10 year old rages and sleep disorder

[mint]

My 10 year old goes into rages.  Yesterday she refused to go to her piano lesson because she wanted to do her homework and then play. She went to her room and started to read a story book ignoring my pleas that it was time to leave for the lesson. When I called her father at work to see if he could convince her to go to the lesson she refused to talk to him.  I held the phone to her ear and he told her he would take all her books away and was coming home right away to take her to the lesson.  After I hung up the phone she pushed me, slapped me, punched me, kicked me in the groin, poked her finger into my eyeglasses, screamed I had ruined her, screamed in my ear, threw the phone to the ground and it fell apart. She chased me around the house as I tried to avoid her all the while reminding her it was only a half hour lesson. Finally I said I would cancel the lesson.  She continued screaming at me and punching me.  She locked the doors so her father could not enter then insisted I stand beside her at her desk while she did her homework.

She will not sleep at night unless I am in the room with her.  If I leave she wakes up and comes to get me.  If she goes to a sleep over we have to go and get her because the shadows in an unfamiliar house frighten her.  She gets frightened if her age mates tell her a scarry story yet she won't tell me the scarry thing they told her --- she says it would scare me too much.  When she has scarry thoughts at night she will not tell me what they are even though I say to her if she talks about it it will come out in the open and won't seem so scarry --- it will scare me too much.

As an infant the moment she would start crying I would go to her and hold her. Once she was calmed I would set her down and moments later she would let out piercing cries. If I had to use the bathroom there was nonstop screaming. I held her so much that I felt my arms and back would break.  As a toddler she would wreck the room if she didn't get her way.  She was happy when playing with her best friend or if I read her a story.

At our annual parent teacher conference her teacher told me she is an outstanding student and an outstanding person.  She does well in school, but complains she has too much homework.  She forgets school papers at home and has to go to study hall.  This reallly upsets her.

We moved to our present home about two years ago from a small town in the mid west.  We all had a difficult time adjusting.  The popular children at school excluded my daughter from play with others at recess.  This year she has a couple of friends who play with her.  When at home she is obsessed with having someone to play with.  If she starts right in with her homework she finishes around 5 she will badger me to call playmates parents to arrange for play even though I explain to her it is dinner hour and no one is going to be allowed to play at that time.  

She is an only child.

Please help. I love her, but I dread her opposition.

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

It will be important for you and your husband to seek help for yourselves and your daughter. In part, it is likely your daughter displays a biologically-based emotional condition (e.g., Anxiety Disorder, Mood Disorder), as well as Disruptive Behavior Disorder. But you have also (as witnessed by her relatively much beter behavior at school) developed some unhealthy ways of interacting within the family. You are obviously aware that the sort of rage, oppositionality and aggression your daughter displays are way outsdie the norm of average childhood behavior problems. Some childhood behaviors can be handles chiefly, if not entirely, by changes in parents' behavior management tactics. This will be required to improve things in your family, but it will also require professional assistance and I would be irresponsible to lead you to think that you can solve this by simply changing how you interact with your daughter.