I’m going to have to pull DD from holiday club due to her not stopping talking aren’t I?

[SheNeverStopsTalking]

DD is 9.

In Holiday Club 2 days a week, 1 of those days I’m working the other day is purely to give me some headspace.

She talks from the moment she opens her eyes, until the moment she closes them but also talks in her sleep. She will wake me up at night if she can’t get back to sleep to have a chat. She will talk to me while we watch TV, describing whats happening on screen while I’m there, I can’t take her to the cinema as she talks all the way through the film!

It’s just me and her at home, so it can be extremely intense during holidays hence the 1 day a week break as otherwise I find myself needing a break. At least she’s out the house 5 days a week during Term Time – I work freelance so usually do 2-3 days work a week and give myself 2 or 3 days off, cut down to 1-2 days a week in holidays.

But DD is spending all her time talking to the adult leaders not taking part. If a familiar face turns up she might play with them/talk to them for 30 minutes or so but otherwise it’s just the leaders. I can see they’re finding it as tiring as I am. They tell me they swap leaders every hour or so, but there's 4 leaders to 60 kids so each leader is getting at least 2 hours a day of DD talking. She engages in conversations. She just talks a lot.

She’s not behaving badly, so they can’t technically ask I don’t bring her as the contract states – “A child will only be asked to leave holiday club if their behaviour is seen to be violent and/or dangerous to either one or all of 1) other children, 2) themselves or 3) staff”.

She chose where to go and what days to do it.

I did wonder if she felt overwhelmed by it as she has SN (dyslexia, dyspraxia/DCD, and general processing difficulties – main areas of this are audio and thinking speed - I also suspect ASD or ADHD but no-one else sees it) so thought it might be too busy/too much to process but she says she loves going, really enjoys it and everyones really nice and we're not getting any post holiday club meltdowns unlike after school where we have one nearly everyday so I now feel stuck.

I’m going to have to pull her out aren’t I just to save the leaders sanity?

@Littlewhitecat did a double take reading this. Had to check I hadn’t written it myself 😂I suspect I’m not NT. As a kid I thought being called chatterbox was a compliment. I somehow managed to marry a shy introvert too 🤷‍♀️

They should be organising games for her to join in with. It's no good then just putting out activities for kids to do or not as they see fit.
If they don't want to talk to her, they need to come up with other options.
Don't take her out of the club, let them do what they are paid to do.

As someone who is AuDHD and has a child who is AUDHD with Dyspraxia, in the gentlest terms, they (and you to some extent) need to be putting more effort into teaching her when its appropriate to talk, and when it isn't.

My son can monologue for hours if i let him, i don't let him, we encourage constructive conversation, but when it falls into effectively scripting/describing what he is doing, or monologuing, he is told to be quiet, or go somewhere else (his room/the playroom/any other room i'm not in). He will invariably be quiet, then slowly pick up again, and i will repeat the reminder.

Being AuDHD, i have auditory processing issues, and he has to learn that just like he has sensory needs, so do I, and mine involve needing quiet occasionally.

Tell the holiday club staff to distract/redirect her, they also shouldn't be afraid of telling her to be quiet and stop talking.

ND explains the why of what they're doing, its not an excuse not to teach them to manage it and when their behaviour is socially inappropriate and how to help themselves manage it in situations where yes, masking is required to some extent.

@SheNeverStopsTalking I have some ADHD traits and I can be like that, nattering a lot.

I don't think you need to pull her out unless the leaders say so. As she has some learning disabilities/potential ADHD or traits, then it's not their fault.

They will be expected to include rather than exclude children with learning disabilities. She probably isn't the only or worst one that is a bit different.

Ah op your dd sounds like a sweetheart.

She won't grow out of it - I'm the same. I hold it in a bit at work (like the pp said about meetings) but when I'm comfortable around someone - mostly dh - it's just a wall of sound from waking in the morning to going to sleep at night.

Don't pull her out of summer club - I'm also a teacher and I find kids like this delightful. Sure, occasionally annoying but only to the extent of something to chuckle about with colleagues afterwards, not tearing my hair out kind of annoying. As others have said, they're paid.

Also your dd says nice things. She's not arguing or gossipping or anything. She sounds like a pet. I'd be proud of her if I were you!

I definitely agree with Phantom that you might be able to teach her.

I would've benefited from having it verbally spelled out what I should do, as I couldn't learn it by osmosis/observation like others probably do.

If my parents had said of my behaviour 'don't do X, people will think you're weird' or 'don't do that, stop whittering on or people will find it annoying' then I mightn'tve been about 30 before I started to realise these things.

She needs to be told that sometimes the leaders are busy or need to be fair and talk to other children and she needs to leave them alone if they ask her to do something else.
The leaders need to be told that it’s ok to tell her they are busy or need to talk to other children too.

Then all is clear and they need to do it.

Have you explained to the HC that she has SN? Did you warn them about her talking? Did you tell them your tactics/what you would like them to try to distract her?

If she is only there 2 days a week I would be spending the rest of the week helping her to recognise social cues when she needs to stop talking. I assume she knows she isn’t meant to interrupt and speak to the school teacher all day so she needs to accept that the leaders at HC are the equivalent of the school teacher.

She sounds exactly like my ASC/ADHD DS. Did not stop talking from dawn to dusk. And was more interested in talking to adults than peers.

Don't pull her out. It's fine. They can try to redirect her if they need to. My DS went to after school and holiday clubs almost every weekday. They deal with lots of different children and can (and should) be able to cope! 😀

If it's any comfort, I have one like this. Constant stream of consciousness. My head was always kettled at the end of the day. She grew out of it. She's 12 now and she prefers just to grunt at me instead. Equally frustrating 😉

OP, don’t pull her out unless you are asked to, younger people can sometimes have more patience and ‘switch off’ to your daughter’s constant chatter.

To those saying this is what they are paid for, the majority of the staff are young inexperienced adults. They are paid minimum wage and do it to earn some cash for uni. They are not specialists, they receive a bit of basic training (if they are lucky) and so have no idea how to deal with a chatterbox. What parents are paying for are supervised activities, nothing like before or after school clubs which are run by trained/knowledgeable TAs.

This is on the leaders. Dont pull her out, enjoy your time.

They should really be buddying her with another child or getting her engaged in an activity. I'd be annoyed that they keep mentioning it. They're in child care, kids talk alot!

I have a son who talks a lot. Don't pull her out, you need the break. The staff are being paid and they get to go home at the end of the day. I'm sure they can cope for a few hours twice a week.

But it’s clearly not working. Just saying they are Ofsted compliant isn’t really enough, is it?

I assume she knows she isn’t meant to interrupt and speak to the school teacher all day

@toomuchlaundry I never knew that as I was never told.

The leader's sanity is not more important than yours. Also they're being paid and part of being at work is doing the bits you don't want to do.

Talking to adults/those in authority and not playing with the other children/engaging with other service users is not uncommon in people with ASD, IME.

Are the staff very young ?

Dd6 goes to holidays clubs and oils t get into her fav last year so did another

Mainly run by teens /students

Anyway don't take her out - they are paid staff. They can tell her to stop like a teacher would

But yes she does need to know about quiet time. I like the token idea the. Has to write it

Or maybe she can write it instead of talking and create a book

Well OP, my DS got effectively kicked out of camp this week for disruptive behaviour and I was mortified. They had him on a final warning system and they very diplomatically said they didn't feel he was enjoying it and might benefit from staying home!

Keep her in, it's their job to manage her. She needs to learn the difference between wanting to talk and knowing when it's appropriate. I would be supportive of them if they asked her to stop or moved her away from her friends for disrupting, she can't have her way all the time, it's not fair. Let them handle as they see appropriate and if she is complaining about the consequences that's a learning experience for her too.

The staff are paid but some of them are only like 18 so hardly there fault. They're ofsted registered and are rated good with outstanding features. The leader currently in charge is 19 and his 3 co leaders are 17, 18 and 20.

It's dressed up as a themed holiday club, so all the activities are based on a theme and each week is a different theme, so this week its history, next week is technology etc. all the activities are history based this week children can choose on a carasol what they do, so they will be 4 activities per session (2 sessions a day), 1 sport, 1 craft, and then 2 others which are around the theme, so yesterday they had the origins of the olympics as the daily theme. So they did various olympic sports as the sports, made various things to do with sport as the craft, had a film about sports (but it was a cartoon with characters and DD says she sat and watched it while describing it to a leader), and they made a film about themselves playing or talking about sport.

I will chat with them. She's very achievement orientated so maybe we can work it in some how?

If she's not distressed or disruptive then leave her be. The adults can cope.