Posted by AuntieMel on February 23, 2005, at 10:36:53
In reply to Re: SUPPORT THE PARENTS BOARD, posted by stresser on February 22, 2005, at 16:00:13
I thought for a long time my youngest was bipolar, but her shrink thought otherwise. Of course he only saw the good side of her...
At the same age as your daughter - though it actually started much, much earlier - she could be the sweetest thing on earth one minute and fly into the hugest screaming tantrums the next.
My natural tendency was to scream back and try to make her see where she was being unreasonable. It didn't work, and if anything made it worse.
Dad was smarter. When she got like that he'd just say to leave her alone for a while and give her time to calm down and then talk to her. Much better results.
We had just a couple of rules for those times. No driving and no leaving the house until she calmed down. The first one (driving) was non-negotiable and if needed we'd take away the keys. She did sometimes storm off on foot, but she never got far.
Once we had to take her to the ER because it looked like she broke her hand punching the wall.
She managed to alienate a lot of her friends in the process, which hurt her a great deal, but we tried to, in calmer moments, show her why it wasn't a good idea to talk to them when she's "like that."
Grades? Good enough to get by, but nowhere near what she could have done with just a little effort.
It was a hard time for all of us. But she's now 20 and calmer and can (usually) keep her temper under control. She's in her second year of college and grades are improving (3.4 last semester.) We are now very, very close.
But we still have sheetrock in her room to repair.
poster:AuntieMel
thread:459742
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/child/20000813/msgs/462216.html