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 think the OP is confusing 'blissfully unaware' with a child who is desperately trying to placate her mother so she doesn't get angry. That might be completely incorrect but from what has been posted it seems a strong possibility.

valiumredhead, I doubt you think your posts are helping the OP, so what are you trying to achieve exactly? Looks to me like you're putting the boot in, which is easy enough on the anonymous internet, but perhaps it's time to back off for now. If you can honestly say you've never shown your frustration with your children then you are a rare diamond indeed.

i,d phone the school and see if you can take the dinner money to the office instead
my dd takes all her 10.00 dinner money but lucky she hasen,t lost it yet.the schoolrequires it every monday morning. very fustrating indeed things do cost money i can only suggest promting her to take care of her stuff say how its expensive can her dinnermoney be worn with a purse that has a string so she can wear it round her neck so its close or glasses warn on string maybe a better school bag with more zips so anything dosen,t fall out.

crinkle thats what my DD says to me = she is only leanring in the proccess of - what things cost! its all a learning process as is learning about feelings.
my DD sometimes cant remember what she did at school that day. its a huge transistion for them, they are still learning. her dd doesnt sound in any way different to anyone elses on here with a 5 year old.
and i dont blame my DD at all if she looses anything - well she came home without a jumper and the next day had a nasty fal and scrapped her arms. it was the school i was annoyed with we were told " oh all the jumpers end up in a big pile we havant sorted through yet". as long as op is clearly naming things - the school should be helping.
my dd is learning feelings sometimes she doesnt understand why i have been cross with her - evry time we step out onto a pavement or in a car park and she is running round blissfully unware of cars we are STILL telling her from since she was a toddler - WALK SENSIBLY etc etc etc!!! i thkn op has been going on about the lying so much thats what the dd thinks she should do.

but at that age 5 it does goin one ear and out the other as they say i,m sure i was just has bad as a kid.

Emma I disagreed with the OP's actions( along with many other posters) very different from 'putting the boot in.'

I have suggested the OP seeks help and support.

I posted to hecate as I disagreed with her comment, nothing more, nothing less.

I can absolutely say I have never shown anger and frustration in the same way the OP has either to my own child or to any other charges.

Perhaps if the OP doesn't want to hear differing views then the internet is not the place for her.

The OP hasn't talked about how she shows her frustration, she's talked about how she feels - and she's used this forum to vent her frustration instead of exposing her daughter to it.

There's one post where she said she looked cross in the supermarket - well, I see a lot of parents looking cross in the supermarket, and I've had a mumpy face on myself from time to time. I don't immediately assume we all need psychiatric help and our children are cowed and terrified. You're catastrophising.

I think it is worth saying again - if the OP comes back to read - that the school are not being reasonable in expecting 5 year olds to be responsible for dinner money. And that the communication procedures are woeful.

I have had three children at 4 different infant schools. Not one of them - including the selective prep - would expect a 5 year old to be responsible for money. It is simply unreasonable.

My five year old's school expects her to take her dinner money in (though she's usually packed lunches and only has one school dinner every fortnight - the hallowed "mega cookie day", where there's a giant cookie for pudding) The money goes in a little brown envelope and the teacher collects it from them all on the Monday morning.

However, parents can hand it into the office instead, I think.

I would hope parents can hand it in if need be.

Lowla can I suggest that you think about coming over to the Special Needs section? Name change if you'd feel more comfortable.

One of the things we've all learned over there is that ASD doesn't have a fixed 'picture' and children can be seeming to react in opposite ways, but the root cause is bizarrely the same!

You know that today's reaction wasn't proportionate to what happened, but I'd imagine you haven't been getting much support with your DD.

I do agree with others, that the school is not doing enough. It doesn't matter what their policy is, they have to comply with the Equalities Act, which means making 'reasonable adjustments' for disability (which ASD is). Allowing a parent to hand money for lunch in would be classed as a 'reasonable adjustment'.

emma

from the OP

I'm acting like it's the end of the world. I was telling her off all round ASDA after school while buying new trainers and was getting some dirty looks off people At the time, i felt like ripping their heads off. Especially the old woman who put her trolley in the middle of the aisle, and then tutted at me when i moved it out my way!

pag is right wrt the dinner money issue - if that really is the school's policy it needs addressing, it is U and unrealistic to expect 5 year olds to hand in dinner money.

i keepreading this post other and other again im sure when the op posted she diden,t think she was going to get this kind of response. i think every body had the image of the five year old girl trying to make up with her mum very sad but every mum on here must have been in asituation where they felt they want to shout scream if not then were all saints. i think the thread has gone of the loop de loop side and been taken a little out of content. some of the comments were really useful but others just seem to go on and on and miss the point.

also where is all this stuff going, if its not at aschool maybe someone is taking it off her?

our school sends round emails if something has gone missing like a coat, it only happens rarely. I would be in the shcool kicking up a fuss...where on earth can all these items go to in a class room of children of that age?!

i mean i wouldnt be buying new stuff but in the school looking for it myself - wanting emails to go round - asking the teachers to watch at what opporutnities are there for all this stuff to dissapear i can only seee pe time?

I agree, I would put the responsibility on the school to find the missing PE kit, it's primary school so not a huge secondary, should be easy enough to find.

Yy lougle

I asked upthread, as did other poster, that the OP consider trotting over to SN.

The point for me is that Lowla is trying so fucking hard to make life just regular - not wonderful and glowing - just a regular life where most conversations make sense and you take your kids to school and she mostly manages.
I think frustration, impotence, grief etc are all bubbling up.
Managing a life you didn't expect, didn't ask for and feel useless at is hard. Really hard. It takes time and support.

Poor Lowla is so angry because she is heartbroken . In my very humble opinion.

I was Lowla for a while.

in my daughters school they have a text service and if somthing is lost they text the parents or put it in the schools news letter. i dont know what the schools op goes to but i cant imagine any teacher blaming the mum for losing the stuff also there pe kit gets left in school at all times and only to be taken home halfterm.

Even our year 6s don't have to handle dinner money - parents have to hand it into the office on Modays. I thought all schools did this nowadays to avoid the issue of dinner money being nicked. I was obviusly wrong. I think it's nuts to make the kids 'take care of it' at age 5. Does the school know your daughter has ASD? They should be giving her help to her organise her PE things.

Your 5-year-old now

"I didn't do it," your child shrieks. It doesn't matter that you saw her throw the ball that shattered your grandmother's lamp. But fortunately, lying at this age doesn't necessarily mean your child is destined for delinquency.

Try not to erupt or punish harshly. If you can discover why she lied, you can handle it more appropriately. Most likely, she's worried about getting punished or disappointing you. Kids this age don't fully understand that deceit is adding to the problem. Sometimes 5-year-olds even deny wrongdoing just to get a rise out of you.

Take care not to try to catch your child in a lie. If you saw the incident, don't then ask, "Did you break the lamp?" You just handed her an opportunity to lie. Instead say, "I saw what happened. You know you're not supposed to throw balls in the house. Help me clean up." Stress the importance of telling the truth, and set a good example. Make sure your child knows that you love and trust her to do the right thing.

In the schools around here the children don't handle money either. All children are issued a 'credit card' type thing which the teacher keeps until lunch time and the children then use to pay for food.

Cards are topped up by parents handing in money to the office and if the card runs out of money the child can still use it and the parent will get a letter home asking to top the card up again, that way there's no embarrassing moments at the till if the card runs out of credit.

For children on free school meals the cards are topped up automatically so nobody knows who is on free school meals and who isn't. I think this is a far better system than giving the children money at the start of the week.

Agree with others re the school. They really should make adjustments for her with the dinner money, lost kits etc.

Not long after ds2 was diagnosed with his syndrome (not asd) I was chatting to our GP about how incredibly angry I felt. Not at him, but sometimes about him. My whole parenting ideals had just been blown out of the water. In a way I was lucky as I had an older child so also got to experience parenting in the normal way. Even now, years on I have to go upstairs and take very deep breaths to calm down sometimes, and I like to think we are pretty much sorted nowadays.

I really feel that getting your daughter proper support in school will help how you feel such a lot. You say it's a great school and it may well be so in general. It needs to be great at adapting a few things for your dd too.

Pagwatch, I understand that. I still get side-blinded at times with DD1 who is now 7. Her school are so positive about her that I almost get tricked into thinking she's like other 7 year olds. Then I suddenly realise all over again, that even as an adult she will be 'different'.

Even with DD2, who's issues aren't quite defined yet, I get frustrated that I have to clarify everything because she's so literal - it's exhausting.

However, this is the life we have - we only have one, and it's going to be a miserable one if the OP doesn't get support to deal with the hard bits and cherish the good bits.

we can pay direct to the canteen for several week, or give in that days dinner money to the child in a money belt. or packed lunch.

id be directing my anger at the school.