So a brief background - my daughter is 6 and has likely PTSD manifesting in severe emotional dysregulation amongst other things. She receives regular play therapy during term time but no other professional intervention (I have been endlessly trying to get something).She did have some sessions with a psychotherapist who confirmed, amongst other things, that she always wants to control her world and feels unsafe when she is not in clear control.When distressed she is violent and aggressive towards objects and myself, and rarely to others. This was an instinctive reaction but has also become a learned one in that it feels natural to her to act violently when things dont go right. Both variations still happen. She has consistently been given natural and significant consequences to her behaviour from both myself and school. An example would be not going to visit friends when she has been violent en route.Due to her experiences, I am her entire symbol of safety. All she ever really wants is to be with me so while she might be disappointed if a consequence is applied, it really doesnt have a significant or lasting impact because she still has what she wanted anyway. I have no respite or ability to get any and this has, I suspect, led to what I can only describe as a complete and utter lack of respect from her. She treats me incredibly poorly, even when not in distress, and deliberately antagonises me (by which I mean she literally acts like a bully, escalating her words or actions, while laughing, until I cant tolerate any more).I dont imply that she is horrible or unkind, as I believe her experiences and general lack of support from anyone else have created the situation but she certainly acts incredibly unlikely. She does understand that it is wrong, but seems to have the impulse to push me, either to continually test me, to try to control everything, or to distract from her own discomfort.In school she does not display the same behaviour; I believe because she knows the people there that she cares about won't endlessly tolerate it. She does go into distress regularly, have flight/fight reactions etc - they will guide her to a personal tent and allow her to calm down before she can be re-engaged. She has a lot of safe spaces at home but when she is distressed cannot be guided to them - she is literally unable to leave me.I feel like I can deal with her crises. I wish I could access safe handling training so that I know I wont harm her when restraining her from violence but as a rule I can deal with it.What I am severely struggling with is when she is agitated but not in crisis and behaving poorly. What I do is draw her attention to whatever has happened and ask her to resolve. So to apologise/change how she said something if she has been rude, or like earlier she poured crumbs on the floor so I asked her to clean them up. If there isnt a positive response I will ask again and let her know of the consequence if she doesnt. I will then let her know that if I get to 5 and she hasn't, the consequence will happen. This is all done in a calm manner, over a minute or two so she has time to understand and to process it and the consequence is usually "leave room and come back when you can do the thing".She hates the consequence because it means being away from me, outside of her own say so. I hate it because I know it will hurt her but I also feel that it's the fairest one, and most reasonable. Sometimes it works. But other times she refuses and has to be moved out of the room. Sometimes that works, but other times she will keep coming back. Ignoring her (I.e. letting her be in the same room) means I get shouted and screamed at and hit/kicked/bitten. Shutting a door means having to hold that door closed bodily whilst it is hit/kicked etc. This can escalate very dangerously.I do know that she needs professional help and I do know that I do, too. That's not my question. I am wondering whether anyone can see anything in my actions that might be escalating the situations, or anything I can do to de-escalate it. I would appreciate any suggestions. I know that enforcing a consequence that upsets her escalates things but I also know that I need to keep enforcing boundaries.To add - there is a lot of love in our house. We are close, playful and affectionate, and we have great adventures together. My daughter has a lot of pain and has been given a horrible, horrible start. I try every single day to make her secure but in her own words "I've never felt happiness without fear" so I really can understand why she's lashing out so much. I just dont know what else I can do to help. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2ZuxBJa
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