5yo lack of impulse control-help!

[loraxc]

We have incidents like this all the time and I am at my wits' end with them.

Yesterday, in the parking lot: "Hold my hand."
DD: "No, I want to hold onto the stroller."
Me: "Okay, please hold onto the stroller and don't let go."
DD darts out into traffic and I have to grab her dress and haul her back.

This morning, while I was taking out my contacts:
DD (asking questions about contacts)
Me: (Answering questions) ...but don't touch them, please.
DD reaches out, touches a contact and runs away and hides.

We have incidents like this all the time, where DD directly defies a direct request. She says she "doesn't know" why she does this. Sometimes it almost seems like she hears the opposite of what we say (even if we phrase it positively). She is not an out of control kid generally, but it's like there's this THING where we issue a direct command and she can't stop herself from doing that thing. Power is very important to her and sometimes I suspect she just has this incredible instinct to "do the opposite." At other times, I wonder if she just has serious issues with impulse control and really cannot control herself very well.

1) Is this outside the norm for a 5.5yo girl?
2) Need suggestions on how to handle this. We have of course explained why it's not safe, not respectful, etc. She seems remorseful afterwards but just continues to do it.

Honestly, this tendency of hers restricts our lives. For instance, I do not trust her to obey voice commands when riding her bike, so we don't bike anywhere other than up and down our quiet street. In any somewhat dangerous situation, I am nervous. It's almost like she is a perpetual toddler.

[ann_of_loxley]

Tbh...it doesn't sound like an impluse control problem...
Am I right in assuming you just had a baby?
It sounds like she is trying to connect with you - get your attention. And shes got it!...Its negative, but its better than nothing.
Perhaps you might find it helpful (and in the process, see her behaviour change) by finding ways to give her some time with just you - one on one. She might need that right now.

[Llyra]

I agree with the PP, with one more thing to add.

It does sound like she's directly disregarding your requests, and it sounds like it's deliberate. A normal five year old, who is developing and behaving normally in other areas, has enough impulse control not to do things like that. I agree that she may want and need more positive interaction with you, so that the bond of trust between you is strong, and also that you may need to think about whether you're reinforcing this behavior with too much attention after an incident like this happens.

This may not be a popular idea here, but I also think that it sounds like she's begging for some solid boundaries to be set. It's possible she feels like you're maybe less available than you used to be, and is looking for security. She may be looking for you to take some kind of decisive action in those situations.

What I'd do? Consider using some kind of logical consequence, and when you implement it, do it without too much discussion, or too much drawing attention to her, and certainly without anger. With touching the contacts, for instance, once she'd touched once, I'd calmly pick up my stuff, and go shut myself in the bathroom to finish putting them in. The next day I'd warn her: I'm going to put you out and close the door, if you touch these. It's perfectly reasonable to expect her to leave your personal health care items alone, and perfectly reasonable to refuse to stick around and risk having those items damaged or lost.

With the running into the street, I would just take her hand without comment. If she said she wanted to hold the stroller, I'd say, no, and leave it at that. If she struggled, we'd wait on the curb until she got finished protesting, and if she protested too long, I'd put the baby in a sling and put the 5 yo in the stroller, until the end of that outing. Safety is non-negotiable. The next time, before I took her hand, I'd say: If you won't take my hand, you're going to ride in the stroller. Then I'd follow through on what I said, without reminders or fuss.

(With this, too, I think it's helpful if you provide a VIVID model for how critically important traffic and road safety are. Running in the road is no joke, and it's imperative that kids learn that, bone-deep.

If you flip out when they run into the street, not with anger but with fear and worry, burst into tears and hug them close and tell them how scared you were, and make a big exaggerated point of looking very carefully both ways before crossing yourself, and react to moving cars with obvious fear and caution for your own safety,
and generally give the impression that you yourself regard walking into moving traffic as a terrifying breach of good sense and self-preservation, they get the idea pretty quickly.

My kids treat the curb as a sacred boundary never to be crossed without elaborate ritual. )

[loraxc]

The baby is 18 months old, so not so much a baby! And while he could always be a factor, I don't think so. (She actually completely adores him, and during these incidents he had basically none of my attention--he was sitting in his stroller silently or asleep). She has always been like this, even before he was born. It's just that we used to blame it on age, and now, well, she's 5.

We have done the dramatic street reaction. She's actually usually very good about it. She has held the stroller a million times without incident. And she's probably unlikely to touch the contact again.

She always says that "she forgot" or she "didn't mean to." I think this is probably not very true, but I'm not sure.

It's not so much individual problem-solving that I need here, because the problems are unpredictable (she may be totally reliable for a long time and then one day choose to ignore, like she did with the street). She just seems to have either 1) a sporadic incredibly strong urge to defy (though this makes her sound more intractable than she is...she is often quite easy to handle) 2) trouble actually processing our words or 3) a real problem with impulse management.

[BellinghamCrunchie]

To me, it does seem like kids that age typically have more impulse control than that (if you think its impulse and not defiance). The contacts thing I can kind of see (those are interesting things, so tiny and strange) but running into the street is concerning. Your perception of her as a perpetual toddler is insightful, and I think you can trust your instincts.

You'll get a better picture when she starts kindergarten (if she is not going to be homeschooled). I think you can probably wait until then and see what ideas the teachers have, or if its even still a problem by then. Some children take longer to develop self-control than others.

Meanwhile, you could try playing some games like "red light green light" or freeze dancing (freeze when the music stops), etc to see if that helps develop the ole executive function. And lots of peer play (with kids her own age).

[loraxc]

She is 2 weeks into K with no apparent problems, although she had occasional difficulty with this behavior in preschool.

Interestingly she does totally fine with peers.