Crazy Eyes during Tantrum - like she wasn't there

Marguerite

Active Member
Sandy, I also have limited mobility. I could never run after my kids (not after difficult child 1 and from then on). With GFG3vespecially, he would run (not to be naughty, he just was excited by things he saw and wanted to follow). If anyone tried to chase him it became a game and he would keep running. I couldn't run, so he learned that he had to come back. Other people who minded him for me would go into panic mode when he ran from them, because he often would get out of sight before he thought to come back, and he wouldn't respond to being called or anything.
I had no choice. I couldn't chase him. I just had to hope, heart pounding. But he did come back.

difficult child 3 would also climb into everything. We locked stuff away but he would find the key, climb to ceiling height if necessary to get it, often very risky. So we stopped locking things up that we knew he would want to get into. Stuff tat was genuinely dangerous, we removed from the premises. He would get out of the house and go wandering, so we had a front fence installed and used octopus straps to hold the gates shut. He knew how to unti them, but they were too strong for him. We installed a fence that was unclimbable.

Otherwise - my attitude has had to be, let him go. I sit and wait. Soon enough he has to come back to me. Because eventually, he will need his dinner. And then I have power over him, because he wants something from me and has to face what he has done before I give him what he wants.

Climbing over benches, stovetops etc - I bet you anything, she won't climb on a stove with a hot plate that is on. We often worry too much that our kids will be so aroused that they will hurt themselves, but we forget that kids seem to have almost superhuman skills of balance, danger management etc. Kids take huge risks. And kids do fall sometimes, but they generally bounce.

difficult child 3 has only fallen out of a tree once, and that was because there was another kid up there with him who pushed him suddenly (difficult child 3 reached out to hold his friend's hand, his friend was socially aware enough to think it 'gay' to hold another boy's hand, and pushed him away, three metres up).

easy child 2/difficult child 2 used to send her teachers into a panic over the way she would climb on things and walk along narrow rails, fence tops etc. Then someone at after school care introduced acircus skills program, and easy child 2/difficult child 2 immediately took to stilwalking like a duck to water. She now works professionally as a stiltwalker, despite having kinesthesia problems in every other way. She just happens to have a brilliant sense of balance, difficult child 3 has the same.

What I'm saying - if Eris runs, climbs, goes and hides - leave her. If she breaks something or disconnects something, then she has to wear the angerthis causes from the person whose stuff she's damaged. She has to make it good. The more you try to drag her out form under husband's desk, for example, the more she will in a panic grab at stuff to hold on. If you aren't chasing her as she goes under the desk, she will probably climb under more carefully. It hurts to put your knee on a plug or a cable, it's more comfortable to sit on the carpet.

Don't punish yourself and your body, to try to prevent her. She is alreayd probvably more agile tyhan you, stronger than you, more capable physically. Don't embarrass yourself and set yourself up for failure. It's better to not try, but remember YOU are the mum, you have power over her in so many little ways. She wants soemthing form you (washing done, dinne cooked, help with homework, reminding, driving her to friends - so many things). YOU HAVE CONTROL.

The more you chase and try to control her, the worse will be the tantrum. If you simp;ly stand back and wait, she is the one fighting shadows (the image of you chasing her that in reality is not ther)and will realise sooner how foolish she looks, climbing onto the kitchen bench with no reason for it at all.

A good punishment for that, by the way - get a cloth and make her clean her footprints off the area that is used for food preparation. Why should everyone else in the family risk eating her foot germs? But don't push that button unless you're sure you cna make it stick.

It takes courage to do this. Also, depending on how determined she can be, you may have to modify my suggestions. If she already is really extreme in the risks she takes even if you don't pursue, then you may have to either clear the decks (and tie cables in firmly and safely, in husband's desk) to make things safer for her when she next rampages. Jut as we installed a front fence so when difficult child 3 wandered, we knew he wouldn't be able to leave the property). Make her existing range safer, at least for a while until she learns the new way of management. But she has to stop this some time, it's going to look ridiculous when she's a lumbering 15 year old still wanting to climb over the kitchen bench or hide under Daddy's desk.

Another thing to use - send her to her room as you are doing, but make the room her refuge. It's not a punishment, but somewhere for her to take herself until she can regain some self-control. So if she comes home form school upset because a kid was mean to her, she can put herself in her room. If she argues with her and is upset by you, she can put herself in her room. Going to her room then becomes a coping skill, not ap unishment. We go somewhere quiet to regain our composure (like crying in the ladies loo when the boss yells at us at work). From what you say, I think you're already well on the way for this one with her.

Talk to her. Put strategies in place ahead of time. tell her you will no longer chase her, but if she does this there will be consequences because she needs you more than you need her. You love her, but you don't rely on her to feed you, to drive you places. It's the other way around. And it's now quid pro quo time. Words are now what will be used to resolve things, not physicality. If she's feeling angry and aggressive, she needs to find another outlet (I used a jogging trampoline for the kids, for years - "go do 40 jumps then come and talk to me about it.")

Since you joined us, I've been impressed by your posts and how you handle your daughter. I think you're a good mother. You're already donig a lot of really good things with her, but she IS a handful. Maybe trying this could help.

And remember - I speak from experience. I don't have a specific diagnosis for myself (after 25 years, that's ridiculous, I know) but it resembles MS as much as anything. I walk with crutches, I use a mobility scooter (the "little old lady" type). I've had to find different ways to cope with toddlers, because I've had this while my babies were being born and growing up. So far, I haven't lost one. Nor have we had any broken bones (other than easy child/2GFG2 breaking her wrist falling off her stils right before the audition for the Sydney 2000 Olympics Opening Ceremony).

Marg
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Oh, yeah, that chocolate cake thing. :)

I love my chocolate and my cookies--wheat--so I have to lock up those products in my office at home.
I agree with-GcvMom--eat your choc cake out of sight. These kids have no impulse control. It is just torture to them to see something and not be able to have it.
My easy child often complained that it "wasn't fair" that she couldn't have "her" food in the house for snacks and we told her to either hide it in her room or do without it. If someone has asthma, you don't smoke around them. Same with-the food issue.
 

allhaileris

Crumbling Family Rock
Marg - thank you for that summary. I think that's more of what I needed to hear. I just need to let her do her thing and deal with the consequences, I just need to make sure husband is on the same page.

I'll go over all this with husband and see if we can make some changes this weekend. I'll also try to create some sort of thing in her bedroom for her to "escape" to, but I'm not sure if that'll work. We have a small place and not very many empty spaces left. And every time I go in and make her room nice, she destroys it.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
You don't have to make it nice. YOU don't have to do anything. Let HER make her own space. Maybe talk to her about it ahead of time, tell her you want to try something different and for her to feel that her room is her space to be in when she is feeling overwhelmed or ants to be somewhere on her own shere she can get her head together again. Tell her we all need this, sometimes we can make a space in our own head but often as we are learning to do this, we need a REAL space somewhere too. Some people use the bathroom, but this is awkward when you have to get out to let someone else use it. A bedroom is better.

That way SHE is invested in her own space. Even if all she does is make a blanket tent over her bed, or even under it. I've known easy child 2/difficult child 2 to climb inside her wardrobe in her bedroom, when just being in her bedroom wasn't enough. And I've had the boys climb into a large cardboard box and make that into a cubby of sorts. They cut a hole in one side of the box and filled it with cushions, so they could sit inside the box curled up on cushions and watch TV (or play computer games) through the hole.

So let her get creative with her own space. Or not. Her choice.

Maybe show your husband this thread, to help him see a little of what it might be like inside her head.

I was talking to my husband last night, about difficult child 3 always wanting stuff, and me seemnig to give in. difficult child 3 really nags, a lot. He argues about things. I follow the procedure of "feed the kid, if he's really hungry" but I also don't want to just spend money constantly, if we're out. So I often find ways to feed him, without always buying expensive fast food. Sometimes, such as after drama class which finishes at 6.30 pm, we've got into the habit of buying him a big burger from a local takeaway shop (a good Aussie shop-made burger is about twice/three times the size of a Big Mac, for the same price). But last night as we were driving home it was 6 pm when we stopped for fuel. difficult child 3 announced he wanted me to buy a sausage roll for him to eat. A sudden craving. But we would be home in less than half an hour, so we said no. He began to argue. Now, husband gets angry with him when he argues. I try not to, although I did get short with difficult child 3 and when he insisted that we often do let him buy something to eat when he's hungry, I made it clear I would not, this time, because we DID have food in the car, it just wasn't a hot sausage roll. I reminded him I had some of my home-made sausage rolls at home and if the problem was that he really wanted something hot, savoury and flaky, he could have one of mine which everybody says are the best. Better quality, better taste, better nutrition. And it's maybe about time we begin to eat down the supplies in our freezer.
He did quickly settle to this (besides, we'd left the petrol station behind by this stage).
But at home when difficult child 3 was out of earshot, husband said, "I was worried you would give in to him back there. It does seem to me that you give in to him a lot. He has to learn to stop wanting things, and to stop arguing so much."

I reminded husband that difficult child 3 arguing a lot, and wantingthings the way he does, is part of difficult child 3's presentation, it's the way he is. It's not a bad habit like an average kid would develop, this is how his brain works and why it is a disability. It's perseverative behaviour. The fact that we COULD "logic" difficult child 3 out of it is great progress.
I also pointed out that I don't give in to difficult child 3 any more than I did with the other kids, but because he argues about things a lot more, it makes it look like "difficult child 3 wins again" when I do let him have what he wants.

difficult child 3 got his sausage rolls and was very happy with them. I make good sausage rolls - the shop ones, even a lot of home recipes, use breadcrumbs in the mix but I don't. I use all meat (plus onion and herbs, all so finely chopped that kids don't get any 'hot' bits). So mine don't taste dry or sawdusty, I also use the best puff pastry I've found for te job, which also happens to be the cheapest. So for the price of something commercial and not so nutritious or tasty, I can make ten times the number of sausage rolls for home. PLus they're fun to make, plus the family loves them. My biggest problem is having any leftover to freeze! I've been known to make a thousand at a time. A big job, takes almost all day.

But I digress - what I'm trying to say, is sometimes it's more difficult for our husbands to really grasp just how differently a difficult child thinks. As parents we're conditioned to think about our kids in terms of them vs us, of us as parents having to teach our kids to not be bad. But in fact we are working with good material (even with the most difficult difficult child) because kids in general WANT to be good, they sometimes either don't know how, or other things keep getting in the way, such as panic, anxiety, frustration and anger. These are primal emotions often triggered by whatever it is that makes them a difficult child. They need our help to find ways to handle tese emotions more effectively. Once the kids see we are trying to help them, they quickly begin to work with us. Yes, we will make mistakes and seem to set everything back; you just go back to start and try again. Each success breeds more success. And as we set the example of how to behave (ie by NOT chasing her where she goes - just don't go there yourself) then she will learn form your example. Behave towards her, as you WANT her to behave to you. Don't force her to be what you want her to be, all she sees is the force. Instead, SHOW her. BE what you want her to be. If you need to, TELL her. "I'm not shouting at you - please don't shout at me. We need to talk quietly about this. If you need to take time to calm yourself first, then go to your room until you are ready. I'll be ready when you are."
Give her choice. SHE is the one who needs to calm down, let her find her best way of doing it. Let her come out of her room when she feels she is ready - she can always go back there if it's too soon.

It works in different ways for different kids, perhaps because it's to a certain extent, self-determination. But from things you've said, she's a smart kid. She will quickly work out her own limits once she doesn't have someone else imposing limits on her so suddenly.

See how you go. Good luck sharing this with husband. I do agree, he needs to understand as well or he will think you've suddenly gone soft in the head.

Marg
 

Stella

New Member
Wow! yes my difficult child always gets crazy eyes during her tantrums. Her pupils become HUGE and her eyes just look like big black circles. It really scares me. He had an EEG done which came back normally and I really believe that it is down to the increase in adreniline during her outbursts.
 

Stef

Dazed and Confused
I noticed difficult child's eyes were pitch black when he had tantrums. He was around 3 at the time. His eyes looked pitch black and detached from his surroundings. It was freaky.
 
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