To be dreading the half term because of my daughter's neediness?

She's old enough to understand that there are other people in the house with needs and feelings. It's OK to tell her "mummy's having quiet time for half an hour" or whatever and say she needs to play quietly in the next room while you read your book or watch something on TV etc; don't feel guilty about it. It's also totally OK to insist on X amount of time reading and she needs to get X number of spellings right before moving on to playing or other activities. Don't let the exasperation show, just be matter-of-fact about it - "I'm busy now but I'll play with you later - you need to play on your own now". "Don't throw things at people who haven't said they'll play catch" is also fine.

How do you stand it.

I needed some time to do stuff

No my ADHD daughter wouldn’t have done that. She would have just carried on pestering. Because she’s ND and not NT.

That's exactly the point I was making. If her daughter is bored and being annoying give her jobs which she won't want to do so will go amuse herself. If her choice is either tidy her room or amuse herself then she is going to find something else to do that isn't annoying op

Toddle off is a figure of speech.
Yes a 7 year old can tidy their room. They might not feel inclined to though.

Toddle of she's 7 not a toddler and of course a 7 year old can tidy their room

Silly comment. My kids drove me to rage I didn't know existed. It's bloody hard work.

I doubt they just toddle off and clean their rooms at that age. It would take some cajoling. Playing catch would probably be the easier option actually.

This is really unhelpful to a mum experiencing burnout.

I had a childhood like that though and I was super bored a lot of the time.

I did like to read and I had a similar age sister to play with. And I did "make my own entertainment" but DD is jolly lucky if you ask me, with the decent caring teachers, interesting holidays, Netflix and the Internet.

I'm interested to hear more about whether the OP's two kids get on or if the age gap/personality differences are too great.

Yes @FiveWhatByFiveWhat I agree. My children spent approximately 2 minutes on their journey to school and did the odd club and beavers as an extra. One of them basically dozed through school , the other something like the behaviour described by the OP. They get ill, they pick up bugs, they get hyped up and agitiated. They are taught about totally unsuitable things which are beyond their comprehension.

I kind of agree with this. Not in a sense of "it's not ND/Sen, it's just the environment", more that I think the environment exasperates it maybe in a way it didn't (to the same extent) years ago.

So for example, my son is 5 and autistic. We're VERY fortunate that he's only in school 8.45-3.15. We walk to school at 8.20 and he's home by 3.45 unless we choose to go to the park or whatever. Weekends and holidays are spent at home playing, mooching about or going to the park, a farm, seeing grandparents or pottering around town doing errands etc.

God knows what he'd be like if (like many) we had no family nearby and/or had longer commutes or higher pressure jobs with long hours etc. He'd have to be in wraparound and holiday clubs all the time and I genuinely don't think he'd cope.

I'm sorry for parents and children who are struggling.

I think the source of a lot of it is ridiculous expectations placed on them by schools. No down time, no just hanging about. No playing out with your mates. 10 hour days, activities at weekends. They are small children.

Yep mine did.

Ended up in severe burnout at 14 because of it. A lot of ND girls do. When we saw the Educational psychologist he said he was overrun with girls with this.

Definitely. It’s exhausting for them and then they blow up as soon as they have a safe space.

They do tend to zone out or shut down to relieve themselves a bit from the mask, so daydreaming or clamming up or hiding. It’s not all pretending they can cope. Also friends are mainly playing so it’s high energy entertaining stuff.

And in clubs they might do things like subtly change what they have been asked to do or politely refuse to join in with the activities, show an incompletion of tasks, can’t make their minds up of what to do or answer or speak inappropriately. They aren’t rude, and appear happy, but are definitely masking in some way.

‘Dances to the beat of their own drum’ is something you will be often told by leaders of these groups, or ‘They bring so much energy to the room’ 😁

Everybody is a psychologist somehow?

Girls are notorious for masking ADHD...really ? 5 days a week and with friends and with activities and in clubs. That's some serious masking.

Yes, we are also not chuffed about half term.
Glad we don't have any children.

Sorry for all these messages.

This is a lovely book you might read her. DD was v impressed with how naughty the younger sister was.

www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/products/my-naughty-little-sister-collection-book-dorothy-edwards-9781405268158?sku=GOR005424163&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAk8G9BhA0EiwAOQxmfjHo38ZiHbNFui3Dxpt2BsPZJKQfg3hSIW0-npb10JHigylxcIoSAhoCtLsQAvD_BwE

Two great contemporary book series for girls who are often in trouble for reasons they don't fully understand are "Daisy and the trouble with..." and Ivy and Bean (if you have Netflix, the adaptations of Ivy and Bean give an idea but the books are wonderful).

DD might clean her room.

She and the neighbours' girl were playing nicely, DH said. Turns out they'd arranged about 100 soft toys into a disco in our bedroom with a "disco ball" (a lamp, quite a heavy one, blutaked upside down to the ceiling).

It's better to have eyes on with some kids, it really is.

@GFBurger precaffeinated! I love it!

DD has woken up at 5.45am on the dot for her entire life pretty much. Once we were in a time zone 5 hours behind staying in a pitch black basement apartment. Yup, she sat up awake at 12.45. Fortunately it was a big city so I was able to find a 24 hour coffee bar (for me...)

She can spend time alone now.

She just needs very different parenting to many children.

Would school actually refuse to fill in a form though?

I mean, as a classroom teacher I've filled in loads of that kind of thing over the years and while I haven't always seen the behaviour, I've never actually refused - why would I?

The point is also that the forms are scored so even if the score is lower at school, it may still be suggestive of particular neurotypes even if it's much more marked at home.

You do have to be "that parent" with school. We're supposed to meet needs, not diagnoses, so it's more the child and parent that benefit from a diagnosis, especially when secondary transition approaches.

Just to advise you, OP, if your DD may end up needing a different type of school to the local secondary/secondaries then you would need to look into that from year 4, as EHCPs are taking years. Transition from year 6 to year 7 can be a real struggle for masking ND girls.

Just to add a couple of bits…

Teach your monster to read is a great app that might help as it’s set out like a game.

I used to joke that my DD was ‘pre-caffeinated’ as she was also high energy and had a very intense need to be entertained. Actually I found by accident that a cup of tea really helped her calm down and focus.

I have suggested this to other friends who have children cut from the same cloth and it does appear to work.

All kids ND or not need to learn to be comfortable by themselves. I know so many adults who are in really abusive relationships because they can't be on there own.

www.treasuretrails.co.uk/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAk8G9BhA0EiwAOQxmfjFmVSLTyLZLdtYA8LeH62dlZfggOEhnli1pYdUvonMffO0yqKHgIBoC9-sQAvD_BwE these or something like orienteering might be good and while I have no experience with the latter, the Treasure Trails encourage reading and looking for stuff.

I used to do loads of passive reading with DD.

"I just can't see that sign with these glasses. Which way is the cafe?"

"I'm going to get the stuff out of the fridge. How much butter does it say we need in the recipe?"

"Gosh, this writing is really small. What age are these for?"

Then she needs to go clean her room so she's also out the way either way op gets some peace. This is what i do with my kids when they're being annoying you either find yourself something to do or il find you things to do. It works everytime