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!

I'm not really sure why you've posted if I'm honest.

You don't want advice or help. You don't want anyone to tell you that your DD's behaviour is pretty standard for 5YOs.

The only thing I think you're you're looking for is validation that your enormous anger at the behaviour of your 5 year old child with learning difficulties is well deserved.

I think you came to the wrong place.

Has my anger at my kids resulted in me crying and physically shaking? No

If it ever did it would mean that I was losing control of my emotions.

OP this is far more than a crappy day, especially as in the same post you mention "years of frustration".

If you don't get some help the only person to suffer is your dd.

Spot on Kiri.

Skullcandy

Of course I get angry with my children, even my ASD son.

But I can honestly say I never, ever get angry or ranty at my DS for any behaviour which is directly atributable to his ASD and I would have plenty to say about it to anybody that did!

I really think it's time to lay off now.

I think we've said it all. The OP has stuck around. Of course she feels defensive, but the posts stand and she can read at her leisure. Nothing further to be gained by berating her more.

OP. i wish you well. Some great advice on here.

It's a "maternal crime" to take out adult frustrations on a 5 year old disabled child because she is behaving in a totally understandable way.

Show me where i 'took out my frustrations'?

You all seem to be making an awful lot of assumptions, and aren't reading my posts clearly.

My dd was not affected at all by my virtual/cyber outburst, because she's not psychic. She can't read my mind. Nor can she read this thread.

I am sickened and insulted by the way ASD diagnosis is being tossed about on this thread.

The reason i seem 'cold' towards a lot of your responses is because i think they're bollocks.

How on earth you can diagnose ASD over the internet, on a stressed out mum having a rare rant is quite hilarious, if not disgusting.

Also, being called a bully for telling off my child (goodness me!) is equally hilarious.

Know what I don't belive this thread either!

There said it. Read it all and as a reception TA I just can't accept a school MAKES a 5 year old take in a weeks cash as dinner money.

Doesn't ring true.

Lowla, I'm so glad you acknowledged further down the thread that your expectations of your dd are unrealistic. I think you really need some help/to do some research about how small children understand and experience the world. Calling her a 'liar' is incredibly harsh. Small children do not have the same rigid understanding of 'reality' and 'fantasy' that adults do. They don't have all those years of experience, much less the same brain development.

You need to be able to grasp what the world looks like through her eyes. Not sure if the 'what to expect' books go up to five years, but you do need to get hold of some decent (i.e. evidence-based) books on child development so you can understand what her world is like. Have a look on Amazon for books by Tanya Bryon - v. good and sensible child psychologist.

For instance, a ten pound note doesn't carry huge significance to a child - they don't get pay packets, they don't have bank accounts, to them it's just a piece of paper that Mummy hands over in a shop in return for something, they have very little ability to quantify it.

If only you could see the difference between a child's brain and a child's mind and an adults, you'd be astonished at the demands you are making of your dd and how unreasonable they are. Honestly. That doesn't make you a bad mother, we can all learn stuff all the time, and I'm sure I'm really crap at some stuff that you do extremely well. But you are way off target in your expectations of your dd.

I've cried because I've been angry/frustrated at my son.

Agree Jamie, op if you're still reading don't end up staying up reading just get yourself off to bed. I really hope tomorrow's a better day, and perhaps over the weekend just maybe look at doing some of those visual lists and what yoy might want to speak to dd teacher about.

Yes, i was calm. Which is why i felt like ripping their heads off. They were obviously as precious as the majority of you. Can't tell a child you're upset. Can't insist a child looks for their shoes tomorrow. Can't tell a child to stop running away from you in case they get lost.

Its weird that they would give you looks just for that.

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone.

The SALT is great. Already enrolled me in two courses - due to start a Hanen one next month. Hopefully she'll be able to come up with ideas/strategies to help dd with her stuff, and start telling the 'truth' more. Hopefully bring forward the review meeting too.

Anna - thanks very much. Your posts are really informative.

CheerfulYank - oh god me too. Many times. I haven't sat and seethed for two hours in another room because he lost an item of clothing though.

hi OP
im a mum to a man child of 21 with ASD who still loses things weekly. If you get stressed you will be in for a very long hard road.....they just cant help it.

DS is very bright, he is a uni but honestly....you need to find ways to make life easier - if that means taking dinner money to the office yourself so be it, if it means handing PE kit to the teaching assistant - so be it. honestly make life easier for both you you and find ways of working around the problems - if your DD does have ASD she will always forget things/lose things - its part of the condition.

good luck! it is frustrating but you have to adapt....

illgetmycoat, schools do expect DC's to bring in their own dinner money, I know my children have from age 5 always dealt with the dinner money. I would and still do give a cheque tho as that's easier to keep tabs on.

I get angry with my kids and know plenty of other mums that do too. Those saying they never do are the exception in my opinion.

For me though the problem isn't that you got angry but that you are still so angry all these hours later that your daughter doesn't behave the way you want and you are still blaming her for being forgetful and telling fibs. Also still expecting too much for her age. I find that a bit extreme and that's coming from someone who has been to anger management. Unless you adjust your expectations the anger will keep coming.

X-posted. Hope your sessions are useful

And i've listened to everyone! (except the strange people who are distressed by my thread...).

So you've listened to very few posts then, because by all accounts, most posts on here are from people who are distressed at what you have written.

That just shows how adamant you are that your behaviour was acceptable today, that you call the people who were distressed 'strange'. How rude to label people as strange after they understandably became distressed by your behaviour and took time to post, to offer you advice.

Every time someone challenges your behaviour, you automatically go into defensive/sarcastic mode...I do hope you don't attempt sarcasm as a way of getting your feelings across to your daughter.
It wont be very effective.

Mind you, I am wasting my time writing this aren't I? Because you are only listening to the people who are wiping your furrowed brow, stroking your hair for you.

I'm not so you'll not be listening to me, because I am more concerned about your DD than I am about you.

This thread was supposed to be all about you wasn't it OP. Your feelings of frustration and resentment and anger, and that's why you're getting all PA when people are distracted from how you feeling because they are focusing on your DD.

If you are a PA person, a sarcastic person, you will find DD much much harder work than needs be.

I haven't sat and seethed for two hours in another room because he lost an item of clothing though.

Neither have i, Kiri.

I 'seethed' because of a whole number of things that's happened today. If i'd had a great day of work, dd had never lost anything before, she didn't constantly 'embellish' - then i'm sure i would have been my usual, chirpy self this evening.

I'm sorry, but you as a parent (or a carer if not) have to walk the little ones to school. What's to stop you/the carer from putting the cheque /cash in the office yourself? Why would you lay that responsibility on your child, when he/ she is already dealing with a new environment / new stimulation. It just doesn't add up. Particularly if your child has ASD.

Lowla, you took out your frustrations on your dd because you had had a bad day! So I'm assuming if you didn't have a bad day and the only 'crime' was the money/kit issue, you would not have reacted so strongly?

Something keeps bugging me reading this OP. I don't know anything about ASD but can it affect short term memory?
My father had some brain damage which meant he had an excellent long term memory but couldn't remember what happened 5 mins ago. He would just make stuff up or repeat the same thing over and over. It was his way of dealing with it. It drove my poor mother up the wall, but he couldn't help it.
Also I must say that a great deal of my DD's (6) friends parents complain to me that their DC's cannot remember what they have done at school that day and make up random stories about what they have been doing so I don't think the embellishment is that unusual. My DD tells me some corkers but I take it as the imagination of a 6yr old which is more interesting than the truth.
I really hope you get some help with the school as their expectations do seem a little high for such a young child.
If it helps any I think you have done a wonderful job to only lose your temper once in 5yrs when you have been doing it all single handed. Most of us can walk out of the room when things get too much and someone will take over. You don't have that luxury.

because the office staff have enough to deal with without a line of parents waiting to pay in dinner money.

My DC's newsletters are always reminding parents that children are responsible for topping up the lunch card.

Exactly fuckadoodle Of course everyone gets angry with their dc, that's not what this is about. I've been REALLY angry with my dc at times but that really angry feeling lasts 10 mins max, not hours on end.