Why is one child so different when we have parented them alike?

[differentchildterribletwos]

How can one child be so different when we did everything the same??

3 girls: 11,9 and 7. All had the same formula milk, all had the same vaccines, all weaned at the same stage on the same food. All went to the same nursery at the same age. Baby and toddler classes etc. The same routines at bedtime etc.

Dd1 and 2 had their moments (terrible twos !) dd3 started early with the tantrums and they haven’t stopped. She is absolutely the hardest work and I don’t know what to do. Every day is screaming.

She has screamed every bathtime every time we brush her teeth or wash her hair. She screams if we are going out or staying in. She barely eats. Says most meals are disgusting and refuses 90% of all food offered.

Takes 2-3 hours to go to sleep (shouts from her room or repeatedly gets up)

We did everything the same yet she’s so different.

School say she is disruptive and she is behind in a lot of areas but they say she is capable. We asked if they thought she had SEN and they said no it’s a choice she’s making.

Im exhausted. Is this just a prolonged phase ? Has anyone had similar ? I feel bad for my older two as the behavior ruins any days out holidays or anything at home.

I have fraternal twins and one is Autistic and the other is not. They are already shaped by their genetics before you have a chance to nurture.
Have a read up about pda Pathological Demand Avoidance.

People are all different aren't they.

Well potentially because shes autistic?

I have 2 and the struggles with sleep and sensory activities all line up.

Life sounds quite rough for her at present. National Autistic Society have great resources. The best thing ive done is paid for private occupational therapy for my autistic children. Helped me understand their unique profiles and needs and how I could help.

You dont need to wait for diagnosis to offer her the support and adjustments she needs.

Often, parents say they parented the same, particularly if their children behave differently, they can’t fathom how or why.

However, you can’t actually parent the same.

You don’t have the same time available for a start. That’s not a criticism it’s reality.

You can set the same rules and same boundaries but each child is different in how they respond to those rules and boundaries and how they understand them.

You might say to child A - Tidy up your toys, they tidy up immediately. Say that to child B and they could sit there for 10 minutes thinking eh? What do I do? How do I deal with this mess? But it looks like they aren’t listening/doing as they are told etc

Parent the child not the house.

If you are at your wits end and are looking at her knowing in your heart something more is going on than just your parenting, esp compared to her siblings, then ignore the school and get down to the GP for a referral for her.

school were like this with my son…saying no behavioural issues then I found out he’d been having movement breaks, 1:1 help from teaching assistants, had been seated specifically to help his attention, we kept getting called in for him getting into fights at break time, etc etc. After I took it into my own hands and got him referred for an adhd assessment via the GP they ended up being sent paperwork to fill in about him which gave a VERY neurodiverse picture and ended up helping him get a diagnosis. I think sometimes teachers are unaware that the behaviour they are seeing IS neurodiversity, they need to tick the boxes on the forms to have it proven to them.

at any rate, if she isn’t ND then that’s something you can tick off in the search for answers. No 7 year old sets about to be a nightmare. She must be miserable and stressed

I have two kids and they are complete opposites! Now I won’t comment on whether your child has additional issue - take her to a child psychologist for that, but I have one obedient (though fiesty), academic rule following introvert and one who saw school as a social club and can’t sit still for five minutes and makes a friend every time he leaves the house. I was in hospital last week and he knew all the nurses and porter’s names, and talked to the patients next to me (he’s just turned 23, so this isn’t childish chattering). My DD would have sat there not saying boo to a goose. Now it’s true I probably did bring them up differently as one’s a girl one’s a boy and she was easier (not until age 5/6 though), but it’s nature. They are built the way they are, and outside of abuse they will be who they are despite you, not because of you.
So dint think you are responsible for her behaviour, but do find out if there’s anything else going on.

Speak to your GP about a Right To Choose assessment, it will get you answers most quickly

“We did everything the same yet she’s so different” - no you didn’t though - you can’t do everything the same because there are siblings in the mix with later DC.

I remember listening to a podcast about this very thing and a child psychologist basically saying what I have written. When you have DC1, there is only them. Then with DC2, there’s a sibling in the mix, with DC3, there’s two siblings etc. so although you think you are doing the same, the home environment is completely different for each of the DC.

another pieces of great advice was “you gave to work with the child you’ve been given” rather than try to seek explanations or “solutions” for the differences.

My DS1 was a dream and DD2 was a bloody nightmare! Now she’s grown up I’m glad she’s “spirited and challenging” as the HV liked to call it as she’s independent and very assertive.

Good luck - it gets better!

I have identical twins with completely opposite interests, one outgoing and one shy. If they didn't look identical you probably wouldn't even know they were siblings. So identical genes and very similar environment. Go figure

Yeah I had two fairly easy kids. I was firm with boundaries but they also were pretty easy going. They made me look amazing 🤩. Then I had my son and if he had been my first I would have thought I was the worst parent ever!
He is autistic and every day is hard because he needs rigid routines and struggles with sensory, hates school.

I would do some research on asd /adhd and see what you think. School saying no doesn’t mean she’s not it just mean they can’t see it which could be because they are choosing not to, because they are incompetent or they could be right but I would want a qualified professional making that judgement personally. If you think there’s something go to your GP.

Genes

And agree re: ND. Girls are harder to diagnose earlier partly because everyone is dismissive. My DD just got a diagnosis at almost 9. I had been asking everyone who worked with her in school/nursery since she was 2.

My DS1 is severely autistic and has ADHD. He was born extremely prematurely, which was almost certainly the cause of both.

He had an EHCP before even starting school, and had 1:1 support, but the school insisted that he wasn’t autistic. They “lost” every paediatric questionnaire, or claimed we hadn’t provided them in the first place, and accused me of lying and paranoia. He had been under hospital care continuously since birth, yet it took until he was nine and a half and at a different school to finally get his autism diagnosis.

In your situation, OP, and from what you’ve said, I would seriously look into the possibility of your daughter being neurodivergent.

You shouldn’t parent your children alike. You should parent them according to their individual needs.

No child is parented alike though because with each child there is already experience or no experience, siblings to manage etc etc. I don’t believe any child is raised the same because the situation changes for each child.
I seek some support and maybe testing for your younger daughter in what I’ve read though

Sounds like autism to me.

I will make a gp appointment

I used to believe more in nurture but since having my own kids, I think nature rules. I think they're born as complete people and you've just got to roll with it. And parent in a way that's right for each child rather than exactly the same.

Because parenting techniques are just one part of how a person turns out, genetics play a much bigger part, and each child can have different genes and personality

On the "is 3 kids much harder than 2?" threads people always comment that the third one just slots in. Well mine didn't! My DC3 was a much trickier child than DC1 or DC2. No ND in my case though - just a more feisty personality.

Yet another vote for neurodiversity. The school sound lazy and avoidant

I have an autistic dd, and I’m not one to normally diagnose via internet but she sounds just like my dd who was diagnosed age 6. Wouldn’t always go with what school say, we had issues with dd’s school before diagnosis. Boys often get seen as having needs and girls as defiant.

The clothes, the brushing teeth, sleep, change, routine. It definitely says neurodivergent to me.

The teeth brushing/hair washing/ fussing over clothes sounds like sensory processing, ds had this, and was quite difficult. We saw a speech therapist for an assessment as I didn’t feel that my son kind of understood when I gave instructions, even though his speech and vocab were ok. the speech therapist diagnosed auditory processing disorder, we did lots of sessions with her on things like ‘good listening’, she gave us homework to do in between the sessions and I honestly felt like it really improved things,

This presents very much like Autism with a PDA profile.

The school's response is absolutely rubbish. Shockingly bad in fact.

Go to your GP and ask for a referral for a diagnosis. It might be a very long waiting list but hopefully you will be offered access to parent support like tge Stepping up to Autism online course offered by the National Autistic Society. You need to be able to speak to parents experiencing the same difficulties as you.

5 factors that determine a child’s character:

1. The genes that they inherit from their parents - and this varies a lot between children from the same two parents. Genes are hugely influential in lots of behavioural traits, at least as much as what humans learn after being born.
2. The environment in the womb - was the mother stressed / calm, exhausted / energised, neglected/ supported, taking drugs / alcohol, well nourished etc. All these states produce a specific chemical state in the mother’s body that the developing foetus is exposed to.
3. Birth: easy or complicated, life threatening, traumatic, etc, can have lasting impacts on the child.
4. The environment into which the child is born: are the baby and mother supported, are there other children needing attention, are they well nourished and cared for or neglected and struggling, are there attachment issues, are they bf or not, is the mother able to dedicate herself to the newborn in those all important early days. Again all these can have a big impact on the early development of a newborn baby.
5. The environment that the child is exposed to in the first 3-5 years of its life. Is it calm, supportive, stressfree? I’d the child valued, loved, attached to its primary care givers?

so although you might think your two children had the same start in life, they really didn’t. They were different gentically, and you as parents were different, and the environment is different (not least because of having an older sibling or you being a more experienced parent second time round). )