Extreme aggression from our nine year old daughter.

I am concerned about my nine year old daughter.  She is a loving out going person.  She doesn't relate well to kids her age and doesn't seem to have any close friends at school.  the kids all like her, and she likes them, but she is reluctant to join play groups.  She loves to be with adults and talk to adults. She has no problems entering into conversations with adults and prefers their company over kids her own age.

Last night her nieces were over for a slumber party.  They were playing around and she was joining in and having fun.  The older nieces were wrestling and tickling her.  She asked them to stop but she was laughing so they didn't take it seriously.  All of a sudden she got up ran to the kitchen and came back with a knife.  She told them that she was going to hurt them all.  My 19 year old niece was supervising at the time and told her to put the knife down, my daughter refused and said she was so angry she wanted to kill them.  My niece told me what happened as soon as my husband and I got home.  When we spoke to our daughter she said she didn't think she could control her anger.  She said she really did want to hurt one of them.  She said she was ashamed and knew what she did was a horrible thing.  But she said she wasn't sure how to control the anger she was feeling.

My husband and I are shocked.  We have a close family, limit TV viewing, and are very involved in our kids activities.  She has acted out for negative attention in the past, but never to this degree, and it have been very rare.  She knows we love her , that everyone gets angry, but it is important to deal with your anger in a different way than what she did.  What next steps should we take with her?

We are extremely concerned that something more is wrong since she has never ever displayed aggression like this before.   Her teachers have always commented on how respectful she is in the class room.  School is difficult for her and we spend a lot of time working with her to keep her at an average grade level.  Her older sister is a straight A student so we know she feels pressure, but we tell her everyone is different and learns differently.

Thank you for your feedback and advice.

[margypops]

I see it this way , tickling is an invasion ,it sounds like she was upset many children cant take it and should not do it, it sounds like a bunch ganged up on her, you think its okay... so no one sees her point of view,now she is wrong grabbing a knife but you definatly need to supervise and put a stop to tickling wrestling and any other behaviors she isnt happy with this obviously got out of control and older sisters and nieces do sometimes find it amusing ...Walk in her shoes,

[supermomma531]

Maybe looking into some sort of therapy to help her learn how to control her anger and to help her learn when  to realize that her feelings are getting out of control. Please don't get the wrong idea, I think that getting some sort of therapy through a child psychologist or child psychiatrist could help her out with her feelings and how to deal with them. I agree with margypops with the fact that her space was invaded but at the same time, everyone needs to know where everyone's boundaries are. The person who was watching the group sounds like she could've needed help with this particular situation. I'm glad that nobody got hurt. Your daughter needs to have somebody help her figure out some ways of dealing with her anger and feelings and you sound like you're doing a great job at parenting her. I personally take my 8 yr old to see a child psychologist to help him with his anger because he needs the help to figure out how to deal with it and I needed help to be able to help him. We are here for you. Good luck. Please feel free to ask questions when ever needed.

[margypops]

Many children cannot handle tickling ..I have seen it a few times and its always the older isbling who start this ,I feel you need to ask them to stop this behavior ,some counselling for your daughter would also be a good thing as supermomma says ..