Hello. This is my first post on here, so here we go.
I have a 9 year old son and a 6 year old girl. My boy is very easy going and basically the easiest kid in the world to parent. He's also EXTREMELY verbal, loud, and talkative without end. My daughter, on the other hand, can be very temperamental, moody, and even a bit shy. She has always been very strong-willed. When putting her to sleep in her crib, she would pop up and scream and cry for us to come back in. After a while, I would leave the room, let her cry, come back in for a minute, leave again and she would cry, and back and forth at least 4 or 5 times every night. She would scream and cry for an hour, or she would have made herself so upset that she threw up. She didn't have any colic or medical issues happening, she clearly just wanted Mom or Dad to not leave her alone. Now that she is six, she still is having horrific tantrums. It will start with something small like, 'I want Mom to read me a story before bedtime.' If we say no to her, she will sometimes launch into this fit, screaming for Mom to read the story. If we try and say a word to her, she yells over us, saying 'STOP TALKING, STOP TALKING...' We've tried everything, from talking to her calmly, to calmly telling her that there will be consequences to her actions (like taking away a toy or something-which we ALWAYS follow-through with), distracting her, ignoring her, surrounding her and just staring/observing her, film her for later, and on and on. What we've learned is the only thing/best thing, is to try to remain calm through the tantrum until she comes through on the other side, and then we can talk to her about what happened.
The issue we're still having here is what she does during the tantrums. If we try to get close to her to talk, for example, or to try and give her a hug (which seems to really help her calm down), she will escalate, and will even get to a point where she hits us. During the rage, she will threaten to throw things in order to try and manipulate us into giving in to her demand. She's start banging her head against the wall to try and manipulate us into giving in. And finally, what's got Mom most concerned of all (and myself, for that matter) is that she threatens to go into the kitchen, get a knife, and 'kill herself.'
Again, she refuses to let us talk during these moments, or to get close without hitting, so we're almost helpless as she goes into the kitchen towards the steak knives. Its clearly a manipulation tactic, but in these moments, we worry that she's so out of control that she might actually do something to hurt herself. These bouts of rage last anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours. Its caused us to miss events, birthday parties, church, work, etc.
This latest time, as she stood 8 inches away from the steak knives, we decided we were going to take her into the hospital for evaluation and possibly medication. However, I couldn't get her to go into the car, and if I got near here, she started swinging. What was I supposed to do? Take the blows and drag her kicking, screaming, and hitting? Was I supposed to call for some sort of ambulance? Tie her up?
We're taking her to a therapist, and the sessions seem to go well, despite my daughter's comments that 'its not working.' We've scheduled to see a child psychiatrist to look into medication options. We're also going to pay $500 to go to some highly recommended Naturopathic doctor for a full evaluation
Sometimes I worry that I have done something wrong. I worry that I may be a bad parent or that I'm doing something wrong. It helps that I have a second child that is the complete opposite, so I see that its nothing I'm doing wrong.
So what's my purpose? To vent, maybe? To maybe show some other parent that they aren't alone? To see if anyone has any advice to offer? I'm not exactly sure, but maybe all of the above.
So, in my desparate attempts to search for a similar situation, I came across this site. I felt compelled, so here it is.

Thanks for reading!