Physical restraint not necessary?

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My sister's 5 year old daughter is bipolar.
She is getting real hard to handle over the last years i know but my sister always
claims that when she and her daughter are alone her daughter sometimes freaks out and throughs a violent tantrum that gets serious so that my sister has to physically restrain her daughter using all her strength to stop her from hurting her when she attacks her screaming on the top of her lungs and
kicking and hitting her "very hard"
I mean my neice is 5 years old...not much more than a baby and it is not necessary to physially restrain her.
what force can a 5 year old girl have to make you want to defend yourself?
i do not beleive my sister saying she is being overpowered by a little girl who can not be much stronger than a little baby.

If your niece is Autistic or has Asperger's, your sister may actually be contributing to the violence by attempting to restrain. Speaking for myself at least, Asperger's and Autism cause any kind of restraint to be just about the worst terror imaginable. I wear a MedicAlert bracelet telling not to restrain me in case of a medical emergency, etc. I've had surgery, and would only do it on the condition that my arms not be tied for the IV. No problem.

I would worry that the little girl might actually hurt herself worse than she might hurt the bystander to the tantrum. It is possible for an Autistic/Aspie to break his/her own bones to escape the horror of restraint. Probably not at age 5, I'd guess, but it's a concern at least for later.

Charles

Having had a violent five year old, believe me when I say a five year old can hurt you.

There are all those super nanny shows on TV. One showed exactly how to hold a child so it couldn't move at all. It was taught as a great technique and they didn't let the child go unless it calmed down. Every begging from the child to be let go was answered with the mother turning the head to the other side to show that she would not speak to the child unless it stopped squirming and making noises. When the child actually wore itself out it was let go and had to tell mother sorry. They said the holding itself made the child relax.

Maybe this mom had too much of this show?

Sineshaa, if you want to be helpful, babysit as much as you can.

Little kids hyped up on adreneline can be terror. They can hit HARD.

But here is the possibility of a misdiagnosis. What triggers these tantrums? ASK THE KID, by the way, or get the mom to. The kid's reason's might be VERY different than the reasons mom imagines.

And make sure the kid is asked AFTER the fits, not during.

PS - i'm no doctor, but honestly, tantrums have no relation to bipolar. And the posters above are right when they say that Aspies/Auties are best left UN restrained when having a fit. The best way to calm them down is actually to turn around and walk away.