My little sister has absolutely horrible tantrums before bed; she runs around screaming picking up all her "stuff", which is mostly useless stuff she never pays attention to during the day. Later, once my mother has gotten her up to her bedroom, she screams and refuses allow my mother to say goodnight to her, or even enter the room! My mother, of course, doesn't like that and enters the, blockaded, room. A huge tantrum ensues that involves a LOT of screaming, flailing about, running (as if scared) from my parents, and not listening to anyone. When ANYONE (and I am her favorite sister and have tried many times) tries to calm her down she pushes them away and screams more!
The only times I have seen such craziness is in abused children, and I know that there was no abuse to her, so that isn't the issue. I have tried to figure out what the problem is, but haven't come up with anything. She has always had issues at night, always had to 'pick up all her things' and take them to bed. When she was 6 she would bring 3 bags of toys to bed, in a half-asleep state.
To punish her, my parents have tried spanking, yelling back, time-outs, and making her sleep on the floor in my parents room (which gets her to shut up but doesn't FIX the behavioral problems.) They also use the latter as a punishment for any day-time misbehavior. This punishment was my dad's idea and in my opinion is not working.
Any ideas on what might be going on? During the day she is very well behaved, when treated like a 'big girl'. She has issues with her brother (she hates him for no apparent reason), he's a fine kid, 13 years old, normal, doesn't hate her.
Help?