AIBU to consider care for my autistic child to protect us?

I'm very confused about the fact that you're willing to give your child away/put her into care but don't seem willing to take her to school, surely putting her into care is going to be 100x more traumatic that getting her to school?

I am in this situation and was going to ask if you had contacted children's services to ask for support first (as opposed to removal).

I reached this point yesterday with my 9yo after she followed me around the house repeatedly kicking, pushing and punching me. It culminated in her gaining access to a pair of scissors, which she threw at me, and a dart from an electronic dartboard. I locked myself in my office because I was terrified as much about how I might react myself and lash out at her.

Similar story - engaged with all professionals, multiple interactions with camhs, got a diagnosis in March and have been discharged from services with no further support. She hasn't attended school since December, we're trying to do everything right (ehcp in place, regular engagement with school senco and LA). No idea where to turn, so attempted to contact SS. They replied to say I had to do a referral through the public portal (there isn't one for parents). The first thing you're greeted by is stark wording: are you harming your child or close to doing so? That is my fear, but if I go ahead with it I'm terrified they'll remove her, when it's help and support we need.

I've read and researched and applied all the right strategies and still a tiny mark on her new white crocs sent her into a spiral. The tiniest thing. Try to help her or advise her: aggression. Don't try to help her: aggression. The outcome is the same.

I'm so sorry you're in this situation. If you've exhausted all options, then absolutely I'd agree that a residential may be the only solution. I'm so sorry it's come to this though, utterly heartbreaking for you.

I assume you've tried to access medication (anti anxiety) and the answer is no? We couldn't even get melatonin for our dd when she wasn't sleeping, which magnified all the difficulties.

Having been in the same situation (my violent son is now in their mid 30s) I would strongly advise you to do something now. I managed through their childhood because of the break when they were at school. I see your child does not attend school so you are experiencing that now too. So hard for how. However at 18, or sometimes 21, that when school stops for most young people, and indeed any childhood services are no more, and you realise you have to care for them 24/7 without any break at all. In my opinion once they reach adulthood you are totally alone - and if there is some help or support, or respite needs, it has to be paid for. However, I am now a foster carer looking after teenagers with complex needs and due to being in care, and afterwards as a care leaver, there is much more support than can be accessed. Certainly to age 25 and beyond. A child who has not been in care and very very few services available. I wish you luck as I know how hard it is.

Currently at work so unable to really digest the recent replies but I thank you for them. I will go over them later.

One of the things I have done to be able to cope with this is action. I’ve collected around 10 K studies of children who have been through similar things within educational settings and I’m meeting a journalist at 1 o’clock today with the view to exposing the long delays that parents and children have to suffer in the education system and how they are being systemically failed by the very people that should be supporting them,

Maybe when I’ve done this, I should My eye to other areas which children failed.

Probably a bit enough more than I can chew, but it really really helps me to cope

It's OK to use AI to help you with a response @TakeThatAndParty81 , but it would be better to state that you have.

It sounds like a cult member trying to recruit. The poor family. Let her sibling grow up in a safe home, it's not going to improve and someone will end up getting really hurt if it continues. I feel so sad for them, nobody should live life like this. The adults have a choice. The sibling doesn't.

I am considering putting my child into care.

she is nearly 12. Autistic. Doesn’t go to school. NO ONE helps. I’ve been begging and pleading for help from the GP, CAMHS, police, school, children’s services for years and years.

in the last few days I’ve had been scratched so it bleeds, punched so hard it bleeds, had a bottle thrown at my face, bitten. Kicked. You name it. The language from her is disgusting.

it’s having a profound affect on both me and my other daughter.

I cannot keep doing this. There is no where left to turn now. I have done my best for both my children.

i cannot live like this any longer.

I am not that overwhelmed with it. I’m not anxious or depressed. This is a real, raw situation now. I can ruin her life and protect my other child’s.

when she hurts me i don’t feel pain anymore. I don’t react. I just use myself to protect my youngest child who is so wonderful, compassionate, successful and having her life ruined by the eldest. She deserves a life better than this.

It sounds like the 'help' you've had has been from unhelpful people.

Research on families with ND children wih challenging behaviour suggests that in ~90% of cases, organisations like CAHMS and social services don't help, and often make thing worse. The same research shows that with specialist help and support from others in similar situations, you can turn things around.

I would look at (in this order):

Newbold Hope (for additional needs either violent & challenging behaviour)

CAPA first response (child against parent violence).

Newbold Hope have free articles and videos on their website and a FB group which is really helpful. They also have low-cost more in-depth training videos.

Probably you will need a whole mind-set change, as that is what is most likely to make a difference. It is clear that she is very dysregulated.

Have you ever looked into PDA or demand avoidance? That is often a factor at play in situations like this.

Take heart - it can change. I haven't actually done any training with them, but I looked at an organisation called the Centre for Excellence in Child Trauma, who have a training course for families in crisis, who were actively looking at putting their child into care. Their course had 100% success rate ie by the end, none of those families still felt the need to put their child in care. That course is a paid-for one, but helpful from organisations who specialise in these issues can really have a transformative effect on your whole family. Learning from other parents via support groups can go a long way too.

My heart goes out to you - I can see how exhausted you are and I have been there - my child was suicidal rather than violent but also very aggressive.

I want to say something different from other posters. I think it's both important and urgent.

Your child is not actually at rock bottom - yet. And while it feels like hell, there is absolutely the chance to turn this around. In fact you must act rapidly and decisively - and you will all feel immediate relief.

I think she is on the cusp of total burnout and the way for you all to survive is to lean into it and get support for where you are NOW- not where you hope to be, or where you thought you were before.

You are saying you thought she was "a little bit autistic". I conclude from this that she is intelligent, has been able to mask successfully in earlier life, has achieved in the ways you think are ok - school and hobbies - but now everything is breaking and she can't sustain it any more.

So is she in crisis? I say yes - AT THE START OF CRISIS. She is just going into a deep burnout which you will need to navigate.

She goes to activities and courses. She has not yet fallen out of those BUT she is struggling socially- so without immediate and urgent support it is another ticking bomb.
She is able to spend time outdoors and in nature with you at work.She actually comes with you to work. That is a good sign as there are things that regulate her and shows she is not actually in full PDA anxious fearful refusal of everything. Not yet.
She has been going to school until very recently it sounds like, though the placement is breaking down. Last Tuesday is nothing!! it's only a few days!! She is literally in the middle of realising she CANNOT COPE AT SCHOOL. She is terrified on some level that she willl continue to be forced to go there. She doesn't have the words or emotional understanding or interoception to advocate for herself. No wonder the violence is escalating. She has no other way to communicate.

She is 12 - has she just finished year 7? In a mainstream state school? Did she have a transition earlier this year into a new school? What was her behaviour like a year ago?

What demands are on her now? It feels from your post that her violence is triggered from what you see as ordinary everyday tasks and demands. This makes me think you haven't quite grasped the type and quality of help she needs, although you have fought super hard for help to the point where you are exhausted.

The violence seems to have escalated now and she is hugely dysregulated a lot of the time. She is seeing "ordinary life" as too much, now. This is a crucial turning point.

I don't want to scare you- but although she is violent, her life has not yet completely halted. In some ways, you ain't seen nothing yet. You have not yet seen her burn out completely.

Crisis action plan for yourself and her, right now.

1. Accept, radically - the world as you knew is is GONE. You will not have 2 daughters nicely going to school and passing exams - not in the next 2 years at least - and your family and working life will be changing. You need to find out more about autism and burnout in girls - wherever you can, however you can. You must stop expecting that this is a blip and she can kind of keep going, things are about to stop and change. You are assuming she has capacity for quite a lot of normal life, when really she is almost totally depleted.

1. Tell her - when she is calm - that you have now realised and you understand she cannot manage things. You promise you will, as of today, not make her do ANYTHING. And certainly nothing that makes her anxious, scared or angry. You know she has been trying hard and you understand that people haven't seen this and haven't helped her enough. It's ok for her to be angry and alarmed (though if she hurts you or her sister you will take yourselves out of the room, to a place to keep yourselves safe). You are on her side. You will not make her go to school, not now, not next term, not ever. There will be no punishments or sanctions or expectations for now - only understanding. None of it matters, only safety matters.

1. Go completely, dramatically LOW DEMAND. Like, ZERO DEMAND. Demand so low you would not even think it is a demand. If that means she stays up all night and sleeps all day, spends 10 hours on YouTube, eats only beige food, doesn't leave the house, doesn't wash, then that might be where she is, for days, weeks or even months. Take as much off her as you can. Allow any and all special interests, in depth, for as long as she wants. Do not make her eat with the family, talk to anyone, deal with anything. DO NOT listen to the voice in your head that tells you boundaries are necessary and you are making a rod for your back, etc etc. That is bullshit. This is the only way.

1. Co regulate with her in a PDA friendly way. For mine at this point, this looked like saying "i notice you're wriggling about, the door to the toilet is open and it's free right now". "Here's a drink of water on your bedside table". As yes, the burnout got so severe she couldn't even accept the demands of her own body. I was putting her pants and socks on for her. She was a super bright high achieving verbal "totally normal" child before burnout- their capacity needs to fluctuate down to almost nothing, to allow recovery.

1. Does she have any ongoing suppoet already? Does she have an OT or speech and language therapist? Maybe get one - who understands that it will be incredibly slow progress and for months perhaps they will be just alongside her as she plays Dress to Impress or looks at pictures of horses, or whatever she is into. Then they can start understanding her world, helping her understand why things have felt so hard. But that is a while down the track.

1. Chuck money at the problem, if you can. I know this is hard. But get private, sympathetic, OT/psychotherapy/SLT/ whatever you can find. Just one individual to take you through and help you, one person who can do the relational work with you and her. You might also need to stop work. I'm really sorry. There is no cheap way to retain normal life at this point.

1. Let go of the hope that there will.be rescue from the system. "Putting her into care" is not easy, not simple, might not work the way you plan. It also puts you at the mercy of services which are not fit for purpose - camhs, social services, the LA. They have harmed you already and will all harm you further, your family will be fractured and both your daughters, and you, irreparably traumatised. Your younger daughter will either have survivor's guilt or be taken from you. I know it feels like the only way out, but there's another way.

In summary...
There is time to heal your family. You must stop. You must pause, stop pushing yourself, stop pushing her. Let her be in burnout, let yourself go down into it with her, and let yourselves all recover.

The thought of you pushing yourself hard at your desk, sore, angry and hurt, with nobody taking care of you, trying to collate all the information, trying to order and control - that makes me sympathise with you, so much. But that rigidity in you is part of the family dynamic too - you must try to let go of control. It will come back, renewed, with your energy, fresh and calm, I promise you.

The old life is dead. The violence will ease off as the pressure on her eases off.

I wish you so much luck and send as much care as I can xxx

You are obviously a wonderful parent as will undoubtedly be the case for the majority of parents who decide a residential facility is the only option. It's also worth noting there a different degrees of autism etc some far more difficult than others where even a SEN school proves unsuccessful.

Parents should never be made to feel guilty any more than adults who decide the only way forward for their parents is residential care. Nobody knows every families individual circumstances. The one thing I do know is making these extremely hard decisions is not through lack of love or care for both the children & the elderly incapacitated. FWIW, I had a summer job in a residential care facility & the children were treated impeccably. You can't tar every establishment with the same brush.

I disagree.
I have two children with extra needs. DD is a pleasure, DS is the opposite. He fights every morning going to school, he’s on a reduced schedule in school as it makes it easier to get him there, he’s a grumpy wee fecker, anyone who hadn’t got maternal love for him wouldn’t understand him and wouldn’t treat him the way I do. I wouldn’t do that to him. Care is awful for unruly children who has extra needs and don’t have control over their own behaviour at times. Listen to the podcast patient 11 for an insight into residential care when they display mental health issues or aggression.
RTE in Ireland, done a secret investigation into the mh inpatient care from teenagers, it was beyond disturbing how they treat a child in meltdown.

Its not about LA's not wanting to pay for residential care, its because a) generally speaking the outcomes for children in care are far worse than for those who stay with their family and thats across a number of different cohorts of children and a range of markers, but more practically b) because the type of residential setting or care that people often envisage as some sort of solution to this just isnt there. Care homes are run for profit, they hire basic staff, who do some training in usually NVR, PACE, health and safety, restraint this that and the other and they're good to go. Often they dont have a core staff team so agency come in day after day. People dont want to work with violent kids. You cant prosecute them or take any action when you're assaulted in work, often restraint leads to the child making an allegation that they were then assaulted and the provider has to then investigate and refer to LADO and those staff are suspended during that time, meaning more different staff have to be sourced. There just arent the people around who want to do this. Then you have to consider matching this child to the others that are already in the home, they also have to be kept safe. Care is not some magic wand that means the child is managed any better or differently, its just more hands on deck and means that the parent child relationship can be slightly improved.

There are few solutions for young people like this since the 90s/2000s where people clamoured for inclusion meaning specialist settings were deemed as inappropriate. My view is that when fairly young children like this should be in specialist educational settings, possibly also residential and I very strongly believe they should be medicated. But that is not a popular view and certainly one that CAMHS do not subscribe to.

Unless you have been in the situation or had a summer job like mine when I helped care for children who screamed from day to night, punched staff in the face & worse, you have no idea how parents feel. They resort to residential. placements for the good of the child who receives constant care around the clock. The majority of people have no idea how it feels & often come out with comments that are designed to create guilt when there should be absolutely no guilt whatsoever. The huge guilt should be in the hands of societies lack of provision of enough places in residential care. The mere suggestion of removing a sibling with no additional needs from their home in order to stay safe is a disgrace & beyond comprehension.

The LA will try everything to not pay for a residential care place. It sounds to me like you have the ability to fight all the way. In this instance ChatGPT could really help focus on what you need to do to get the support you all need.