To find dd suffocating

[Montyrage]

Dd is almost 15, she's a good kid mostly with the usual teenage attitude although we did have some issues for a while with her being aggressive this has now stopped.

My problem is that she won't leave me alone, she has always been a bit clingy but if I leave the same room as her she shouts me, she asks me to stay with her, if I go into another room to hoover she is at the back of me, if I leave the room still she says I've abandoned her, she hates sleeping in her room on her own and makes a huge drama of it. There is only me and her and has been for the last decade.

She has a couple of minor learning difficulties but nothing that explains this. She constantly wants attention of acknowledgement from me and if I don't answer immediately or stop what I am doing immediately to fully acknowledge what she is showing or saying she moans how I don't care.

Help, I'm exhausted.

When I said as could you, I meant you could benefit from her having some as you are finding the situation difficult...

Adult DD is like this and has ASD.

Why is she texting and calling at break and lunch, what is it she wants/needs, what does she get out of it? If its just reassurance, I wonder if you could text her every morning something like "Hi DD, I love you, I'll see you later when you finish school at 3.30 xxx mum" and tell her to read the text any time in the day when shes missing you.
If that helps a bit, try and start moving towards reminding her she can read the text any time during the day and then turning your phone to silent in the day so even if she does ring you wont hear it?

I'm noticing a lot of "you dont care, where are you, youve abandoned me", maybe a text every day would give her some reassurance there without you having to be constantly involved? I'm rather worried for you and her for when she leaves school - I doubt employers will be quite as understanding about her being on her phone all the time.

'You do seem to be minimizing your own ability to react better.'

I'm absolutely not minimising it, I'm aware I need to I just have got stuck in a loop of being exhausted and doing things for a quieter life! Even if I pushed for further assessments I'm fully aware it would be after she left school now before we got anywhere and need to deal with it now.

I have had some issues recently as she had an issue and upset due to her sen and them not being told while on work experience. She wanted me to ring or go flying in sorting it as that is what she expects and demands. We had a lot of conversations on her self advocating, I. E thank you for helping me correct that, I have ex sen and I find x task difficult.

I will look for that book thank you.

@bananasinpyjamas You are bang on. Excellent advice there.

Sometimes she rings just to chat
Sometimes she wants to know what I am doing.
If anything happens at school she texts repeatedly to complain, shout or wants me to sort.

Just to add the reason she knows she will get attention for banging is because my neighbour is an arse and if we so much as walk heavily or drop anything and it makes any noise he will knock on the door to complain or he will wait to catch me when I go out or complain etc. Neighbour once complained about me to others because while putting a new bed together at two in the afternoon a slat slipped.

So that's her final throw of the dice if I'm ignoring her!

Hi OP sorry this is hard.

"I've been to the GP who referred to Camhs but they refused the referral!"

My dd was refereed at 6, refused, referred again at 9, diagnosed "autistic tendencies", referred again at 12, now seeing CAHMS.

Just try again. Make a note of all unusual behaviors and their frequency. You can self refer, or you can go through GP or school. You may get further with school if you can show it is affecting her work at school or ability to socialize etc.

Can you get involved in a some sort of after school activity where she can make some new friends and socialize with them, perhaps for children on the spectrum, to help her getting time away from you?

XX

I’m honestly not having a go OP.

Having a needy child, whether ASD, attachment issues or other, is exhausting. They are like orchids, need very high levels of being ‘on it’ and unfortunately it means stepping back and taking back control - including never, ever rewarding that banging on the wall. But I wouldn’t just ignore her escalating behaviour - get in quick - be proactive - ‘wait two minutes and I’ll spend 5 minutes sat down with you’ etc

Start small.

Could you turn your phone off during break times so she can’t get through. Text her while she is in class saying ‘sorry was a bit busy. Hope your ok see you at 330.’

I know you aren't Banana. I know I need to take back control, it's easy to do things for an easy life with a child who for whatever reason has high needs and I will be honest that I didn't expect it to be like this still at fifteen. I thought she would be bored of me so took it as a this too shall pass theme.
Clearly it's not going to so I need to be pro active.

Thanks Italian. Didn't realise you could self refer. I don't think school would be that helpful as the senco is fairly new dd appears fine at school.

Must be so hard, I have 2 dd’s With ASD and they are the opposite, I hardly ever see them, they don’t want to spend time with me, stay in their rooms most of the time and never hug me . Dd1 has a friend who sounds a bit like your dd, she also has a ASD diagnosis and is very full on, likes to be close to people and will cling to dd at school, I’m guessing she’s like this with her mum at home.

This is going to sound awful but even if you got a diagnosis it will make no difference to the help you get to deal with her at home. I have a 15 year old with asd and have had to set firm boundaries about when he is and is not allowed to bug me with minor trivia, when it's allowed to wake me up, when it's allowed to call me while I'm out, when it's allowed to barge into my room without knocked (I want privacy but don't want him to knock if he's cut a fucking finger off, etc)

You need to make tiny consequences happen when she bugs you. I had to SHOW ds1 how annoying it is to be sat on, interrupted, followed around the house being monologued at on a subject of no adult interest. I had to do it to him. My parenting looks cruel sometimes, because I have to poke him with a knife to show him it's sharp, let him feel hot things to know it will hurt. Telling doesn't work.

So you show her the consequences.

Sounds really difficult. Agree with PPs to press for diagnoses and CAMHS help. Will be even harder to get any help at all when DD is older.

You are doing amazingly to cope with this, it must be suffocating!! I hope you get somewhere with self referral.

Can you try keep her busy, very busy doing chores...?

My DD has separation anxiety too, she is 9 - you have my total sympathy, it is really hard.

My DD has good days and bad days, but on the bad days you really feel like it gets to a point where you have tried absolutely everything you can think of to both calm your child and put the situation back on a level footing but if they are that worked up then there is absolutely no reasoning with them at all, and you do end up giving in to whatever demands they are making because there is nothing else to be done. I think it is also impossible for anybody who doesn't live with it to actually understand what it is like, how difficult (impossible sometimes it feels) it is to make any progress with your child, and how it feels like it is affecting everyone's sanity and well being.

Some people think that some stern discipline will do the trick - they are so deluded!! When the behaviour is coming from a place of anxiety, not naughtiness, it's like carrying water uphill in a sieve - just impossible. She creates, howls, wails at bedtime, won't stay in her own room, nothing will do but to get into bed with me. When her dad goes to work she wails, howls and sobs - if it's the weekend and I go out to the shops or whatever apparently she wails, howls and sobs. She is generally anxious and can be really clingy, but in other ways is confident, and she sometimes has really good days, but her bad days come out of nowhere, it's baffling. All I can put it down to is an anxiety attack she had at Brownie Camp overnight - prior to that we had no reason to think she would react like that as all sleepovers had always been fine up til then.

Sometimes she will follow me about - especially in the evening - sometimes she will cling at my clothes or ask me to keep her company while she sits on the toilet! She makes whining noises like a toddler. We try to be patient and understanding - it isn't always easy though, especially if it is late at night and we are tired.

Like your DD my DD is also fine with going to school, so I guess she feels secure and safe there without me or her dad, but sleepovers etc are a total no-no. She has a week long PGL trip in Year 6 and even though she is currently in Year 4 I already fear that she will have to stay behind as she won't cope at night - and if she has made progress by then (which I doubt) that it could make her worse again.

I don't have any advice I can give because we are in the same situation and not getting anywhere at the moment - I can only hope that it will pass with time. Anxiety is an awful thing . I will be watching this thread with interest.

I also agree you need to wean her off you.

If you have a job to do, explain this and say you will be busy for 20 minutes, so will be unable to watch tv with her etc. Then go and do your job. She may scream but ignore until the 20 minutes is up. Maybe have a timer so she can see the time, or say you will return once Eastenders has finished, so she knows the scale,of time.

If she creates, ignore her and carry on (or maybe repeat your instructions,,then carry on). If you always goes and pacify her, then you are reinforcing and encouraging her behaviour.

Get a timer. A sand timer and say you will be back in x many minutes. She might be anxious and need a visual timer.

DustySparrow, it's NOT impossible to control an anxiety induced behaviour. It's certainly difficult, but it can be done.

When I tell people that their autistic teenager's behaviour can be modified, I don't mean "Just be firm". " Just being firm fixes nothing. YOu have to be firm, and as consistent as McDonald's nuggets, and persistent. When I say ignore the behaviour, I don't mean ignore it until teatime, I mean ignore it until JULY.

And when I say they this will help improve the behaviour, I don't mean that tomorrow she won't do it. I mean that by July, she may be doing it less.

Saying it's impossible is as unhelpful and cruel as saying it's easy to fix - neither is true.

Sounds grim - well done for not going mad.

One thing that struck me though was the fact you are going to do the washing up and leaving her on the sofa. I wouldn't do this: I would tell my teen that the washing up needs doing and we will do it together. I do this every time. I am not going to do more housework than an able bodied teen.

I find that this results in a teen who isn't quite happy to leave me alone...

OP .... I clicked on this thread thinking your dd was actually suffocating, losing life ... thank goodness she’s not!

I have 4 dc, 1 with asd, 1 nt, 2 undiagnosed. I’m not sure about the ‘weaning off’ Advice ... that’s not so simple when you’re dealing with special needs.

I don’t have an answer, I just grin and bear it each day. Maybe the sn boards would be better for you for help and advice?

I would also recommend getting a referral back to CAMHS ..
However, my own personal experience of them is awful, they have been very inept in my case. Unless you are dealing with a child who has clear, concise, obvious special needs then they just don’t seem to want to help. If your child is a grey area, complex, doesn’t fit their bill then it’s a very different story unfortunately.

Devastated thankfully not!
I definitely wouldn't be posting on Mumsnet if that was the case!

Mine is like this and she is19! She is having a gap year before going to uni in October, but it is exhausting. School thought ASD tendencies and wanted her to be assessed, but she refused. Outwardly, she is fine, good social life, lots of friends, but when I am there all she wants to do is cuddle me. It’s exhausting and smothering.

Some posters are writing with an incredible degree of confidence that their approach is the one and only way forward. It may have been the right approach for their DC, it may even be the right way for the OP's DD. I have no way of knowing and neither do they! A 'hardball' approach that assumes the behaviour is no more than 'attention seeking', may not just be unsuccessful, it could be damaging. Again, I'm not saying it would be in OP's situation but to ignore the possibility is unhelpful.

It is possible that OP's DD is only just 'coping' at school. Whether or not she an ASD, it sounds like she finds things more challenging than most of her peers.

She may have exhausted her emotional 'energy' just getting through the day. And when she gets home she may actually need this unusually high level of reassurrance to wind down and recharge for the next day.

It is possible that OP's DD may have some undiagnosed additional needs. If that were so, then if these were identified it might focus support at school.

It frustrates me so much that people assume that if the 'behaviour' is observed at home then the solution must lie at home. This is NOT necessarily the case. Children (particularly girls with ASD) often mask their difficulties at school and display the signs of not coping when they are safe at home.

I disagree that assessment / diagnosis would not be helpful. Those posters seem to think it would be unhelpful because they regard the only solution is the behaviour modification approach so confidently advocated above.

It is possible that the solution lies at school or elsewhere, we simply do not know.

OP, I personally would involve school and GP and push for CAMHS referral and consider other referrals - I'm not diagnosing but raising possibilities e.g. dyslexia, sensory processing as well as possibly ASD.

If your DD needs your attention, and you suddenly withdraw that attention and ignore any signs of distress resulting from that, it is possible that this could cause more problems.

As I say, I don't have a crystal ball - but neither do any other posters. I just want you to consider all possibilities.

Good luck

How would you feel about strategies that are designed to reach children at their (potentially much younger) emotional age? This is how this issue is addressed with traumatised children. So since most babies/children learn about object permanence very young, so learn to trust that things still exist when they can't see them, the games that help embed this are things like peekaboo - and it's surprising how many older kids still love this and feel safer for it.

The next thing is building the child's trust that they are "held in mind" while out of sight. For example with DD we talk a lot about all the points in the school day I'll be thinking of her, and what I'll be doing at those times, to make it vivid for her. "The Invisible String" is a good book for opening the conversation about love connecting people when separated. Our most successful strategy for the home clinginess is to acknowledge it "it feels like you really need to be near me right now" and then either sit down and do some out loud wondering about what the reasons might be OR if time is short and stuff needs doing, simply say "it's fine if you want to be in the kitchen etc with me, but I need you to keep yourself busy while I do X". So she gets to be near me, but not to consume all my attention or divert me from what I'm doing. Inevitably peak clinginess coincides with when DD senses I am least available to her (trying to climb a ladder / juggle a hot casserole) so at those times I give her a special job to do (this needs to be very easy otherwise she can't do it because is too caught up in needing me) to buy me 5 minutes.