7 year old's behaviour (sibling with autism)

[moonrises]

I am really struggling with my 7 year olds behaviour at the moment - I know 7 can be a difficult age but this is just building up and up.

She arrived when my other 2 were 6 and 4. Shortly after she was born the 4 year old was started on the autism assessment process and was diagnosed when she was about 9 months old. He really struggled with her crying (which she did a lot and was a terrible sleeper) so she spent a lot of time being breastfed so she wouldn't cry. I fed her till 4.5 and a lot of feeds were to just stop him reacting. She is incredibly forthright, stubborn and takes no prisoners (a.k.a hard work, but an absolute delight at school apparently )

We have many issues with ds's behaviour, he is very angry and a lot of the time it is targeted towards her including physical aggression. However she will do things that she knows winds him up, will not stop doing things when we ask her to, and will not remove herself from a situation when he is becoming more wound up. It almost seems that she is purposely trying to get him annoyed. Before everyone thinks we are just blaming her, he can be as difficult and gets cross when she is just doing normal 7 year old activities - he really can't cope with her imaginative play, but again instead of him removing himself he just lays into her.

I don't know what to do, apart from their interaction she doesn't do anything we ask her too, answers back, if we see her doing something she shouldn't do she denies it, she screams if she doesn't get what she wants, I'm so worn out by it all, I just seem to spend my whole time trying to pull them apart, a lot of her behaviour is copied from him but not everything. This morning she refused to get out of bed because I had already had breakfast and was about to walk out the door for work and she only wanted breakfast with me. You can't reason with her as she just screams.

I mainly want her to stop screaming, she just seems to have no control of her emotions. We have no support for ds (his consultant is trying to access some again for us - anything we have had has been removed before any real conclusion)

Anyone any tips - my only hope is that she will have run out of energy by the time she is a teenager and will be lovely and pleasant

I don't want to just glibly say could she be on the autistic spectrum too,but I have a child with severe autism and I know it can run in families ,and it can present differently in girls,how is she at school,do they report any difficulties? Has she been seen by the educational psychologist? Or course it might not be but it's hard on siblings when their sibling is autistic with my other son we try and take him out on his own with either me or dh s so he has his own time .

She sounds very autistic as well. Mixture of my two aspie kids. One of mine is a screamer too.

Some of that sounds normal to me. I've a 7 year old and DS (ASD) 2 years older. Also physical towards her. We have installed a punch bag in his room. We come down hard on any aggression/punching of anything/one which is not the punch bag. He is not allowed into her room unless he expressly asks her and he had to leave as soon as she says. We (I, because he's not so aggressive when DH is around ) are really strict on this. It's not ideal but it means she has somewhere he is not always allowed to go. They usually play in the living room or DS's room.

Really having to monitor them. If DD is trying to annoy DS, then separating them- each to their room for 10 minutes etc. It's exhausting!

I'm hoping the refusal to do anything is just a phase...

Placemarking to come back later. This is exactly our situation. So hard. In our case, I think my daughter is really lacking in attention from us and is jealous of her brother and all the attention (incl therapies) he gets. Suggest googling advice re siblings of disabled children. I have some slides somewhere of a presentation I went to recently.....

Sounds familiar - similar age gap, older boys have autism diagnoses, one struggles to cope and lashes out. Other more prone to tears. And dd only hits him.

I think dd will eventually get an autism diagnosis too, but in the meantime it's dealing with 'normal' winding up siblings that does my head in. I'm an only child but hard to say if it's that or just my own ASD not understanding someone needing to be nasty to another - so I stamp on all name-calling, chanting etc. If DH wants to give more leeway, he can deal with it (which in fairness, he then does)

Thank you all. I have, at times, wondered if she is also on the spectrum, but then also not sure if it is just copying.

I will have a good read of the posts and digest them, but am off to work soon, so may not be until later that I can pop back.

I'm not sure how to write this without sounding like I am piling on a bit OP but...your post reads like you have spent your daughter's whole life trying to stop her from bothering her brother. I completely understand this as he has additional needs, and you do what you need to do to make it through the day but maybe as a strategy this isn't working anymore. Does your daughter have any time with you or her dad and without her brother? Does her behaviour improve? This might help you identify some of the dymanics here.

If I am wide of the mark, I apologise in advance. I know you're doing what you can in very tough circumstances.

cat I don't think you are wide of the mark. She has always been very clingy (for want of a better word) and does like to have all the focus. I will bear very much in mind what you have said and I think we do need to make more effort to carve time out just for her. The eldest goes to a sibling group at the local autism charity but it is from 8 so a while off for her. I'm not sure what else there is in the area.

There is a US organisation called Sibling Support (www.siblingsupport.org) which has useful resources. They did a presentation I attended recently.

Some things they mentioned were taking time out to hear and acknowledge your daughter's concerns. Be clear about behaviour expectations for your daughter and your son and explain why these may be different. But the main one was attention - giving lots of positive attention to the sibling who is struggling.

OK, please don't take this the wrong way because I know that parenting an ASD child is hard. But...it sounds to me like rather than trying to teach your DS to deal with thing that come up in life (i.e. a baby crying) you are teaching your daughter that she has to walk on eggshells the entire time so that DS doesn't go aggressive on her. That must be incredibly stressful for her, even if she doesn't know anything different.

I don't think that is healthy for either of them (nor you).

CallIt suggested:
Does your daughter have any time with you or her dad and without her brother?
and your response is:
The eldest goes to a sibling group at the local autism charity but it is from 8 so a while off for her.

Not figuring out how she could spend time with you but how to ship her off to spend time away from her brother. Now I'm not saying it wouldn't be good for her, but it's also not time with you or her father. And once again pushing her needs aside for her brother's.

This morning she refused to get out of bed because I had already had breakfast and was about to walk out the door for work and she only wanted breakfast with me.
This is easily remedied. Get her up 20 minutes earlier and sit down to breakfast with her.

I would be tempted to try some love bombing with her, terrible name but very effective in some situations. Pick a day, make it hers, set a budget you can afford and encourage her to really think about what she wants to do with that day. She can do anything and you go with her. Let her lead the day and make all the decisions. We sometimes have a cheap night in a hotel somewhere as well. The things I aim for are for the dc to feel in control of the day and to feel their parent is totally absorbed just in them.
We have two dc and every few months we do a day with one dc. They are twins and tend to do everything together which a few years back was causing issues. The dc love these days far more than just doing the activities would explain.

Thank you everyone for the encouragement and support, sometimes it is so hard to see the wood for the trees so all of the advice that has been given has been well received.

I do need to make more effort to carve time out for her - weather is rubbish for Saturday so plenty of time to do things in the house with her.

I have a hospital appointment in the morning so won't be going off to work. I can take her to school so she will be over the moon with that.

Sorry meant to add.

Thank you again for all the advice, it has been very much appreciated.

It sounds possibly like you have always tried so hard to pacify her and give her exactly what She wants in order to prevent a scene which will upset her brother she is now used to having what she wants when she wants it. As children grow up their needs change and whilst as a babythis means having an extra suck on a bottle, a seven year old might want to see a movie or play a game with an adult without their brother joining in, even more so if he doesn't understand.. This age I think the age and sex difference may well cause a natural clash irrespective of the ASD issue. I appreciate it's really hard to make time to be with your daughter.she needs this BUT importantly she also needs to learn limits.she cannot have what she wants now. Winding her brother up creating a scene to get your attention quicker is not the way to go. It looks like testing your limits to me. It's almost like you need to send her straight to her room for 15 mins time out the second she starts. Silently put her back as soon as she comes back and reset the clock. I guarantee she will fight it. Your son may interfere which you are best placed on how to deal with. It is something which comes only from you. She needs to learn attention is from good behaviour then you make special treats for her. It must be really hard. It sounds like she needs you but gas habitually got used to getting you the wrong way and now is unmangeble. Riling her brother escalates the situation and gets you to react to her faster. I'm quite possibly wrong, it looks that way to me. I hope it helps and really wish you lots of luck.it must be so hard.

Placemarking for others' replies. My heart goes out to you OP. Am often in a similar boat and I hate it - I no longer know what is normal anymore. By that, I mean sibling rivalry, competing for attention, learned behaviour versus sensory meltdown/venting after masking/uncontrollable. Trying to do 1-1 separately with 3 kids and trying to safeguard them all and trying to stop them being goady feckers.

Hope you don't mind me asking on your thread OP but to pp:

1. How do you deal with your screamers? how are your neighbours?

1. Those who got an Ed Psych referral - how long did that take?

1. Does the punchbag work well? How long did that take?

you are teaching your daughter that she has to walk on eggshells the entire time so that DS doesn't go aggressive on her

I don't know if the OP is but I am definitely guilty of that. Anyone got any ideas as to how to avoid that? I am trying to keep her safe.

you have always tried so hard to pacify her and give her exactly what She wants in order to prevent a scene

I hink I have done this with my DS who is the one with the sensory issues/suspected autism. How do I undo this? How did you all set boundaries with kids wanting things done a certain way/discipline and install boundaries for those for whom normally strategies did not ever work (think PDA)?

Thanks in advance

There is a charity in Britain called sibs to support those with siblings with disabilities. They might be worth contacting g for advice.

There are also lots of articles on this issue such as this one.

www.verywellhealth.com/challenges-of-having-a-sibling-on-the-autism-spectrum-4114557

Personally I think it sounds like two things are happening. You are understandably anxious to avoid DS having meltdowns. So you pacify Dd to stop her doing things that might lead to DS having meltdowns, and you make her responsible for not causing ads to have meltdowns, by expecting her to avoid behaviour that may lead to melt downs.
Your focus is on controllingDDs behaviour for the benefit of DS.

I think young kids are much more aware than adults often give them credit for. I suspect she realises on some level that you are trying to control her behaviour for Ds benefit.
Although this is understandable, try and put yourself in her shoes. All the focus is about Ds. Don't do that because it will wind upDs. Or I will pacify you and give you what you want so you don't wind up Ds. She is probably thinking, what about me? Where am I in all This? Or is it only Ds that matters?
So I suspect deliberately winding up Ds is a way of showing her anger at her needs and importance being diminished.

I am not blaming you,I understand how this happened. But she is only a little girl and needs to know that her needs and desires are important too.

Amanda That makes a lot of sense, and if I am honest we are in a cycle of negative behaviour = attention (any attention is attention and all that) Going to have some things planned over the weekend, ds has a party on Sunday so will have some free time with her then.

Thank you all again though, it has been much appreciated and the constructive criticism has been very enlightening.

Really difficult. I would just caution you to be careful what you wish for. There is a positive that she is fighting her corner - it makes life more difficult I know, but I worry ever so much about our very biddable NT child. Kind and tolerant is one thing but it can slip into a very low sense of self worth.

Moonrise's, I think it is a tricky situation. I hope things get better for you all.