Liver Qi and anger managment for a 3.5year old??!

Liver Qi and anger managment for a 3.5year old??

Any suggestions for my very angry 3-year old? I'm at a loss. Have an appointment for Tui Na next week but she is murder at the moment.
She was born with a Liver imbalance, diagnosed at 6 weeks as per 5-element theory. Hasn't been treated since she was 18 months. She used to get Tui Na but then refused to be touched. Went to an osteopath but she went ballistic there too.
She is a lovely, sweet and caring 3.5-year old but gets sooo angry. Today she has bitten her toes and hands both to the point of teethmarks in fits of anger at not getting what she wants. She bit her t-shirt and tugged so hard at it with her teeth for a moment i actually thought she would rip it apart!
She has a slight permanent greyish coating at the back of her tongue and refuses to chew the liquirice sticks i bought her despite giving the good example.
She hates the smell of lavender by the way. Mandarin calms her down a little and so does benzoin. Any suggestions to help me get through the week?

Sounds like you know a little bit about TCM, so hopefully this answer will make sense to you.

The Metal element controls wood and often if this is weak wood will get completely out of whack (Metal FYI is the Lung system). As a result deep breathing can often work to control the frustration and rage associated with an overactive liver. Unfortunately getting a 3.5 year old to do deep breathing excercises might be kind of hard.

One thing that you might be able to do however would be to try some beginning yoga with her. Make it a game if possible and see if she will mimic your posture as well as breathing (might try exaggerating it a bit if she's into it). Of course, if you aren't interested in or familiar with yoga, this could prove difficult as well.

As far as food/herbal assistance is concerned, I tend to be hyper-cautious when giving herbs to kids because they're so sensitive (generally) to TCM, but huang qi might help a bit...however if she isn't taking the gan cao or licorice, she won't eat astragalus either. Augmentation of diet (i.e. excluding all greasy, spicy foods assuming she still eats them, no sugar at all, etc.) as well as the inclusion of some whole grains, particularly rice meal (you can buy something like Bear Mush) that is flavored with cinnamon (another herb that can boost Lung qi) may help.

I rarely treat children in my clinic so chances are another practitioner with more experience may offer you better advice, but hopefully some of this will help!