DD aged 7 having horrendous tantrums

[MissM]

DD is generally a happy, positive little soul. She does get anxious and can be over-emotional, but not to an extent that we can't help her with.

Over the past week though, she's had three enormous meltdowns where she's just exploded into screaming, crying, hitting, culminating in screeching 'I hate you!' at whichever parent is trying to deal with it. The other day she screamed in my face for about five minutes - whenever I tried to leave the room she would follow me, and I couldn't put her in her own room without physically dragging her up the stairs. It all ended in me yelling back at her and us both in tears.

After she calms down it is as if nothing has happened - she is calm and plays peacefully for the rest of the day. I'm left feeling terrible though, really wrung out and shaky.

I'm really worried about her. Firstly because there's obviously something really bothering her which is causing her to react like this to seemingly tiny issues, and secondly because I don't think I've handled it well by yelling and putting her in her room. But how do I handle it? How do I help her realise that she can't solve whatever's bothering her by lashing out verbally and physically? And how do I help her talk about what the problem is? When we talk about it she just refers to whatever it was that first set her off, such as her brother not giving her a toy or something similar. I know that the real reason must be something bigger.

[Chopstheduck]

dt1 had this issue, still has the very rare one now aged 8, and it was down to self esteem issues. We initially thought it was an anger issue, but after talking to the SLO after one particularly bad incident, we realised he was in the shadow of his twin, and just lacked self confidence.

We started dealing with the tantrums by reassuring him he could deal with the issue without exploding, and doing a few curricular activities that boosted his self confidence, and they have pretty much disappeared now. Might be worth considering?

[MissM]

Thanks for responding. What's an SLO? What were the activities that you used? Were they within his school? I don't think that DD lacks confidence, but perhaps she hides it well.

[Chopstheduck]

school liaison officer, he never had problems at school, but I requested help with dealing with it. He went to a theatre club, after school, and the school cast him as Joseph that year to give him a boost too. He doesn't do the theatre any more, but took up the violin, and that is really good for him.