals.
Better when she gets more sleep- early bed time
Better after alone time or one on one with a parent (hard because we have 4 kids)
Better after time outdoors. Way worse after any screen time.
Also we have found art/crafting to be really good for calming her down.
Hope that helps!

Just wanted to commiserate! My six year old is similarly intense and it's hard. And it can feel isolating too. There are definitely outings and activities that we shy away from or do in very tailored ways to try to better manage the situation. There's plenty of stuff I can take my four year old to do easily, but feels overwhelming to think about with my six year old! It's getting easier as she gets older, but in some ways, it just sort of changes shape. We keep pretty consistent routines, clear boundaries and consequences, and we're really focusing now on how to equip her to navigate some pretty intense feelings and reactions at this stage.

Pre-covid, we worked with an OT for some sensory issues. She was also a huge help for some self-regulation strategies for my daughter. We've worked on and off with an LCSW who did some play therapy with my daughter and who was a sounding board for me too. That was helpful for me from the parenting perspective, but we saw more "immediate" results for my daughter with the OT.

I haven't read it in a while, but I remember finding the book "Raising Your Spirited Child" by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka helpful (and validating) when my daughter was a little younger.

My daughter will turn seven next month, and things are changing some. We see fewer full-fledged meltdowns (though they still happen sometimes). She still has very big (sometimes disproportionate) reactions to things like we saw from early in her preschool days. I think this is just her temperament, and part of me struggles so much with it because it's so different from how I am.

My daughter has taken off with reading, and I've found the more kid-friendly books that we surround her with that include mindfulness strategies or talk about emotions and how to appropriate engage and respond, the better. She'll absorb a lot through books and reading on her own terms, and it's been pretty cool to see her growth through what she reads.

My DD is 6, almost 7 - she has big emotions, strong opinions, and can be very intense. We signed her up for karate in spring of 2020 but after only a week or two everything shut down and she didn't do well with the at home classes. But we just signed up again at the advice of her school guidance counselor and her pediatrician. We're hoping it helps with concentration, self control, and provides an opportunity to work out frustration in a structured environment.