One DD disabled, one not. Help please on appropriate jobs for them!

[Gymbob]

DD 15 is disabled. She's not your usual teen. She is deaf with autistic traits and very difficult to manage. DD 2 is 14 and high achieving. DD 1 does jobs she can manage like walking the dog and washing up. DD 2 is capable of so much more and it has been suggested to me that I am doing her no favours by letting her get off so lightly at home.

This morning I asked her to do jobs as DD1 out working all day. Hit the roof. Also said that from now on rid will be doing her own ironing. She said she would not and would wear creased clothes!

AIBU what would you do?

we can't get respite as there is no diagnosis not sure I could do that to her anyway.

will look into pda thanks x

OP - I haven't got much experience of SN or teenagers (other than I was one!), but given that you and your DH are struggling, maybe you need to pare back your expectations a bit and let some things slide.

Yes DD2 should be helping more, but perhaps its not worth making you all miserable over in the short term. It is important to prepare DCs for adult life, but its not essential to make it a focus when you are having such a hard time more generally.

Sometimes reading too many parenting books makes you think there's a golden solution out there if only you could find it, when sometimes its better to focus on the now for the sake of your sanity!

they hardly do anything in the house but it does grate on me.

our main priority is DD1's school work and trying to get her showered and hairwashed on an evening as even though she wants to do it it is all too much for her and can sometimes take 2 or 3 hours.

If I may ask, does she struggle with the shower and hairwash? In what way? This may be a way to start streamlining things for her a bit. What's the routine for the shower/hairwash?

I think they should be doing equal amounts at home. DD2 shouldn't have to do more maybe just different tasks. Don't iron her clothes because it's a waste of time. I don't iron anything! Let her wear her clothes how she likes!

Tell us about the showering problems, 2 or 3 hours is an awful long time to be messing about trying to get her showered. Have you ever used schedules/ timetables? Is it such a long task because she doesn't want to or because she can't? Have you tried baths with any more success?

getting washed is another insurmountable task. first you have to leave what you are doing which is a major problem. we've tried it all. rewards, sanctions, timers, threats. we've tried steering her in another direction as shower time approaches so it's not so hard to leave the favoured one. that can take an hour. to get undressed can take half an hour or more, again it's too much. showering itself can take 45 mins and that's with me putting my head round the shower curtain saying, now shampoo, now rinse, etc. not forgetting that she doesn't have her hearing aids in so it's not easy to communicate

she falls asleep in the bath and that makes her bad tempered. if I leave her in the shower she just doesn't come out. we can't afford the electric!

she asks for help with washing as she wants to be clean and knows she can't do it alone. on the occasions we have said be dirty then she will get very distressed the next morning

If you're looking at getting her more independent, perhaps laminate a list of what needs to be done in the shower (broken down step by step) and put it on the wall where she can see it and follow it. (we have them all over the place here for DS1 - I get a lot of stick about the toilet instructions from guests thinking initially it's for everyone! ) Also, since her hearing aids are not in, you don't need to TELL her what's next, if need be, you can simply point to it on the list.

Then I think it needs to be broken down. Why does getting undressed take so long? Does she struggle because she gets too cold? Is it coordination issues? Does she not know what to do with the clothing once it's off? Once you can figure out what some of the triggers are, you can start ticking them off the list as you find solutions for them. For DS1 it was the cold - so if it's chilly at all, I put the heater on prior to his bath/shower enough to warm up the bathroom so he can take off his clothing in there. It's not so much a problem in the summer when it's quite warm.

I know it's a long and involved process, as I'm working on different things like this all the time, in some effort to get DS1 more independent. For example, he refused to get his hair washed. He wanted to do it himself, but could not coordinate well enough to deal with liquid shampoo - between the bottle lid and spilling it all over before it reached his head, it was a nightmare. So I bought one of those cinnamon solid shampoos from Lush, and now he's starting to make an effort to do it himself (still a work in progress). The rinsing off is still something we're working on, but sudsing up is getting better slowly.

My nearly 20 year old still never does her own washing/ironing of clothes when home from uni and when at uni she said that she's only ironed about 2 things and worn the rest un-ironed. I only learned to iron when I left home to get married. I don't think I will ever expect my other two children to iron either.

yes must visit sn board.

it's the task itself she finds overwhelming, not a particular part of it. I don't know how to make getting undressed less. I do help when she lets me and undress her myself but she has to be in an amiable mood for that and I can say you take one sock off and I will the other

her coordination is fine btw x

gymbob I only ask because DS1 has disabilities and can find certain tasks beyond him if presented to him in a "okay, you need to take a bath now" manner, whereas if he's prepared and we've slowly established a routine, breaking everything down into steps, he functions much better. Still not independent by any stretch, but for the most part it's carved down the amount of meltdowns and time consumed by some tasks.

I don't obviously know what level your DD's cognitive skills are (my DS's are somewhat sketchy, good in some areas, poor in others), but can she tell you what difficulties she is having, how she is feeling, what she finds difficult during particular steps, as she is doing them? If so, that can often give you a good insight into it. I say this not in a condescending way at all, but because I tended to just steer DS through tasks and sometimes ran into obstacles that made no sense, but when it finally clicked to actually ASK him different questions at the time, he actually could verbalise SOME of the issues (sometimes clearly, sometimes in a very roundabout way), which meant I could then work on helping fix the situation.

thanks Alice. she just says it's too much for her and she can't start it without help. she has to be helped with everything. breaking it down doesn't help she just gets cross and says I'm treating her like a baby.

sorry to come across as negative. I'm usually a positive person. my glass is usually half full not half empty

no worries. I'd just keep chipping away little by little with her, trying to get her to get things going on her own. Perhaps make sure your hands are full and you're tied up with something and say "i'll be there in just a moment, but I've got to finish this up - you do xxxx and I'll be right there to help with the next bit." That sometimes works with DS1.

Stealth approach. lol

I suggested laminating the list only due it being in the shower, so it won't get soggy.

We use laminates everywhere in our house because otherwise the paper gets torn down, ripped, or similarly mess with, mainly because mine are younger and (much like Drop Dead Fred, he likes those ripping/breaking sounds ).