Being held hostage

I am struggling with the feeling that Akila is too often holding our family hostage. Her violent bursts of anger are not lessening at all, and the main advise I have heard and read from experts, is to try and avoid the "triggers". Well the main trigger, is when she does not get her way, on the most tiny little thing.

One trigger, is when Zeke chews with his mouth open. One trigger is when I call her honey (which I do quite often, but sometimes it makes her mad). One trigger is one of the other three kids is standing in the kitchen and she wants something. One trigger is when you ask her if you don't turn the music up loud enough in her bedroom at bedtime. One trigger is if you ask her if the music is loud enough. One trigger is if you don't tie her shoes tightly enough, even though she can tie them herself. One trigger is if she can't find her lip gloss. One trigger is if you give her too many carrots at dinner. One trigger is if you don't give her enough carrots at dinner. One trigger is if you ask her how many carrots she would like at dinner.

So often, there is no rhyme or reason to her triggers that we are able to discern. There are some which are pretty consistent, like if she is watching TV by herself, if another child tries to join her, there are guaranteed fireworks. If she sees any of her siblings playing with our neighbor girl, there are guaranteed fireworks. If she can't find her teddy bear, there are guaranteed fireworks.

These guaranteed fireworks, are things I can often try to avoid. Sometimes, this is where I start to feel like we are being held hostage. Like not letting the other kids go into a room that she is in if she is playing nicely, watching TV, or engaging in an activity. There is nothing worse than disturbing her when she is doing well. I work very hard to help her keep track of her teddy bear. If I have to pick her up from school, dance or somewhere else, if I bring the bear and have it waiting in the van, it puts her at ease instantly. I am even ashamed to say, that sometimes I intercept the neighbor girl before she has rung the doorbell, and tell her the kids aren't available to play. I just don't want to deal with the issues that it is sure to cause. I know, I am a chicken.

But some days, this is what it takes to get through. Some days, I am not emotionally prepared to battle, and try even harder to avoid the rages. Some days, I say bring it on. And I send Zeke down to play with legos (see previous post). So I do try to avoid triggers, and I try really hard to not make it seem like we are always giving her what she wants. In reality, on any given day, even if I have avoided many rages and let her hold us hostage to a certain level, there are still a million things that have made her mad and that she has not gotten. She is by far the most demanding of all of my children and the one who is always wanting or needing something. We have just hopefully been able to avoid as much raging as possible.