Hello,
Our daughter has Down's Syndrome. She will be 6 tomorrow, has a visual and hearing impairment, together with a bowel condition (Hirschprung's disease). Her communication is also rather delayed. She is beginning to show a certain level of understanding and manages 3 to 4 word chunks but when frustration kicks in when she is not getting her way, behaviour management becomes very difficult. She has now got into the habit of coming downstairs in the morning, opening the cupboards in the kitchen, throwing her toys around till she knocks everything of the kitchen counter, emptying boxes of cereals all over the floor, etc. We tell her off every time, sit her on the naughty step, talk to her, try to explain and sign things to her, send her to her room, but NOTHING, NOTHING at all seems to work. She finds it funny when we tell her off or when we sit her on the naughty step. She reacts in the same way when she pulls her little sister's hair many times in a row and we tell her off for it or when she throws anything she can find (her toys, the phone, etc) in the toilet... We do not know what to do anymore. She does not seem to understand wrong from right and thinks everything is a game... Is there anybody out there who has been experiencing the same kind of reactions? Finally, when in the car, she is fine and enjoys a trip anywhere but as soon as the car stops at a traffic light, stop sign, etc. she starts screeming and will do till the car starts moving again. As you can imagine, it is lovely to go into town at rush hour and get stuck in traffic! It is becoming really unbearable in those occasions! To conclude, she will decide to throw herself on the floor and roll around in any shop we go into if she has decided she does not want to be in that shop and clearly demonstrates she is refusing to walk and move forward... We are trying not to get her in a pushchair or trolley everytime as we want her to see things and walk (as her mobility is not great and her balance still poor) but it is becoming increasingly difficult to take her into any shop... Anybody with some good advice please???!!! Help! Many thanks for your time. Christine and Mark

Hi Mark and Christina

My daughter also has DS she will be 7 in may
The last 18 months have been very challenging to us and her school but now there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Christina gets very angry and if I use my strong voice all she does is shout back she can be very aggressive hitting, spitting , kicking , pulling hair, I can go on and on and on but we have got the ed psych involved at school and i was referred to our local CAMS and see a psychotherapist and I am coping much better and we as a family are working much better together.

At home we have had to agree on how we deal with behaviour and to some other members of family they don't approve eg we ignore spitting because she only does it to get attention i work with children with ld and autism so I found it easier to ignore then my husband who used to hit the roof but the ignoring works in tandem with changing the subject to get Christina out of her anger mood. We have realised that C does not have the ability to recognise her own emotions so we are spending a lot of time validating her feelings and ours as she gets confused with sad and angry so when her big sis goes of to uni C acts very angry throws things around breaks stuff so we try not to get angry but to remind her that she is sad and that I am sad and shall we have some chocolate to feel better but 1st pick up a toy that she has thrown then yes chocolate.

We have discovered that the Naughty step does not work with C as she would be naughty on purpose to go sit on the step so we have made a quietish area witha bean bag and soft things in her room where she can have 5 mins to calm calm down and when i am cross with her I try to take myself there so she gets the idea. changing behaviour is very hard but it will get easier. We have also discovered that C is worse in the mid to late afternoon and that she needs to eat some food. so at school she eats lunch at 11.45 - 12.15 and by 2.30 -3pm she is hungry again so starts to act up so a small snack of half a marmite sandwich works for her .
maybe make a diary to see when she acts up, and work backwards to what may have set her off.

The best thing we have done was to get the ed psych to assess and help with strategies and for me to see the psychotherapist

Karen x

Daniel edited 12-29-2010 08:38 AM this post because: link posting removed

(12-28-2010 09:18 PM)mark Wrote:  Hello,
Our daughter has Down's Syndrome. She will be 6 tomorrow, has a visual and hearing impairment, together with a bowel condition (Hirschprung's disease). Her communication is also rather delayed. She is beginning to show a certain level of understanding and manages 3 to 4 word chunks but when frustration kicks in when she is not getting her way, behaviour management becomes very difficult. She has now got into the habit of coming downstairs in the morning, opening the cupboards in the kitchen, throwing her toys around till she knocks everything of the kitchen counter, emptying boxes of cereals all over the floor, etc. We tell her off every time, sit her on the naughty step, talk to her, try to explain and sign things to her, send her to her room, but NOTHING, NOTHING at all seems to work. She finds it funny when we tell her off or when we sit her on the naughty step. She reacts in the same way when she pulls her little sister's hair many times in a row and we tell her off for it or when she throws anything she can find (her toys, the phone, etc) in the toilet... We do not know what to do anymore. She does not seem to understand wrong from right and thinks everything is a game... Is there anybody out there who has been experiencing the same kind of reactions? Finally, when in the car, she is fine and enjoys a trip anywhere but as soon as the car stops at a traffic light, stop sign, etc. she starts screeming and will do till the car starts moving again. As you can imagine, it is lovely to go into town at rush hour and get stuck in traffic! It is becoming really unbearable in those occasions! To conclude, she will decide to throw herself on the floor and roll around in any shop we go into if she has decided she does not want to be in that shop and clearly demonstrates she is refusing to walk and move forward... We are trying not to get her in a pushchair or trolley everytime as we want her to see things and walk (as her mobility is not great and her balance still poor) but it is becoming increasingly difficult to take her into any shop... Anybody with some good advice please???!!! Help! Many thanks for your time. Christine and Mark

hello mark. first like to say ur not alone even thou my daughter hasent got ds she does all of what u have wrote i feel so alone with all of this nice to see iam not. my daughter chucks toys at me and hurts me. pulls her hair out,and many more i could go on. but the sceaming in car the worst as ur stuck in car i went to see my parents in cleatmoor and 2hr drive and i was totaly going mad by time i got there and she screamed all the way there.wish i could give u some advice i have done lot of parenting courses too but none of them seems to cover how to deal with bad behavor isues.they just say to ingore it but that u can do but very hard with out going mad.distrating annabel seems to help me or singing song iam thinking of getting dvd player for car too see if that would help.sorry not been much help just always nice to get chat.