To be bloody furious with 5yo dd, and be on the verge of tears over this?

[Lowla]

I'm so angry! Been feeling like this since i picked up dd from school, and i'm just getting angrier with her.

Last month, i sent her into school with a week's dinner money in her new purse. Comes out at hometime telling me i forgot to give her dinner money. The purse is gone, as is the money. No one's seen it nor handed it in. So the teacher told me the school made her up a little sandwich for free.

I've told dd she's not allowed school dinners again, and will have to take packed lunches. She's upset about this because school dinners sit separately from packed lunches, and her 'best friend' is always school dinner.

Today she had P.E. I sent her in with her kit and new shoes.

She comes out at hometime saying i forgot to pack her p.e. kit. Everything was missing. Finally managed to track down her shorts and top in the classroom but her new shoes are gone (they cost me £25!). She says she lost them before P.E and she had to do it in her school hard shoes instead.

I've now had to go and buy a cheap pair of trainers for £5 from ASDA, which don't fit properly because she's a half size, and i had to go into my food budget for them.

She just doesn't give a shit. She has ASD and she just keeps saying 'oh well. never mind. we'll just buy new ones.'

I honestly feel like punching a wall. I realise i'm being totally irrational, but it's the lying that accompanies the losing stuff which pisses me off most. Her teacher claims dd told her that i forgot to pack her gym stuff today. DD also told them last time i gave her no dinner money. In the school's eyes - it's me that's forgetting stuff, not DD.

Since she started school, she's managed to lose a tie, a pair of glasses, a pair of gym shoes, a filled pencil case, her dinner money and purse, her new trainers, her blazer. And i've only got half of the stuff back, despite it being labelled.

Argh! She's in the next room loudly drawing a picture and saying to herself, "This will sure cheer mummy up! Her favourite - a butterfly!"

Dreading her coming in to give me it, because i'm really still angry with her and i'll end up hurting her feelings.

I'm at the end of my tether with her. I can't keep buying her replacement stuff, but what other choice do i have? She NEEDS a tie, she NEEDS a blazer etc etc etc. I'm just so angry with her!

Its worth a try Lowla. This friend often gives an awful lot of unwanted advice - he doesnt have children and we politly sit and listen bored rigid and very frustrated but to me its worth it becasue he does have a good birds eye view of looking at things sometimes and THAT advice did help me.

I remeber my siblings - much older ALWAYS telling me I was lazy...in the end I used to act up to piss them off and say things etc...never shook it off.

I think your daughter sounds great!

You are taking the lying as a personal thing i think. Its just how she copes in her world. It might be frustrating but she's not doing it to get at you.

I have often expected too much from my children for their age and have got angry about this before. Once i calm down and i remind myself that they are only so old i am fine, but you got angry all over again. This has really pushed some buttons for you and perhaps you should try to work out why exactly. What's your inner voice saying? (sorry i know that sounds wanky)

For me it would often be "why don't you listen to me" and i worked out at anger management classes that i had issues with not being listen to (because of childhood stuff). Once i realised what was behind it, it lost its power. I don't get so angry about that sort of thing now.

Also i knew very little about children so that was where my unreasonable expectations came from. I would be tense and stressed really easily when things weren't how i thought they should be, but it was me that needed to change my expectations, not my children change their behaviour. Because as children they have different priorities and live in the moment. So if i ask them to put their shoes on and instead they wander off and start colouring, they aren't trying to annoy me and deliberately ignore me, they just have different priorities which seem incredibly important to them. So much so that they can't resist.

It sounds like the constant fantasy stuff is either part of the asd or she just has an amazing imagination. Either way you're going to need to accept this about her because its not likely to suddenly stop. She might grow out of it, who knows, but for now this is what she does, don't take it personally.

I really wouldn't throw away her dvds or punish her for things which she can't help.

For goodness sake. Thanks for the concern, but rest assured my dd is perfectly all right. She's loved, she's healthy and we adore each other to bits. The only time she's scared of me is when i tell ghost stories!

I'm quite surprised i'm the only one who appears to have felt angered and annoyed by my own child before. I have friends who quite often rant about their children and DH when we get together. Doesn't mean they hate them. It means they are human. It means that everything isn't always roses and rainbows every single day.

Me and DD are glued to the hip. the only time we're apart is when she's asleep or at school, as i work during school hours. So of course she'll occassionally annoy me/i'll want five minutes to myself. And vice versa. Whenever i annoy her, such as singing a song too loudly, or waking her up to come and see the snow, she'll tell me to go away and stop annoying her.

DD already has a little box (as do all the children) to keep things in such as gym shoes. I really like the idea of a picture checklist though. And i'll take on board the fact i need to break down instructions. This is what her SALT says too. Sometimes it's easy to forget and i'll just say "go wash put your boots away then wash your hands then come down for dinner".

Hi Lowla

I think you are blowing it out of proportion but I understand when money is tight you can't afford to lose things.Ds is 4 and he sounds similiar to your dd, and most of the kids in his class tbh. And he doesn't even have asd. We lost his school books earlier and I was running round like a headless chicken say 'where have we put them', I couldn't understand how they'd got lost in a tidy house. He'd slotted them in between the big and small table nest but he couldn't remember!

I don't think that your dd is lying I really don't, children this age often can't even remember what they had for lunch so will make it up, ds often walks past people who look like his grandparents and shouts 'is that my nanny?'. Perhaos your dd thought that she saw her nanny? Also children don't think logically like we do, sometimes they tell lies because they think they'll get into trouble if they don't answer.

Ok trainers, I get ds school pumps from Clarkes, they are about £9 and they do half sizes and I then get my mum to sew labels inside, can you do this?

Regarding the dinner money, ds school ask for the children to bring it in too, no way am I giving my 4 year old £10 a week so you know what? We all ignore it and pay in the office or hand it to the class teacher.

Perhaps speak to her teacher and explain that she's not coping with the level of responsibility being placed on her, they should understand this and be supportive and work with her on givng her tasks to build on this. And you can do the same at home.

Please don't be so hard on her she sounds typical of lots of 5 year olds.

Throwing her dvd's away is not going to be an effective punishment,my son has asd and punishments have to be explained and given immeadiatley ,
once you have done that you need to let it go,you can't keep using it again and again.Visual reminders work so much better because after a while your words don't mean anything,it's just noise and she will comply with what ever you say just to make it stop.
I think you are angry because the reality has just hit you that your child is autistic and you are scared and don't know what to do for the best.
Trust me ,I blundered around my son,not knowing what to do for the best but it gets easier and don't be afraid to ask for help.
Don't worry about what your daughter says to her teacher, believe me she has heard it all before.
It is amazing how quickly parents of autistic kids grow thick skins ,trust me I spent 3 years crying over my son,but regardless of his asd he is mine and that is all he needs to be.

Not explained myself well there... the vivid imagination well they can make up stories and create fantasy worlds - I thought my son had a brilliant imagination until an ed psych pointed out he was recreating the SAME story repetitively and when he was asked to move outside of it he would start getting anxious, the speech would become stuttered and he would ultimately get angry... he would even throw random sentences in to get her off his back...

When kids are high functioning it can be so so subtle.

Can you give her "bear cuddles" for no reason? I think it is a bit sad if she associates cuddles with praise - to my mind that's setting up an expectation that to get affection you must act in a way to be worthy of it: you must please the 'giver of affection' or they will take their love/approval away if you upset them - which isn't a great relationship dynamic to take into later life, or great for self-esteem.

LIttle miss - who on earth has time to listen to a hundred ten minute stories every day? When i'm trying to rush her out to school and she says "I don't have school today," would you (in my shoes) stand there, go along with the story, making her late for school? Really?

Of course her stories get tedious! Do you expect me to lie and say i find everything my 5yo says to be intriguing?

And of course i communicate with her. She tells stories because she loves telling stories. She lies because she wants to. It's not some sort of desperate attention-seeking thing. I give her attention constantly. We're glued to the hip normally.

How rude.

sorry I didn't have time to read all thread,but YABVU,she's only 5,still small child, sort yourself out.

Well I read this from a mum who is very frustrated and yes cross that her dd has lost all these things and she needed to let off steam..not a mum who has anger management issues or hates her dd..Looks like to me she is doing all she bloody can. I hope you and your dd get the support and help needed from the school and also maybe next time maybe write a note to give to the teacher saying she has all ner gym kit or money for lunch ..or safety pin the note on her jumper....maybe other asd mums can come up with some helpful advice.

Dayshift - my dd does have a vivid imagination. It's a common misconception that kids on the spectrum don't. She is extremely creative. Always drawing pictures, and telling me stories about them.

I think that you should stpo saying that your dd lies because I'm telling you now that a 5 year old does not have the same concept of a lie the way an adult does.

X posts dayshift, sorry.

My dd does this too. Always repeating the same type of story (always revolves around butterflies and witches), and she always talks about old events (such as her nursery days).

Talking about the past is perhaps the only time she tells the truth. It's talking about current events that bring out the lies.

Cheese - i cuddle her all the time! 'Bear cuddles' are a tight squeeze then a spin around the room. I think i'd break a limb if i had to do that all the time.

Of course everyone gets annoyed at their children occasionally. But what people seem to be picking up on this thread is the intensity of your responses. Nearly everyone has said that your expectations are too high, that your child is behaving in an age appropriate way, that her behaviour is due to her age and/or her ASD. But it seems as though you still think of your 5-year-old as "a compulsive liar" or as uncaring and unfeeling. Even her heart-breakingly sweet gestures of drawing you a picture and writing an apology note you choose to interpret as manipulative.

Someone on this thread asked whether you remember what you were like at five. You responded as though this was a ludicrous question, but I think it's a very good one. I vividly remember being five years old. I remember the world as a big and confusing (though exciting and interesting) place, full of incomprehensible rules. I remember being terrified of getting in trouble. I once ran away from school, all the way home, because the teacher was going to "have a word" with me about some misdemeanour.

Also I used to smile when my mother told me off (as you said your DD does). It wasn't because I thought the situation was funny. On the contrary, it was a nervous response to an uncomfortable situation. And my mother was never in the least bit abusive. Nor are you, OP, by your account you sound like a very loving mother. But I do think you sound as though you're under considerable strain, and for whatever reason your DD is receiving the brunt of your emotions. Give her a break, enjoy her for who she is, and keep short accounts (i.e., start over tomorrow with a clean slate). That's my unsolicited advice for the day. :)

Oh dear lord, my DD is 5 and NT, and I'd say at least 50% of the time I spend with her, I'm somewhere between vague irritation and teeth-clenching suppressed boiling fury.

Think the school should be helping you more about stuff like dinner money, they sound quite good generally, so maybe if you put it to them that The System could be bent for DD, they might take it on board?

Not sure what else to call something that isn't the truth, Sparklyjumper?

Other than a lie.

Also I got ds these they are name tapes with a little picture of your choice on in a colour of your choice, they can be sewn onto garments so your dd will be more likely to remember her own things. And people will be more likely to hand things back.

Thank you, Rosa! That's exactly it. I needed to vent.

But somehow i've found myself having to convince a load of people i'm not a bully, that my dd is loved, and had to read my parenting skills being attacked and picked to pieces.

I think that's the reason my outburst was so intense actually. Because i've not vented before. That'll be me quite calm now for another five years i reckon.

cumfy. You are just trying to antagonise and are being annoying.
The op is dealing with a different situation than the op's parents would have done.

All those saying that autistic children don't tell lies..........ha ha ha ha! Get real!

Ok there are fifteen pages of replies and I haven't read all of them so I apologise if this has been covered. I don't think you are being unreasonable to be angry,no. To express this anger, yes, but to feel it, no. I actually think you did a highly responsible thing by coming on here and venting, rather than expressing it to your daughter. To my mind, that's what this place is (partly) here for, and its an important thing. Kids can be enormously frustrating.

What I do think is that its really daft to have a policy that requires little kids to handle largish amounts of money. I also think its especially daft when a child has additional needs which might make it hard for them to keep track of the money. I think you are being entirely reasonable to be angry, but I think the problem here is the school, not your daughter.

I honestly cannot imagine any of mine (all NT) having been able to manage this at 5. Honestly, I have a 5 year old, NT but entirely away with the fairies. I would not ever trust her with any amount of money, she'd use it to feed squirrels or something.

I am rude??? Take a good long look at the way you have treated your DD today.

I think you will find that you have been incredibly rude to your DD. Complete strangers on the internet are standing in your DD's corner, and you call them rude???

The mind boggles!!!

I will remind you of something poignant that I read someplace.

It said;

Anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don't listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they wont tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them, all of it has always been big.

You can continue being defensive, but would you treat any other 5 yr old this way? Would you expect to be spoken to the way you have spoken to your DD today?

I think not.

I feel more sad for your DD that you aren't even listening to what people are saying, unless they are soothing your furrowed brow, and you're still completely in denial about how nasty you have been to your 5 yr old today.

You still haven't said whether you are going to raise this issue with the school, instead you have just continued defending your inexcusable actions.

We all get pissed off but your treatment borders on cruelty. Punishing her for misdeeds she doesn't even understand she has done? Taking away the dvds she loves and binning them over behaviour she isn't deliberately doing??

I hope your DD bins your most prized possessions when you next annoy her.

Horrible horrible horrible way to go on.

And yet you show zero remorse for the way you have conducted yourself.

I'm lost for words!!!

Sounds like your daughter is getting distracted and has organisational difficulties and trouble remembering things as is common with ASD that does not make her liar.

Thanks, Sparkly - that's the exact ones we have. (she picked pink).

Only managed to get the sticky ones for shoes though, but they fall off with sweat, in the wash etc.