Tantrum 2

It's only the second one of the week, so I count my blessings. It is Tuesday after all. But tantrums last anywhere from an hour to 4 and we're only starting the second hour. Really, she's not all that out of control. It's  all very staged. She's making a conscious choice as to what she will do or not do.  I know because I went into her room and watched her for a full minute before she noticed me. She was screaming her "rage" (very convincing sounds) but she was carefully moving things around on her desktop - totally in control of her actions. The noise was for my benefit.

The trial?

She wanted to sit in the same chair James wanted to sit in for breakfast and since they were going to argue about it Brianna chose different chairs for them.  Her breakfast is still sitting there untouched. I am only asking her to sit in her time-out chair quietly and when she is ready to talk to me she is to tell me she is ready to talk nicely. She won't sit in her chair, she won't stop the hollering and whenever I walk into her room she has plenty of ugly things to say. She'll only go so far. She doesn't stray far from the doorway of her room. I could make her sit on the chair, but that might be giving her too much attention, so I'm asking her of her own free will to comply with the plan.

There are two things she does that I have no idea what to do with. One is that she screams owe, owie, owie as if she is in pain or that I am hurting her when she is being disciplined. This when I am not even touching her, but should I pick her up or anything you would think I am killing her. She'll yell, "My back, my back, my back!! Or, My head, my head!! Owie, owie!! Sometimes, like this morning she screams "I'm starving!! I want to eat breakfast!!!  Breakfast is sitting there. All she must do is stop screaming, sit on the chair and speak respectably to me.

The other thing is she will yell, I don't want my dolls anymore. Throw them out! Or some other prized possession will be hurled and she will declare that she doesn't want it anymore. It's all nonsense. A pity party, if you will.

The last tantrum was in the garden. I asked her to fetch me something and she didn't want to because she was having fun with the neighbor children. She went into full blown tantrum - not one of those 7 neighbor kids stuck around to witness her folly and they didn't even hint at coming over to play yesterday at all, though the twins did their best to entice them.

PS. This took me a long time to write. Tantrum is over!! YAY!  She finally conceded and is eating breakfast. She voluntarily prayed with me. She apologized to me for everything on her own. She told me exactly the steps that took her to a tantrum and how she could have avoided it. She went and found Brianna and apologized. She knows exactly what she is doing.... so why does she continue to do this? The other day I asked her if she had ever just once gotten her way here by screaming and crying and her answer was NO! We aren't talking about a kid who is missing part of her brain, or can't learn, or can't make connections. She has them all connected and she knows exactly where her screaming will get her. Somehow her previous modeling, her genetics, her frustration levels, her coping skills are extremely poor and somehow, even though she knows it will do no good she goes the old way...