u/EmbarrassedBit441

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some outside perspective because my 6-year-old daughter has been having some really intense emotional episodes lately, and I’m not sure how best to support her.

Some context: I was traveling for work last week, and she’s also in the final weeks of kindergarten with a lot of “end of year / moving to first grade” talk and countdowns happening at school. So there’s been a lot of transition energy lately.

Recently she’s been having daily emotional spirals where she cries and says things like:
“I hate my brain”
“My brain doesn’t listen to me”
“I’m a bad girl”
“I don’t want you to have me as a daughter”
“I wish I could throw my brain away”

She even draws herself crying and saying she’s bad because she cries every day. She mostly seems really distressed about the fact that she cries a lot, and it becomes a loop where she cries → feels bad about crying → cries more. She says.. I promised my brain wouldn’t cry today and then I cried (the crying is usually from something like she can’t draw her picture well enough or do something exactly as she set out to do) She always always points out that her younger sister never cries and she does so she’s a baby (it’s true her little sis is an emotional anomaly and is extremely mild mannered).

We’ve been very consistent about:
\-Not labeling her as “bad”
\-Reassuring her that all emotions are okay
\-Telling her we love her no matter what she’s feeling

But honestly, I feel like I’m missing something in how to actually help her *in the moment*. Reassurance alone doesn’t seem to break the cycle. I also suspect some of this might be tied to transitions (end of school, upcoming grade change) and possibly me being gone for work travel last week.

When she’s calm, she’s her usual happy self, but when she spirals, she really gets stuck in these self-critical thought loops.

Has anyone experienced something similar at this age? What helped your child actually get through emotional overwhelm instead of getting stuck in it?

I’d especially appreciate:
\-What you say in the moment when kids say things like “I’m bad”
\-Whether this is something developmentally typical or a sign I should be more concerned
\-Any tools or routines that actually helped your child regulate emotions

Thank you in advance. Im trying to support her better, not shut her down, but I also don’t want these thought patterns to stick. (Ps- I used chat to help organize my thoughts :) )

Small oyster business here. We recently got a negative Google review that feels very informed about our sourcing, and we highly suspect it may be from a competitor. There are only two oyster farms in our area and the other has been a sneaky snake towards us for years now. We also know this competitor has previously tried to undercut us with some of our restaurant accounts.

We did reply very politely and informatively, and also then solicited some of our loyal followers to leave positive reviews (of their own volition :) )

The Google account is a burner, only the one review, fake name, etc. Is there any way at all to figure out the identity?

How do you handle situations like this? Curious how others have navigated this.

My daughter is 6, we’ll call her June here. Today she was playing with a friend she’s known since they were pre-crawling babies, we’ll call her Chloe. I’ve been friends with Chloe’s mom that whole time as well, and she is a good friend. We’re different and we parent differently, but I value our friendship.

June and Chloe both have ‘leader’ strong personalities. For reference, June has a little sister, and Chloe is an only child. Today we were at Chloe’s house and to put it bluntly, she was being rude AF to both of my kids. Not letting June play with some of the outdoor toys because she wanted her to come play with her in the pool, generally being disagreeable. My younger one (4) was holding a ball, Chloe grabbed it from her, kicked some pool water in her face and said that’s MY ball. I intervened on behalf of my kids a few times to neutralize. Chloe’s mom either didn’t see, or didn’t correct any of this. I’ll add that yes I may be biased, but my kids are honestly polite, play well with others, and do well in the vast majority of playdate situations.

The kicker came a bit later when they were all playing a game. My kids had never played so Chloe taught them. June won two rounds and Chloe lost her ever loving mind. Chloe’s mom immediately ended the game and said we’re done because it’s causing a problem. June came to me and was holding back tears and acting very solemn, told me she wanted to go. We did. If that were me I would have perhaps removed my child to help calm down and let the others keep playing so as not to punish them for winning..

It was all so uncomfortable and I hated seeing those interactions. I always teach my kids that they won’t always win a game (mind you my older one also is an extremely sore loser, but such is life and we don’t really coddle her about it), include friends and their siblings and let them use toys when they come over (especially after they ask to do so) and I generally try and let them work out their own problems and speak up for themselves. Today it was pretty impossible, so I supported my kids.

I love this friend (the mom) and don’t see us ever not hanging out. But our kids don’t jive and it’s tiring. We have many instances of overlap with friend groups but I’m thinking I need to limit the one on ones? I’ll also add that some of our other friends have noted some of these things about Chloe as well.

Do I bring this up to the mom or not? Thoughts?