Can we give up one of our children?

[pinkstargaze]

I don’t know where else to turn, this is about my 8 year old.
We have 3 Children the eldest and youngest are lovely but the middle child is making life so hard with her violence towards us.

She comes home from school and shouts and screams and hits me and her siblings, she calls me names, swears at me and won’t listen to a word I say just says shut up and covers her ears if I speak to her.
Her siblings are frightened of her, I’m frightened of her I know as soon as I say anything I will be hurt, she hits me in the back and it takes my breath away, she kicks me and tells me to kill myself, slams doors throws things, screams at the top of her voice by which time the other children are crying and I just can’t do this anymore.

I don’t want this for my other children who are so well behaved, we don’t swear or raise voices, we are just a nice family who all get along and respect each other apart from her, she makes everyone miserable, destroys our home and everyone’s belongings.
It is embarrassing, friends won’t have her around their children and even our own family don’t want her near her cousins because it always ends in tears.
I don’t want to live in a home where I’m scared to tell my child off because she’ll hit me, I don’t want to share my home with someone who laughs and points at me with delight when anything goes wrong, or revels in her siblings misfortune and I don’t want to be called names and be sworn at in my own home or have my things ruined by someone who doesn’t care about me or my things.
I don’t want this to be my life and I definitely don’t want it for her siblings.
I feel strongly that for sake of the family’s safety she needs to go into care but I don’t want to lose all my children.
Is it even a thing to put one child into foster care and not the others?

She is waiting to be assessed but the waiting time is long, the school doesn’t see this as she’s masking all day until she gets home but it’s every day.
I have a lovely family, a lovely husband and we have 2 other children who are lovely but she is making our lives hell and our home uncomfortable and I know I just don’t have what it takes to live with her, I am burnt out and feel so guilty to the other children.
Dh does his best when he’s home but we are all so worn down and miserable, we just can’t carry on like this.
It has broken us both and the others are suffering. I genuinely can’t do this but I so love being a mum to the others who I carry on for.

Could you use parental leave to drop your hours so she can at least only do school part time? Or put in a request to reduce hours.

We considered selling our house and living across two flats to separate our DC. That is extreme but something to consider if it might work for you.

I would pay for an OT who uses a sensory approach to assess and write a report with recommendations. You can show this to the SENCO and if they are sympathetic then you can work together to come up with a strategy or a place for her to stim as and when she needs.

I agree on needing video evidence as she’s clearly masking. If she’s doing fine at school then she will not be a priority for the SENCO so you need to show how bad things are at home. Keep fighting for people to listen and for help - there are so many kids with SEN who aren’t having their needs
met, and unfortunately only those that shout the loudest are heard and hate supported.

Her life is visibly hard. She isnt making it hard. She needs help.

How many children are murdered by parents who couldn’t cope and felt they had no other choice? If that was this situation you’d be screaming at the OP to give up her child.

Nobody asked you if you would ever give up your child EVER.

I would say get an ed psych and OT

OP can request an EHCNA herself. She doesn’t need the school to do it. It is possible to get an EHCP even if the school isn’t supportive.

I am so surprised you say this. My kid’s in a special autism school and us parents are constantly comparing notes about meds. Many of us would lie down and beg for things like SSRIs if it would get our kids to behave. I have never, ever heard of such a thing and our psychiatrist told us a child would never be prescribed such things in the UK. They don’t even like prescribing adhd meds to autistic kids. Only for severely disabled / non verbal kids who are doing severely self-injurious behaviour like head banging would the anti-psychotics be prescribed???

I'm not the OP, but I have just had weeks off work with stress as one of my children is displaying similar "behaviour" (though less severe). It is likely OP is completely ground down by this behaviour. It is hard to imagine what it is like if you haven't experienced it for yourself. When my DS has had a bad evening all I want to do is curl up in bed and not think about it. OP is posting here for support, that is a reasonable starting point surely?

@pinkstargaze I might get flamed for this, but we hammered ChatGPT about our son's behaviour and found it really helpful. Also, weighted blanket, no questions after school, an audioplayer, wobble cushion.

I’d highly recommend looking up Therapeutic Parenting. It made a big difference when my son was younger. In particular I’d recommend the A-Z of therapeutic parenting by Sarah Naish.

Her behaviour will not change with a diagnosis, so best to get some strategies in place asap.

A Mumsnet favourite How To Talk So Your Kids Listen etc is also an absolute must.

I would not go back to when my son was at primary. It’s such a difficult time. My heart really goes out to you.

They certainly dont like prescribing for kids, anti pyschotics are much more common than SSRIs for this cohort but Ive worked with children with both. Not non verbal or LD at all, ASD but very challenging behaviour.

Some children with ADHD as well are on anti psychotics and ADHD meds, always needs very careful tailoring but then theres the constant chasing for timely medication reviews.

Different psychiatrists have different views.

I agree but I was pointing out that sometimes it’s nothing to do with how they’ve been parented or trauma experienced as some PP are insinuating.

His sister was lovely and so were his parents. I remember as a kid, I felt sorry for his mother having to deal with him.

I’ve seen it in less extreme instances where some siblings are much nastier compared to the others. The ones I know of have mostly all transitioned into unpleasant adults.

Possible but hard hard hard. I have never once seen it done successfully (and i work in these circles) because the first thing the LA does is ask the school ‘does the kid need help’ and if the school says ‘no’ that’s a pretty tough one to get round.

and besides, what would the OP actually ask for? If, say, they wanted speech and language therapy (probably helpful for expressing emotions), that’s more money for SLT assessment and probably ed-psych to go visit the school to do a report.

The EHCP route is long and arduous and very very expensive. It is not a silver bullet

I’ve been through very similar with my adopted DD1, who will be 17 in 2 weeks. She was violent towards me between the ages of 6-10, and occasionally towards DD2 (her birth sibling, now 14). She has probable FASD, and is currently undergoing an ND assessment. She also has epilepsy.

She had therapy at age 10, and hasn’t lashed out physically towards me much since, she still has serious anger issues and still occasionally throws things when in a rage. However, she’s thankfully now in a specialist college and things are improving for her.

Sadly, it’s been too late. The impact on DD2 has been long lasting; her relationship with DD1, and with us, has broken down completely. She’s now living with my DSis and her family. (I’ve spoken about her elsewhere.) We just didn’t realise just how badly she was struggling in time.

I wonder if there are foster carers who are experienced with ND children where she could go for a break. Doesn't have to be full-on adoption. Anyway, I just Googled it, and few people want to adopt older children. So maybe an experienced foster carer for a few months is an option.

Hi OP,

I am a psychologist and I work in this area/ I do ND assessments and I run a service for children where families are on the edge of being removed from home. There is a lot more support available before it gets to the point of residential care, so please stop thinking about that and getting yourself so upset.

Firstly, it is actually very difficult for a child to be put into care. It’s not as simple as just requesting and them being taken away. You do, however, need a social worker to complete a care needs and safety assessment for your family. There’s no way they would suggest a removal based on the information you have given. Instead, they would co-ordinate and put together a package of support to make things better at home for you all. That can include respite support for your family, co-ordination with other services to work on your child’s behaviour with you and parenting courses that will help (based on what you’ve said I think you need to do an NVR course and possibly have some positive behaviour suppprt in the home (PBS). Don’t knock NVR unless you’ve done the course and followed the techniques for at least 6 weeks, I’ve seen massive turn around for families who were having to call the police regularly for the level of violence.

based on your description your child sounds ND, with s PDA profile. We don’t generally diagnose PDA (and definitely not ODD) but we talk about it instead as a part of an autistic profile. Traditional parenting and shouting will make things worse, your approach needs to completely adapt to manage this. If there is serious behaviour that challenges and this level of distress in my service (nhs), we would expedite an assessment and do it immediately rather than sitting on the waiting list (as it would completely transform our understanding and support of what was happening at home). Don’t worry about school not really reporting things, they’ve reported she is very quiet and doesn’t have friends, that is reporting something. Us clinicians do know what to look for, schools usually don’t see things like we do.

Have you already been to your GP about your child’s behaviour? They should be referring you to the correct service to support. Where I live that would be my CAMHS team, and we don’t hold a waiting list (fo high risk/serious things) so I would be coming to see you at home within 3 weeks if things are really at the level of considering care. It depends on local commissioning where you are as to what/ when it happens. But the type of support I think you need is available everywhere once you are under the right service. Your CAMHS team could offer PBS/ diagnosis and assessment and family therapy depending on any assessments you have but it doesn’t sound like you’ve been referred to them. Social care can do that or your GP (or, like I said , your GP will refer to the place that can provide the right support if it’s not CAMhS as some CAMHS teams do not work with neurodiversity).

OP it sounds like this feels very out of control right now, get some of these referrals going, there are places that can help you- it really doesn’t have to get to the stage of considering care.

Very helpful post.
My heart goes out to you OP.
I know from experience the sledgehammer effect of a violent child in the home.

Film how she is at home and show it to your gp/anyone else who can help. This is what it took for people to see what our child was like as they mask to absolute perfection at school and anywhere outside the home.

Hi it may have been asked before are CAMHS involved ?
I know it can be dependent on area but CAMHS have been brilliant there is trust bopharan trust ( may not be perfect spelling) they will fund assessments, if the school are not much help Family Action ?

My son is almost 5 but I have been covered in bruises he has a super human strength when he melts down he has hurt his brother so often his brother used to wince when he came near. So I can completely sympathize with your post, so hard when masking at school, my son also does this but has been picked up he struggles with adult direction flaps and with support from CAMHS and the trust he had a private Occupational Therapy review which has put so much in place to help him.

So please reach out for me Family Acton witnessed enough in a few weeks at home to write a urgent letter to gp for referrals to camhs and pediatrician etc

Check out the Facebook group called Effective Autism Treatment, parents in there share what they've done to help their child and the positive outcomes.

The problem with assessments and diagnoses is that you wait years hoping it’ll be a magic fix and nothing happens. My daughter sounds similar. I can’t work. I’m very fortunate that my husband earns a high enough salary but even if he didn’t, I’d still have had to be at home as she can’t access wrap around care/holiday clubs and struggles daily. She’s autistic, adhd, spd, pda. - all the acronyms! I try so hard to be low demand, to let her be, do all the tricks I’m told at the countless courses I go on and it’s still never enough. I worry constantly about life after school because even though it’s wobbly and we don’t do full weeks, it’s still a routine, a ~role for this period of time in her life and I have no idea about what comes after. I love her more than life but I worry about my son as she can explode or just antagonise him constantly. She is medicated but the irony is that school complain her autistic traits are more apparent as a result. She doesn’t mask at school so we were able to access support early on but we went private for assessments and finding out she was x y and z didn’t change her behaviour obviously so was only useful in the sense that I could explain it.

Could be a number of those things including impulse control .
if you can’t afford private diagnosis can you read up on it.
she probably needs medicating tbh.
It’s terrible there’s no support available, where do taxes go?! I hope things get better

Get her privately assessed and also go and do all the parenting courses and workshops on autism and watch Tony Attwood on YouTube who is the expert on autism in girls! The fact she’s got to this age without you getting her assessed and also haven’t been parenting her differently to what she needs and she needs a PARENT!! This ridiculous behaviour from you her mum needs to stop!! Children with autism need a lot more routine and strictness with parenting than NT kids and you are failing her. She is like this because of the lack of everything.

It sounds like you need family therapy OP- ASAP. Not sure what is available in your area but even if you have to pay I think you really need to prioritise this financially above all else.

It is good that there are still 'glimmers' with love between you to build on....i'm sure you don't really want to give her up but are at the end of your tether and clearly the relationship is very fractured and you feel very worn down.

One thing I will say is, however hard it is make sure you don't fall into the trap of making her the black sheep of the family, withdrawing attention, love etc from her and treating her differently, consistently viewing or speaking about her openly in a negative way compared to the other children will only feed her insecurities and make her behaviours worse.

Remember, she is only 8, she clealry has something going on to behave in such an extreme way, and isn't doing this on purpose and is hurting and struggling too.

I do voluntary work with a charity that does short respite breaks for parents of Sen children. Maybe your area might have something similar.

I wonder if your daughter could be given something subtle to help with stimming at school, like a fidget toy or chewable necklace - something to help relieve some of the tension during the day. My children’s school encourage this for children who need it.

Haven't RTFT, but it seems there are residential schools in the UK for children with difficulties. She could come home at weekends. Don't know where you live, but here's an example:

https://www.beechlodgeschool.co.uk/