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Parenting

Don't know what to do now with my 12 year old DD

1 reply

Gemima14 · 23/02/2018 19:29

This might be long, so I apologise in advance.

I am at my wits end. We have 2dc's, a 12 year old dd and a 10 year old ds.

Ever since my dd started nursery I always felt that something wasn't quite right. She didn't find it easy interacting with her peer group and always gravitated towards the grown ups (who loved her). She was a mature pre schooler! Obviously at this age they didn't have the fallings out that older girls have but she was never 100% happy with forming friendships. Stepping back a bit, adults have always liked her and describe her as a mature and sensible girl who listens and gets on with things.

Moving onto primary. She was labelled Gifted and Talented in her first year, however I spent many days going into the school as she was just miserable. The head blamed it on the fact that she had come from a small nursery to a large class of 30 environment and was obviously finding it hard to settle. She would often complain about the noise, heat, light etc.

Every year through primary I would have to go in for one thing or another. She was never naughty, always did her homework and wanted to embrace school life, but something was holding her back - she was always on the peripheral of things/groups. Year 3 was a terrible year for her, her teacher completely undermined her and didn't get my dd at all. We were at the point of moving schools. In fact the discussions of moving schools were always being talked about but I held back as I wondered whether the grass was any greener. She was in a village school with her brother a year below.

Still, she continued to complain of never having any friends. I never understood, as she is outgoing and confident. Year 4 was not a good year as she was bullied for her hair colour and other things. In fact the girls were pretty horrible. Call, more going into the school and writing letters. The school just put it down to the way girls were and never really sorted it. This then continued right up until she left, with things getting more physical and verbal. By the time the end of year 6 I was having regular weekly meetings with the head. I had also observed that despite her being a bright girl she was struggling particularly with spelling and reading (putting words in that don't exist etc.) She was also complaining that she felt she wasn't given sufficient time to complete tasks at school. However, she was reaching her expected targets, therefore, despite her class teacher agreeing that something wasn't quite right and that she struggled to start anything or got distracted easily (not in a naughty way), they wouldn't do anything about it. My dd even said to me in year 5, what is wrong with me Mummy? Please see the doctor. But, all this time, I couldn't actually pinpoint the problem, but I still knew that something wasn't right.

Now, my dd is no angel, but she is independent, strong willed and see's a lot of things in black and white. She doesn't cope with bad behaviour and is a stickler for rules. My DH and I even spoke to the doctor and all he suggested was that it was her age and perhaps to move schools.

It was a sigh of relief when she left primary school, we finally felt that she would move on and forget about the horrible girls and start afresh. She worked hard to get a Sports Scholarship at a small, local independent school and despite it being hard financially for us (and her getting a good discount) we felt that it was the best school for her. We knew that the pastoral care was good and that she would be looked after. I also thought that in the back of my mind they would find out what was causing some of her issues!

She started off really well, her peers voted her in as form captain and she was finally happy. Cue, just before Xmas when things started to go wrong, with some of the girls getting at her and the same old friendship issues raising their ugly heads again. She took herself off to learning support as she wanted to talk to them and also explained that the words on the paper and books she was reading appeared to jump around a bit. They suggested the opticians as a first start. The optician has know my dd for a while now and during her examination she said that my dd would need glasses for reading and school work but would also suggest the school do some testing for dyslexia and appeared to process things quite slowly.

The school have been brilliant and have done some initial tests which has resulted in my dd having a slow processing speed (which would explain her inability to do anything quickly) but possibly not dyslexia, albeit she needs a coloured overlay to help with her schoolwork. The education specialist said that although the tests suggests not dyslexic she things that my dd is showing the classic signs. The school have already put in place extra time for exams etc.
I followed this up with explaining about her getting easily distracted and irritated by her environment and the fact that she always seems on the outside of everything going on and she has assured me that there are some further tests she can do which may result in a diagnosis of add.

Her friendship issues seems to be going from bad to worse. She is being picked on and I am now at the point of once again having to go into her school. I was hoping that she could sort out any problems in senior school in fact my DH is so frustrated by it and doesn't understand the emotions my dd is going through that we have all fallen out.

I am at the point of going down the route of home schooling. I am not sure I am up to it but I cannot see her suffer every day. I don't want my bright, smart, funny and beautiful girl turning into a paranoid wreck of a girl. She even said to me tonight in tears that she didn't want to end up like one of those girls who had a mental illness and wanted to kill themselves. I had to question whether she felt like that and she said not but she also said that she feels like she has never fitted in, which makes me so sad.

As I said earlier, we have a son who is 10, no issues, easy going and clever. But, he is also getting frustrated by everything.

Sorry again for such a long post. How can I help my 12 year old? Has anyone got any words of wisdom? I keep telling her that things will get better but I don't want to make empty promises to her. Please help.

OP posts:
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EveryoneTalkAboutPopMusic · 23/02/2018 19:39

Has anyone mentioned the possibility of Autism to you OP?

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