So a weird thing happened when I closed the car boot on my daughters (6) fingers…

First thing to say is her fingers were fine. I was taking her bike out of the boot chatting with her and just as the boot was closing she put her fingers in exactly the wrong place. Luckily it was closing very gently and her fingers are very small so she was sore for a few hours but didn’t even have bruises the next day.

The weird thing is all morning she’d been a getting progressively more and more agitated and unruly, but after the incident she was as calm as a Buddhist monk.

It was Saturday morning, we got up with her brother (8) while my wife slept in. We said we’d go to my parents house to eat breakfast and ride bikes to the playground by their house. Kids were both excited but my daughter’s excitement manifested as a growing hyperactivity building up as we got ready and ate breakfast. By the time we actually went to take out the bikes she was like a coiled spring bashing into people, scribbling on her brothers drawings, interrupting, shouting and turning the tv up too loud just to get a rise.

Then we go to the car take out the bikes and the thing happens, and the ADHD just seems to leave her body for the rest of the day.

When her fingers were caught she just looked me straight in the eye with a shocked expression, and when I opened the boot the tears came. My dad quickly took my son off on his bike to reduce the chaos, and my mum ran to get a bowl of ice water for her to put her hand in. I carried her inside and soothed her, she shouted ‘why do these things keep happening to me’ in a pretty insightful moment (she’s very accident prone, mostly due to impulsive behaviour). Then she had a big sobbing cry for about 5 min which was surprisingly short, had a quick FaceTime call with my wife, and said she was ready to go outside again although she wanted to take her roller skates rather than her bike (I think because she can hold my hand while roller skating).

As we went along the trail she was like a different kid. No irritability at me for ‘getting in the way’, no anger, no impulsive running to dogs she sat on the path. We held hands the whole time, had a nice chat about the day and school and her roller skating, and when she bumped into me she would just say a quick ‘sorry daddy’ and continue unbothered.

When we caught up with her brother at the playground he’d just fallen off his bike and scraped his hands. She sat with him and was caring and sympathetic when she’d usually take the opportunity to ditch me and do something she isn’t supposed to like go down the slide in her skates or something equally dangerous. She was just really calm and at ease.

This was about 10am and she stayed that way until 3pm where she went to a birthday party and came home pretty disregulated, but that’s more about the sweets and excitement and tiredness.

I feel like there’s a lesson here but I’m not sure what it is. Does a shock to the system and a big cry help release all that ADHD energy? Is there a way to replicate this at home without risk of injury?