Feeling down about creating such an unhappy child

[User364837]

Can anyone relate?
DD9 it just seems like she unhappy or grumpy or in a bad mood most of the time.
She’s in her room crying right now, as am I in my room.
i picked her up from school, I thought she’d be happy as it’s half term now. I greeted her with a smile, tried to give her a high 5 for surviving the half term and she hit me instead.
ran off in the opposite direction to the car.
wont talk to me about her day or what’s wrong.
shouted at me in the car and called me stupid.

I lost my rag a bit and asked what I’d done? Which of course didn’t help.
it just gets me down sometimes, she’s constantly bad tempered and rude with me.
I know she doesn’t like school which is horrible. I just feel so sad she’s sad a lot of the time.
her behaviour has always been challenging at times and she has an autism diagnosis.

I just feel really sad that I’ve this child into the world who is so unhappy.

my eldest has autism too and has had her struggles (16 now) but always talked to me and lines of communication were open.

i hate hearing dd cry in the room alone. I’ve tried to go in and have been calm and tried to be soothing but she just shouts at me to go away. I don’t know how to help her.

I'd ease up on yourself, OP. Your framing of "I've created an unhappy child" is not totally accurate - children are shaped by many factors and do have their own personality. Your child being angry or sad is not a reflection on you. So please don't continue blaming yourself.

It sounds like this has been going on for a while. I'd start to look at professional help, such as counselling. In my experience, anger requires self-reflection and that usually begins by speaking to an outside person (not friends or family).

Could you look into changing schools? She might be getting bullied

My autistic teen was like this through puberty. I can still remember one particularly bad evening where she was just sobbing in her room and I had tried everything I could, she didn't want any of it and she absolutely never wanted a hug, generally wanted me to go away. I was in bits myself by the end, and as a single parent, on my own just started crying myself (all over my poor, stoic cat).

It always seemed to be right when I thought she would be happy too - yay! It's Christmas. Nope. Yay, summer holidays. Nope. So I really understand what you are describing, it's pretty challenging and heartbreaking. I remember having similar thoughts to you, about what had I done to bring her into such an awful life that she hated.

She didn't have her ASD diagnosis at that point either. Through therapy, that came about and then that alexithymia was a big part of her neurodivergence. She finds it so challenging to describe her feelings, then they become overwhelming and become sobbing fits or what looks like total rudeness or unhappiness.

It does get better. Slowly. Hang on in there.

You seem to be making this all about you

Your child has an autism diagnosis, this is probably significant.

I think you need support with your parenting, to help you focus on the child's needs and not to take her behaviour personally. She's only nine, she has a diagnosis, she needs you to take a deep breath and help her.

Give her time to calm down now, then make her favourite tea and see if she can tell you what's wrong.

@verycloakanddaggers where can I get support?

I do have enough awareness that I am not showing this to her, I have taken myself to my room to have a little cry in private and to let off steam here since I’m a single parent and don’t want to burden friends with it right now.

I taken it a bit personally today, I am human and mostly I stay calm and don’t react but occasionally the way she speaks to me most of the time wears me down.

i do know rationally it’s not about me, it shuts very heart breaking to have your child unhappy.

@Berga thank you for sharing your experience

Maybe, she does have a couple of friends but things are up and down with them.
school are great on the whole, supportive when things are difficult in the mornings (struggles with the transition going into school sometimes).
she already moved once in year 2 and they’ve been so much more supportive than the last school I’m not sure about moving again now she’s in year 5.

as well as the social ups and downs she just finds the work all a little bit too hard which of course is no fun for her. She does get lots of interventions from them but still finds it all hard.

.

Dcs can be difficult about talking.Can you take her for a drive? Mine seems to open up when there is no eye contact.

Point out that she has a whole week without school and you are in the mood for some fun, so she needs to think what she would like to do.

Then try to get out of her what she doesn't like about school. What she would change.

Don't blame yourself OP. Lots of things impact happiness. You aren't responsible but you are there trying to fix it. That makes you a good mum.

Ah I’m an idiot, her and her sisters are going to their dads for the weekend. They go every other weekend but it’s been a longer gap than usual because he swapped last weekend. That could well be affecting her mood as she can find it unsettling going there although seems ok once they’re there.

My ds is on the spectrum too.
When he had meltdowns (which is what happened there - end of the day, end of the week, actually end of the term - she just let it all out), it was better to let him settle himself down on his own.
Talking, giving him a hug , all the things that ‘should’ have helped were just too overwhelming to him.

Then once he was more settled, I could speak to him, reassure him etc….

She's probably exhausted

Not that it excuses the behavior

But it explains it somewhat

Early nights for a few days, op

To be honest a lot of y4/5 girls seem to be emotional messes at the moment in my circle. I don’t know if they’re tired or hormonal but I don’t think you are unusual. I think you do want to think about whether this is in the normal range or beyond but lots of my friends are tearing their hair out at dealing with their children’s very emotions.

Ah, sounds like it may be just going to her Dads, OP and she's just feeling a bit unsettled.

My DS has a tendency to take things out on me if he's feeling unsettled (no ND but I'm not with his dad so he's back and forth a bit between us and that's tough on them I think). It's so so bloody hard and frustrating to be the "safe space" at times so I totally feel for you. Try not to feel like it's you or something you've done.

When DS gets back from school, I find I'm seeking connection and my instinct is to ask a couple of gentle questions but I've actually realised I need to just leave him be a bit so tend to just do a very neutral "hi" and he grunts back and then 5 minutes or half an hour later he'll come down and start chatting or I'll pop up and ask if he wants a snack. It feels so wrong not to engage with him but it's so much better when he has a bit of decompression time and comes to me rather than feeling pressure to relate to me straight away (even if I'm very low key with it).

I think it has also been a mega long term and they are absolutely exhausted.