feeling very guilty this morning please help

[hk78]

hi
feeling very guilty today.took dd's to school this morning, dd1 with sn has socialisation problems for want of a better description. as i said on another thread the other day, her teacher told me only this week she's 'socially isolated by the other children'
('but they don't mean to do it' wtf?)

anyway, so this morning waiting to go into school, dd1 went lurching up to another girl who's in her class, all overexcited and like on of those really lovely but too enthusiastic puppies. i couldn't hear what the conversation was about, but dd1 was really excited about it, but couldn't see that this other girl obviously wasn't ! dd1 tends to be either really,really quiet and withdrawn and talking in a virtual whisper, or else she's shouting and screaming (in a happy way) and right in your face.

dd1 can't read body language or facial expressions i dont think: this other girl was actually putting her hands up between them and shaking her head, her whole face was as if to say 'no!' iykwim.

normally in the playground, i try to look at the sky or something because i find it so painful to see this kind of thing, but this morning i just couldn't stand by: luckily the bell rang at that moment, so i grabbed dd1 and went to hug/kiss/byebye etc.like usually do, and hissed into her ear 'stop acting so stupid, that girl doesn't want you to shout and be so close to her face' dd1 said 'she's my friend' and went into school.

now i feel like crap, i don't ever want to make her feel 'put down' but i probably just have. but i just couldn't ignore it!i feel bad, i don't normally use the word stupid to her because i hate it, dont want her to to feel down on herself any more than she does already, it was just a moment of pure frustration on my part and i shouldnt have said it. but as her mum, who else will ever teach her that kind of thing?

should i be telling her about stuff like body language/facial expressions, how to read it etc., can it be taught if you don't recognise it naturally? i don't know.(sorry if a bit long)

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

hk78

Please don't feel bad about what happened this morning; it was said out of pure frustration. Don't beat yourself up about it any more.

Do you have any diagnosis from a developmental paediatrician for your DD?. It certainly sounds like she needs support in school, certainly more than she is getting from them currently. It doesn't seem to me that they've been very helpful to date (the teacher for instance did not say how they were trying to help your DD with her socialisation issues but instead said that the other children did not mean to isolate her).

I would look at IPSEA's website of you haven't already done so (www.ipsea.org.uk) and start the statementing process yourself to get her support which is legally binding (unlike things like school action and school action plus which are both limited in scope).

HTH

[magsi]

If I were you I would talk to her tonight about the nice way to say hello to her friends by walking up to them and saying "hello xxx, would you like to play today?". Explain that it is nice to ask quietly and slowly and sometimes when she rushes up to her friends, they get a bit shocked. This might help her to understand why her mommy reacted the way she did (I shouldn't worry about that by the way, she will have forgotten about it by now ). Maybe the teachers need to have the same coversation with her aswell. Talk to them and explain your worries.

[Notquitegrownup]

Hi hk78

Don't feel bad. My dss do not have special needs, but both do exactly this, and struggle with the consequences as other kids back off. All my boys want is to have friends and to share their news with them, and it breaks my heart to see them driving away the very people they are sharing their latest news with. Your comments were born of frustration and your desire to protect your daughter from further hurt/rejection.

I think that I am coming to the conclusion that we can't protect them from rejection. You can talk to her, as Magsi suggested, or even role play conversations with her, so that she can practice new ways of talking. (I've tried to teach ds2 to ask other kids to do "high five" with him - an acceptable way of getting close) but in the end, they may find someone who likes them for who and what they are. Tell her that you love her. Tell her what she is good at and what she does well. And perhaps meet with her teacher again to suggest that she could do something with the class looking at the positives in each other. X is good at . . . Y is fun when . . . It takes 5 minutes of group time and can do sooooo much good.

[hk78]

notquitegrownup, magsi, attilathemeerkat
thanks for your kind words and advice.
she does need more support, i am thinking seriously about the statementing issues, as i have said in other threads, i was told it wasnt necessary and help would be given by school anyway, now i know better.
i constantly tell her (and dd2)how i love them, this is both automatic/on impulse, and also deliberate as a way of supporting them and making sure they FEEL loved.
she seems ok this afternoon, like you said she's probably forgotten what i said, i hope so. (well, i'd like her to get the underlying message but in a nicer way!)
notquitegrownup, you are right, we cannot protect them from rejection. i usually do try to literally look the other way when this is going on in the playground etc., as i don't see how i can intervene without making it worse. (especially as she is coming to that stage where she will just want mum to butt out!)
anyway, just to lighten the mood a bit...i think it made it worse this morning, because just after that incident happened and i was feeling crappy, another mum who is about 7 stone or something, rushed over to me and starting telling me all about how she's starting at slimming club as soon as possible because she's so fat .wow, some people really have tough problems to deal with dont they, lol
i have to say, coming onto this special needs board (even when just lurking) is like drinking baileys in a warm bath if that makes sense- prior to discovering mumsnet i would have attempted to get this off my chest to my mum or even worse MIL, and ended up feeling worse. don't feel alone with sn issues now.thanks mumsnet.

[coppertop]

HK78 - Welcome to the SN board.

Believe me when I say that you're not the only one who does things like this, even when rationally you know that your child can't help whatever it is that they're doing.

The staff should be doing more to help with dd's social skills. At my ds1's school they did some work with him about things like facial expressions, taking turns etc. It hasn't always gone entirely to plan (like the time ds1 told me "When someone's mouth bends down at the ends it means that they are sad" after looking at cartoon pictures of sad faces. Oops!).

I wonder if the new DVD that the NAS is distributing might help with the facial expressions? I haven't seen it but I think it's called "Transporters" or something. Anyone know?

[Aloha]

Ah it's so hard. Sometimes when I am frightened (of how he will cope, of his being lonely or picked on) it comes out as anger, and that's so unfair on my ds. I really sympathise. And yes, you can teach her social skills. She wants to be friendly and have friends and that's a great start.

[moondog]

Hi hk.
You're not a bad mother at all.
You sound absolutely lovely and hey,which one of us hasn't occasionally growled at their child?
That's life.

You have a really good grasp of the situation. I am a salt with people with special needs and increasingly this area (which we refer to as pragmatic skills) is more and more focussed on by salts.

Does your little girl have a salt?
If so,I would recommend bringing this up.

Also have a look online for Pragmatic and/or Semantic difficulties. I think you will find a lot of useful stuff.

Would also recommend checking out the website for ICAN,which is a big charity which supports children with communication difficulties.

Hope this helps.

[Homsa]

hk78/coppertop, the "Transporters" DVD is good if the child has good receptive language (it's much too wordy for my DS who is only 3.8) and if they are obsessed with vehicles!

How about reading "Social Stories" with your DD, maybe even writing some yourself?

[hk78]

hi again
thanks again for more advice and help.
coppertop/homsa, i will try that dvd or similar. (her pet subject is animals and dinosaurs sadly not vehicles but hey-ho)
she has excellent language, it's actually far above the others of her age (at our school anyway!) sorry if that sounds snooty but it's true! the problem is how or when to express herself/approach people etc. reading social cues,that kind of thing.
homsa when you mention 'social stories' is that an actual series of books, or is that just a generic term?
moondog, she does not have a salt, as i say her language is actually excellent which is deceiving! it's how to interact etc. i will try that ICAN website,thanks.
tbh, all of her life, her treatment has been very patchy and poor imo. i think ,(probably to save the budget again?) she is always pushed into the category of not needing anything, in other words we can get away with it because she has a 'mild' case of hemiplegia (supposedly! i would say moderate, but hey-ho !)everything she has received has had to be begged for for about a year first, including her original mri scan to actually get a diagnosis!
frankly i am starting to have social interaction problems myself because people constantly take my breath away with their rudeness/ignorance/unkindness, which they then pass on to their children, and i'm just gettng so i can't be bothered to talk to people etc.except people who i've known well for years (online forums excepted)
she had another blow this morning, same girl again as my original post. spent ages getting ready, red nose day theme, got her feeling quite good etc. everyone else also dressed to the theme but my dd1 gets singled out 'oh god look at you!' in a nasty tone. at their age already! (8) i dread the next few years, as girls bitchery comes to its peak! i wish i could swop places with her because i know what to do. funnily, she always answers that with 'i wish you could swap places with me too' lol.

[hk78]

aloha you are right, the anger/frustration is rooted in fear. other people are the cause of it, yet dc's end up getting snapped at!
we must try to just think of today, possibly tomorrow. some days, i even break the day down into smaller sections!

thinking about the years ahead scares me to death, just because people are so harsh.
i'm most worried about the tweenage and teenage years, i know that if i can get her past that she will start to grown into herself and the peer pressure and bitchery wont be such a big feature in her life.
i've even thought about setting up my own business so that she can work with me if she ends up wanting to : and i've never done anything like that before, i just used to work in an office, so it just shows you how powerful your feelings are as a parent.

[Homsa]

hk, there are two "Social Stories" books by Carol Gray, they were written to teach children on the autistic spectrum basic social and living skills. I think Amazon stocks them. By the sound of it, they may be a bit too boring for your DD!

I've had great success by making my own little books for my DS (autistic) about things he finds difficult - I take pics with my digital camera, write a few lines underneath, and laminate the pages. Takes quite a while to make them, but he loves them and reads them like they were his bible! Maybe you could borrow a friend's child to enact an encounter with your DD, document that with photos, and use those to teach her some social rules? Or even borrow a video recorder, video them and watch the video with her later?

[moondog]

Lovely idea Homsa.
HK,it goes to show that even with excellent language,people can still have significant communication and interaction problems and as I sdaid,more and more salt work is focussed around this area.

I don't do touchy feely at all (not on MN anyway) but I'd just like to give you and your dd a big hug full of female solidarity.

You both sound lovely.

[hk78]

moondog and homsa,thanks
i particularly like the idea of making your own little books, luckily there's nothing i like more than a bit of photography and a bit of laminating (preferably in front of phil'n'fern while dd's are at school)

all i need now is a method of mind control for all the nt kids out there