I would say that yes it is alot of change and that's probably at the root of this.  Pluse honestly I"D be traumatized by two break ins so I can only imagine how a 5 year old would act.  I wonder if a visit to your local Officer Friendly to have him or her reassure her that the police are there to keep us safe adn catch the bad guys might help her a bit? a counselor might not be a bad idea either for a little bit. sometimes its easier to tell other people what scares you rather than mom or dad.  

Now. here comes the part you won't want to hear. If I had a dollare for every "you're mean" and "i hate you" and "you're a stupid mommy" and (my personal favorite) "you are REALLY BAD AT BEING A MOTHER" that my soon to be 9 year old has lobbed at me I'd be rich.  I usually come back with something along the lines of "yes I know, they make you pass a mean mommy test before they let you have a baby" or " well then you'll have lots to talk to your therapist about when you're 20" .  I hit my high point though when I told her that God only gives us so much pissy attitude to last a lifetime and if she used all hers up before she was 9 she was going to have a really miseralbe time in her teenage years.  

So I'd try to not focus on the 'you're means' and instead focus on what's at the root of this which to my totally untrained and unprofessional opinion sounds like a little girl who's had some serious scares and some big changes in her life.... hang in there and keep us posted.  

This all sounds like a perfectly reasonable response to some very difficult experiences. I agree wholeheartedly that you should not take her behavior toward you personally.

It's trauma, and it's a phase. We all go through tough times. When we do, we feel horrible, and we can't stop thinking about it. Which is okay. I think she needs to know that it's okay to feel terrible about these scary things--that she doesn't need to 'fix' her fears and anxieties. Her fears aren't irrational but based on experience. Each safe day that passes will be one more buildling block to feeling better, and soon she will feel safe again.

I think a lot of one-on-one time with Mom and Dad and reassurance that her feelings are okay is a good starting point, and you are probably already doing that.

First, "I hate you" or "you're mean" are definitely par for the course as our kiddos gain independence and their self-identity.  If you can react calmly and not take it personally, it will probably pass.  For both of my kids, the message was "it's OK to be mad at me.  It's not OK to use mean words."    One way to make the  "I hate you"s increase is to react with a big sad display.

Second, a move and a second baby sound like big changes.  We moved when DD was 5, and it hit her hard.  One day she broke down crying in a store because she saw a magnet with the name of her best friend from our old town.  We were literally sitting on the floor, with her sobbing, in CVS!  As for the second baby, we had a similar reaction from my DD when we just started talking about getting pregnant LOL.  All of a sudden she started crying and screaming at bedtime - it was a hard time.  In both cases, we acknowledged what she was sad/worried about, but tried not to feed into it.

Finally, kids this age have great imaginations, but difficulty putting it in context.  It's not a surprise to hear her imaging bad guys - especially since there's been a real break-in.  Reassure her what you and her dad have done to keep her safe.  Fears are normal at this age, and in her case they're not unreasonable!

HTH

You've described my almost 3 year old quite well, and we're days away from adding baby #2.  We've found that the more people speak to her about babies, being a big sister, mommy's tummy, etc., the more behavior issues we see.  Lots of hugs and conversation about how we will always love her has helped, and a moratorium on baby talk has also helped.  

Don't get me wrong, we're not blindsiding her with the baby, but she knows it's coming and that things will be different.  Information beyond that is a string of hypotheticals that she can't quite process.  For example, her daycare teacher had this long talk with her about how babies can't hold up their own heads.  DD has no clue what to do with that information.  She likes to talk so she'll talk about it, but she doesn't get it.  It sounds weird.  I can see how it would freak her out.  Since we've switched to "if asked" mode, coupled by lots of hugs, we've seen improvement.  

Good luck to you, this is so hard and it sounds like your little one has a great family to help her through lots of changes!

--R

and i too thought five year olds were close to as reasonable as a person could get.  until i parented one (now coming up on #2 next week).  when, at age five,  my extremely easy-going, insanely sweet eldest son tested all the eye-rolling, foot stomping, lying, exasperation of a pint-sized teen, i started to question friends.  it seems as though MOST kids in this age range go through what i very unprofessionally call "creepy periods".  i never saw it as a teacher, but neither did the teachers of my friends' kids.. lets' say it was VERY obvious as a parent.

i bet your daughter is doing the five year old thing (very normal) AND going through some serious transitions... new baby, moving and the burglaries. kids this age are very very good at coming to alarming conclusions, and hers even makes sense... if a bad guy came into your house and the kids at school play bad guys with guns, the conclusion is totally logical.  when i was her age, i was terrified the fireman was going to "chop me in half" with his axe.  he came to our school, told us to put those red stickers on our bedroom window, and if a fire occurred, he'd use the axe to break open the window.  my bed was right under my window, so i had nightmares about fires and fireman for at least a year.... sounds nutty, i know, but was totally logical to me at the time.  

if you think helping her talk through these things on your own isn't working, i would have her talk to someone... it's always nice to have another perspective and some tips about how to help.  my mom did have me dictate and draw stories about the firefighter thing, and we discussed it a lot.  eventually i got over it, but i didn't have that sense of invasion your daughter must've felt knowing someone was in her house, so it is a bit different. kids are astoundingly resilient, but sometimes they need a nudge to get through the trickier times... just like the rest of us.  

good luck.. i hope things calm down soon (just in time for the baby).   if it helps at all, my 4 year olds have been in love with and not one bit jealous of the babies in the family, so 5 is probably a fabulous age for being a big sister.

I would try to calm your own fears that your DD is developing a panic disorder, if you can.  The fears at this age can feel very big, and repetitive worrying is not unusual.  This is a time when kids will worry if they're going to hell, that their parents will die (and that they may have caused it by wishing you dead!) .... lots of big, existential alarms going off.  They are beginning to feel more and more powerful, and that is exhilirating and terrifying.  

With the experiences your girl has had, she has a concrete handle to anchor some of her fears.  But I think she might have some scary thoughts even if the other circumstances didn't exist.

I suspect this phase will pass, with your steady calming reassuring presence.  Good luck to all of you!

Some parents claim the odd numbered years are the worst.  That's certainly been true for us so far.

I think in the 5th year they begin to understand that bad things really can happen, and that we don't have absolute power to protect them - that's very scary.  In our case, both of my boys have gone through a period of worrying that one or both of us might die.  Unfortunately we can't promise them we won't.  We went through a dangerous health crisis when the boys were 3.5 and 5, and adopted kids know for a fact that parents can and do disappear.

We have had to talk all the way through the "what if" scenario with my elder son, now nearly 7.  He knows which uncle and aunt get custody if we die.  I have explained how he and his brother inherit our bank accounts, house, and life insurance, and which uncles are responsible for taking care of the money until they are grown up.  I have shown him the binder containing our will and estate plan - it was enormously comforting for him to see this impressively formal and official looking document, with so many pages of instructions about everything.  Once he was confident that we'd thought of everything and he was safe no matter what, his overall level of anxiety miraculously improved and he went back to being my sunny, secure little boy.

Oh yeah, he's the snuggliest most affectionate boy in the world and he still hates me now and then. :-)  A minor "I hate you" is greeted with a casual "O RLY?".  But a big screaming "I HATE YOU!!!" in the middle of a raging fury is met with a "But I still love you"; this is often enough to melt him into my arms.

but I have to recommend a kid book.  It's called Raising Good Children and we use it in the human development course where I teach.  This specifically deals with moral development- how it happens, what can help support it, and how it's just as natural as physical development.  It's made a huge difference as I deal with my DS5- who's doing exactly this same thing.

I think our daughters were separated at birth.  My daughter is a year younger and hasn't had panic attacks, but is very sweet and devoted, but whiney.    When I read somewhere that insecure children whine--a secure child would scream and yell--I felt even worse.  I rarely encounter direct anger, but the whining is out of control.

I also feel like she's had a lot of somewhat traumatic transition, some of it outside our our control, and it's painful to see how negatively it's effected her.

When our second was born, she welcomed him with open arms, but she had anxiety.  She even got nasty toward my mother, probably because she feels safe with her.  She told me "I DON'T like babies.  Well, I like my baby, and I like girl babies, but I don't like baby llamas!"  It helps to have special mother daughter nights,  and the day I was in labor we had such a great day together.  I don't have much advice, but I guess it's like any kid--try to focus more on strengths, like appreciating how lucky we are to have daughters who we can be close with and who know how to verbalize their feelings.  I feel for you.