Quick Advice DD2 refusing to go on holiday...

[fun1nthesun]

We need to leave now! dd2 has decided she isn't going (12 years old). Leaving her with relatives/friends isn't an option. She has form for sudden refusals, and in fact we lost £££ the last time she demanded to do expensive lessons and then changed her mind after we had given the money.

Any suggestions? Our holiday is ruined

Delphinium a pp made the point about all behaviours being human, rather than a stark divide between behaviours from a NT child and a child with SN. I think that is very good food for thought.
Tbh. Your post didnt make much sense to me.
I heard "I told you so" with no foundation really.

To be honest there are some kinds of 'needs' which only become apparent as teenager starts to experience difficulty with growing up and/or have big struggles with progressing to adult independence.

That's the point at which you look back at apparently small incidents in childhood and early adolescence and think, 'Right, that was a sign. But I missed it. I didn't have the information then, that I have now.'

Obviously some kids just have small blips and a few difficult moments along the way, before turning into independent adults.

While with others developmental differences are apparent from babyhood....

Glad it worked out in the end, OP. Enjoy the rest of your holiday.

Don't hide the thread. Its been really interesting. I don't think delphinium was being inflammatory. And i dont think she meant to stress you out. Just that you hold different views.
I know lots of ppl think my make it up as i go along, soft-set approach to raising my children is probably not strict enough and i am going to bring forth a couple of mighty hooligans. I disagree. Even with (well, presumably, so far) NT kids i have no desire to turn daily life into a power struggle. But i think there's good enough research to show that it makes sense.

so, i guess, even if the is nothing developmental at play here i think i have a strong preference for the approach that gold was describing.

Oh dear. Definitely tired now. (Should have been mo strict with my night-waking toddler) off to bed.
Night night all. Thanks for the chat.

I was not meaning to upset anyone. Since I did -I apologise.
My posts have always made clear that I didn't think OP's DD had SNs of any sort - which she didn't. I am not saying this in an'I told you so' manner- just as a fact. She tested the boundaries and OP showed her where they were, so it ended happily- (as long as the weather improves!)

It is a tricky subject Maryz- it obviously hits a nerve with parents of children with SNs and I will keep off in future. There are however lots of badly behaved children who have no reason for it- and they can have the loveliest parents too! Some just see a boundary to have to test it!

It can just be personality - nothing more, nothing less!

My brother was difficult for the sheer sake of it- he liked stirring things up if bored!

IME different developmental stages require evolving approaches and changes between stages can be confusing for parents and children as boundaries and relationships change.

We can't deal with a 12 year old in the same way as a 3 year old (although sometimes they do behave like one...).
We had a similar issue about sharing with a 12 year old nephew last week. He refused to share something with his brother and he was called on it, but he was not forced to share nor punished. Instead, we all went to the beach as normal, but pointing out and giving examples of how we all need to share things to be happy with each other. We also noted occasionally how we all shared things with him and with each other. That was early on and was then dropped.
At the end of the day, he offered to share that thing with his brother with no prompting.

I have read the last few pages and I am glad op that everything is ok.
I have three sons. One lots of you have read about who has complex problems eg ASD and mental health issues. He actively dislikes holidays. Hates being out of sync and unable to settle or sleep. Has fun begrudgingly. We are booked to go away in 10 days and up until recently he told me he wasn't coming. I have learnt to leave him rather than getting cross and after I told my other sons out for the day he rang and said he wanted to come. The silence is too much. He has always avoided fun days or interaction. Should I have avoided organising them? Canceled everything? For the needs of one.

My youngest is a smirker and I find him very difficult at times. He is cold and comes across uncaring. I have been taking a backwards step though (much like with ds1) and I know see this is down to HIS conflicting feelings,(brother very ill, mum with chronic illness, father spending periods of time abroad) he just doesn't know the right way of expressing himself.

I suppose what I am trying to say is it's not cut and dried. We can only persevere......

Only pointing out on earlier post that the two nephews are usually at loggerheads and often hurt each other. Definitely not "easy" children when together.

Gold - exactly. I know EXACTLY what you are saying and my daughter, although 'tricky' didnt start any ASD type stuff until her security was totally removed by moving from a tiny school to a huge secondary, and her anxiety levels went through the roof.

Until you have been in this position you absolutely cannot say what you would do.

Until your life has been blown to pieces because a child WILL NOT do what you would like it to do, and you have the realisation that physically forcing them is going to have some long-term serious repercussions on her trust in you, her mental health, and they dynamics of your family, until you are backed against the wall, needing to be somewhere else or face losing your job, with professionals encouraging you not to 'let her win' then you are talking, frankly, out of your arse.

and sorry. but its touching a very raw nerve at the moment. I am just sick of all the 'well I would MAKE her' shit Ive been having recently, and the 'a good back hander will put her in line'

so not a personal 'talking out of your arse' to anyone. just a general 'talking out of their arses' comment....

and I hope the rest of the holiday passes peacefully for you OP

It was that type of judgement that puts people off asking for help, and so many children do (still) get diagnosed as early teenagers that when you see something with behaviour as extreme as this it's hard not to think "oh, shit, have they considered.....?"

YY Maryz that's exactly it. That's why even though I didn't feel we had enough info either way from OP, I wanted to mention it as a possibility, as if not the case for her, perhaps it will help someone else going through similar.

My brother was difficult for the sheer sake of it- he liked stirring things up if bored!

All behaviour is self serving. No-one does things just for the sheer sake of it, they only do it because they get something out of it. No-one does things JUST to annoy someone else. They always get something out of the behaviour themselves.

It may be enjoyment from the interaction they get from other people. This often happens when a person has low self esteem or poor social skills so finds it difficult to get interaction any other way.

Someone stirring things up when bored, lacks the skills to entertain themselves sufficiently or lacks the social skills to interact more effectively with the people around them.

Of course it is easier, for people to think that they are doing it deliberately to annoy them.

I really don't care why he did it- as his sister I just wanted my parents to make sure he didn't get his own way because he was difficult and unreasonable,and let me give way because I was easy and reasonable!
e.g if the rest of us were in the car, picnic, swimming stuff etc packed, sun shining I expected him to be made to get in and not be told it was off because he had changed his mind. Why would he count but it was OK to spoil the day for me and my other brother?
That is the bit I don't understand. I am not trying to antagonise, obviously I don't have to deal with it , but does the family revolve around one child and do they do it without resentment? Genuine question.

He did do it to deliberately annoy me- e.g he didn't like me reading a book. As a 9 yr old was I supposed to understand his motivations and if so why wasn't he supposed to understand mine?

Sometimes siblings just don't like each other, and annoying each other IS self-satisfying. Same as getting the other one into trouble is satisfying - they don't like the other person so they want to hurt them or see them get hurt/upset. This happens. It doesn't mean there are any SN involved at all, just basic dislike. Siblings don't all love each other.

Ds1 and dd fully believe that ds2 is deliberately a pain. He's not, he is on the autistic spectrum and can't cope with certain situations.
When ds1 is having a do, he comes across as being absolutely in control of everything he does. But he's not. Anxiety drives him to behave in a very specific way that is very difficult to deal with.

Delphinium, it sounds like you really resent your brother. I imagine your parents were stumped with how to deal with him, and as a child that would be difficult for you to understand.
I hope having read experiences from parents of "tricky" children, you can get some understanding that a) your brother probably had some underlying issue (not SN) that excacerbated this behaviour, and b) your parents simply had no idea how to handle it, because it is very difficult.

Like plenty of us here have said, behaviour is communication. Children don't deliberately sabotage, they are hiding something that perhaps other children are able to communicate verbally.

The vast majority of opinions (even in CAMHS sadly) is that this is the parents fault for allowing their dc to behave like this. Like other posters have pointed out, there is no "allowing" about it, no choice made to let a child refuse.
I wish people with no experience of this would listen to those of us who have.

Nor do they want to know or understand their motivations. I have no idea why my brother did it, even now, and don't want to understand. We have a good relationship now and can laugh over some of it. I'm not sure we could do that if he had got his own way.