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.

I have seen the GP who has referred her for assessment for autism, they wanted supporting evidence from the school who say she’s fine there so that was more of a hindrance than help.
I don’t know what else we can do other than wait for the assessment.
I read everywhere that there is no help even when diagnosed but happy to be told otherwise if there is.

It's my professional experience as a social worker of 12 years. I'm not saying that children never go into care with agreement from the parents, but you can't just go and give them up. There is a huge amount of work that goes in to preventing children coming in to care. It's terrible for children, and extremely expensive, so it's very very hard to achieve.

The early help service.

You can contact social services direct and request Early help. You can put in a parental application for an EHCP, an Educational psychologist will assess and put measures in place at school so that masking isn’t necessary and hopefully home life will be easier.
I am a foster carer to a similar aged child who was placed into care voluntarily, under similar circumstances, while siblings all remained at home. I cannot begin to tell you the impact this has had on the child, and the consequences of this. I would strongly urge you to fight to get your child the help that their behaviour is showing you they need.

Id start videoing every incident. Even if it mens placing hidden cameras, obviously not in bathrooms

Social Worker here. If you contact Children's Services for support they will complete an assessment and can offer you some parenting support. They will not put any child into foster care in your situation- foster care is an absolute last resort for children at risk of harm & is only considered when all possible other avenues such as other family members have been exhausted.

Got it, thanks. So it’s not illegal. I think it’s good there is a last resort for cases where children are being terrorised to this degree by a sibling.

I was that child.... I was out into care whilst my mum kept older and younger siblings and I still resent for for it. It has left me with serious issues so please don't let her go through what I did 😭

the one that has been there already for the OP’s daughter and rest of the family?

I would still talk about social services if not for the girl who is abusing the family, to ask for support on protecting her victims.

This.

Please don't talk about a neurodivergent 8 year old as an abuser and use language like 'victims'. This is a child with needs that are not being met.

What were the reasons why you were behaving as you were?

No surefire advice here but lots of love.

I’m a parent to a DC around the same age with diagnoses of ASD (PDA profile) and ADHD.

The violence is frightening as they get bigger. The resistance to everything, all the time, is wearing.

We have found it helpful to be as low demand as possible with our DC and the meltdowns have decreased to almost nothing. But our lives are very small - and he doesn’t have siblings whose needs we need to consider, which makes things simpler for us than it is for most families.

Hang in there - look at Eliza Fricker and Naomi Fisher’s work (they’ve written a bunch of books together & post really helpful stuff on Instagram), check out Casey Erlich on IG as AtPeaceParents on masking & PDA.

Don’t count on an assessment / diagnosis making much difference, sadly.

It is so hard when school don’t see it (and gaslight you about your poor boundaries etc being the issue…)

ETA - do ask to have this moved to the SEN board or you’ll just get piled on by the ‘no child of mine would get away with that’ posters

Would social services not think of the dagger of the other children? If there no safeguarding for them?

Is your daughter ever different? If you take her out alone does she behave differently?
Had she always been like this?

If I contact social services and say my other children are living with this, will they not just take my other children from this situation? My children would be safe here without her but I don’t know what to do.

It’s so tough, I am sorry you’re going through this. My year 3 DS has autism with a PDA profile - have you heard of this? His behaviour sounds like your child’s - we have a lot of violence and meltdowns. But there are specific approaches for PDA kids that do help - so you might want to look into that.

We had a safeguarding referral made by our GP because of DS’s outbursts - we now have a social worker and actually they’ve been great. I would definitely speak to the GP now and see if a referral would be appropriate. Ours is with a specific team for disabled children, but I imagine the same kind of support would be available without a diagnosed condition.

They won't take any of your children! They don't want your children. They will try to offer you some support in terms of parenting and signposting but trust me, they won't be taking your children anywhere

That does sound traumatic, but your mother was trying to protect 2 of her children - I doubt she took the decision lightly.

we use the same kind of approach as @2stone and @VoltaireMittyDream describes - it’s sometimes called low demand. DS perceives a lot of things as a threat so no shouting, phrasing things so they’re not a demand etc.

it helped me massively to see DS’s behaviour as a nervous system disorder that he can’t control.

What routes have you gone down so far? Therapists etc?

This post made me a bit sad.

have you chased the referral? Phoned every day and said any cancellations today?
asked where school can support? Video or record evidence and show school then ask for support
educational psychologist referral?
I’d be doing all of those before I got rid of my child.

@RoseField1thats not true at all. We’re in a very similar position and we have a CHAD (children affected by disability) social worker.

You need to have cameras running in the house and some footage to provide to the school and social services and the GP and start negotiating for more help.

I'm so sorry.

OP has to consider the safety of ALL three children, not just the violent one who is literally assaulting her and terrorising her siblings. If that means asking social services to put her into care if proper assessments and support isn't provided, then so be it.

But this reads as

the GP has referred us and the wait list is long

where does the OP say she’s pushed and is fighting every day?

My family are criminal psychologists and there are studies that show that children even taken away for 24 hours from their parents does such damage that can never be recovered

I remember a study saying that if you had a mother who was a drug addict but was still able to look after their child that it was better to do that then to put them into care for Temp for a short time