Alan & Brenda Leonard

> I just want to say that I think your daughter's behavior is just "her"
> and doesn't come from your parenting. I hope you can believe that.

I can be explosive, and so I understand that pattern of behavior when it
occasionally pops up in my otherwise very calm son. I think it must be much
harder to deal with when it's not your own personality, too. I have to
agree that it's just "her" and not your parenting!

I don't remember you ever saying whether you perhaps worked a bit with your
daughter on some of the very basic anger/stress management skills. The
little things we all do sometimes like counting to 3 very slowly or taking a
deep breath, walking away, etc.

My son is also 6, and one thing that has helped him was learning to see his
"triggers" and how to cope when he feels the meltdown coming. After a
number of times of going through what happened with him afterwards, he
learned to identify the point where he felt overwhelmed, and eventually we
could come up with things to do differently next time. It's helped, though
not for every situation, of course.

If it's any consolation, I'm finding 6 a lot easier than 5....maybe she's en
route to outgrowing it....!

brenda