Mental health professionals(or better parents than me!) ...I need advice on school!!!!

[Mentalmum91]

So my daughter is 6, one of the youngest in her P3 class. She has always had trouble adapting to change (when siblings were born, new teachers in school, even little things like when I bought her a new bed). Her behaviour just becomes completely unmanageable- she will act like a histerical toddler (taking off clothes and screaming, wetting herself deliberately, being completely defiant, trashing her bedroom, being nasty to me and hitting her brother etc) generally the behaviour is on and off awful for months at a big change or shorter the smaller the change. She has been this way really her whole life. I imagine it doesn't help that her dad and I are separated and she has the upheaval of going to his house 1 night a week where there are no rules. So my youngest was born in June and all summer the awful behaviour started again. I did the whole positive reinforcement, one to one time, star charts etc and (as much as possible!!!) ignoring the bad behaviour. It improved drastically to a point she is pretty much back to normal at home now. Unfortunately at school she is still defiant when she doesn't want to do work and she says very negative comments like I'm useless, I want to die etc. She is very clever so she doesn't struggle with the work at all. She loved her P2 teacher and is always diffiult at the start of the year so to be honest I'm not overly surprised and have explained all this to her teacher. I have told teacher what I do and what I think works when she's in a funk. (generally ignoring it or making her laugh or praising the ones around her) Teacher says she's never seen a child with such negative self image so I have to get her counselling. Obviously I was concerned and took her to the gp for an emergency appointment. He went off and did some research and came back and said that it would actually compound the behaviour if I was to highlight it and make her feel different to her peers etc, that with the new teacher and the baby she is unsettled and I just need to give her time. So I took his advice and explained this to the teacher. The teacher has however asked if she can start taking her out of class every day for 10-20 mins to do a book which is about emotions Etc. She is then going to record her responses every day. I am unsure if this is the best course of action as it is against what her gp has told me to do? I have asked what she wants to do and she said she enjoyed the book so is happy to do it. I am more concerned that she will start to question if she is different and if her peers will start to ask questions etc. Should I be telling her teacher to leave her alone??? She is not disruptive in class and is on track, apparently her work is very good. She will just be negative and will not do her work properly if she doesn't feel like it (This is only occasionally). HELP!! I am at a loss as to what to do!

[corythatwas]

Will learning a few things about emotions really make her label herself as "different" or do you think you could be projecting your own grown-up feelings about mental health issues onto her. There will be other children who are taken out to work on maths or writing or something else that they need to learn more about- does she know, at 6, unless she has learnt it from you, that learning about emotions is different and more stigmatising?

Ime GPs don't necessarily know all that much about child psychology, my hunch would be to see if the teacher can do something here.

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

I’m sorry, I have very little experience. I would suggest 2 things though:

1. Get a copy of The Explosive Child.
   

1. Ask MNHQ to move your thread over to Primary Education.

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Cross posted with cory

[Kleinzeit]

I would also be inclined to trust your DD's teacher who sees your DD every day, and to trust your DD herself. Your DD sounds unhappy a lot of the time, so if she is happy to read the book with her teacher then I would go along with it. There is not much point worrying about what other children might think, children vary so much - at my DS's primary school the kids knew who had had ASCs and ADD etc and they just accepted it. If your DD becomes unwilling or the other children start to make remarks then you can always rethink - you can ask the teacher to keep an eye out.

[Mentalmum91]

Thanks everyone! I had actually gone off and spoken to my mum about it (she was a primary school teacher for 35+ years and was head of pastrol care etc) she was the one to be honest who suggested she might be stigmatised etc etc. But I sat and had a chat with my Dd about it (just very light conversation, kind of in passing questions) and she seems to be super happy to go. If anything she says her friends are jealous because they don't get to go out. So I think for now my mind is at ease. If it gets to a point where she isn't happy about it or things are being said then I will worry. But thank you so much for your advice. I think you are right about teacher knowing her better than the doctor. 😊 I'm unsure how to move the thread? I will get the explosive child! I'm happy to try anything

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Yiu can move a thread at any time. To do it press “report” on your original post. Once the report box has popped up, ask MNHQ to move it, and specify where you would like your thread moving to and send