(reposting here for more traffic)
DD is 14…
Brief overview, we moved from Scotland to England when she was 6, did worry about the implications of changing education systems as she had just started learning but she seemed to cope ok..
The next year there was a “have you ever considered Dyslexia” chat at parents evening which the school said they would monitor however they put down to her rushing her reading and writing and making silly mistakes. The following year we were told she was struggling with concepts and when presented with variables/changes in problem solving.
Socially and emotionally she managed school well, however around the age of 8 and 9 started having pretty horrific outbursts & Tantrums at home, really struggled with house rules and instructions, “why can’t you just do as you’re told” was a 3 time daily mantra! Also had really horrific sleep regression around this age, night terrors, 3am shouting matches, it was an awful time.
Did ok in school till around 3/4 way through Y7 and the rest is text book, girl autism realisation, stopped being able to mask, went from quite a quiet, conforming student to being the most disruptive, “rude” “difficult” one, spent a lot of time out of class, being shouted at and mostly in isolation. Even now the trauma she suffered there and lack of support to the extent that she has never gone back into a school setting makes me so upset.
Meeting upon meeting, promises of ILP which never materialised, us telling them that their approach was causing a decline in her MH and not wanting to come to school, but it was too late the damage was done and by the time we moved and found a really supportive and flexible school she was just too anxious to attend, school mornings were traumatic for us all, and I’m really not proud of how we handled those early days.
Fast forward 2 years, a very rocky and stressful road and she is now doing online learning, thriving and a completely different kid, we are also still on the RTC assessment pathway where hopefully we will gain an Autism diagnosis..
Though I’ve known that Autism was and is very likely, up until the last few weeks I have never heard of PDA and the realisation that this is it has hit me like a ton on bricks!
Somethings that stands out so much other than 14 years of being told I’m too soft on her and I let her away with much more than I would her siblings (I didn’t, I just understood very early on that her logic and our logic were completely different and no amount of shouting, arguing, pleading, discipline was going to change that, square peg in round hole analogy) but also in later years that her inability to commit to plans and expectations didn’t just extend to boring things or those she didn’t like, but also stuff she did. ie) something that she had been excited about, shopping or a sport competition, if you went and work her up and told her it was time to start the day show would just simply say she wasn’t going, didn’t want to and then stop communicating.
She has also said much more recently that if someone asks her to do something imminently she finds it really hard to do it and she has to wait until “her brain tells her it’s own idea”.
With all this is mind, I’d really love to hear from parents, particularly those of teenage girls who believe their YP is the same and how you navigated those early teenage years, things are good now but we are always learning and as a family we definitely still all have our moments and also how we go into an assessment being as sure as sure we could be that this is the form of Autism she has, will they understand from our description, are able to specify what we think, any advice would be welcome.
And anyone who has a child assessed through the Right to Choose referral route, I’d love to hear how it worked, what you felt of the experience etc