To think I am being a really shit parent

[Curiousaboutchoices]

Ok so it’s the holidays which makes things worse, during term time I manage to hold my shit together pretty well. Background, I am pretty sure I’m perimenopausal and having regular bloody tests as need to take HRT for other medical reasons when the time comes. Also as background my husband does a very high pressure job which comes with very acute waves of travel and long hours. He’s in one now and has been for several months, is literally never here so the kids are mine full time apart from holiday club when I work. I’m at the tail end of a period and feel bloated, sad, low, hormonal, shit really.

Two kids 6 and 8. Such good kids in most ways and we are very lucky. My eldest though is away wit the fairies and struggles staying on message for everyday tasks like getting ready. She is fine academically staying on task at school - think it’s a bit like her dad that she’s very bright but has zero common sense, so I am trying to teach her that self care and motivation for both of our benefits. School /work mornings and shower/bedtime are pinch points because they have Time constraints that mean I get cross if things don’t get done. Because I’m on my own, I’m often trying to fit in other jobs like washing up, putting washing on or out, making dinner etc while they are doing their teeth, brushing hair, getting dressed etc. My six year old can get ready pretty much unaided but the 8 year old wonders around like there’s no rush st all and it drives me wild.

I started her a tick list a week or two ago to help her stay on message, this literally lists the jobs like getting dressed, doing teeth etc so I don’t have to constantly remind her. It was on the wall but she’d get distracted coming back to it to bloody tick the jobs. I took it off the wall today and she went and blue tacked it back on immmeduatley (that’s the no common sense or not thinking coming into play there) so I told her to take it with her and tick it off as she went. I then found her 10mins later wandering about and she said she’d done everything, we were standing in her room which had the curtains shut and her bed unmade (one of the jobs) so I knew that was rubbish. I looked at sheet and it wasn’t ticked so she was just in her own world again. I shouted at that point, which I take as a fail for mum. I hate shouting, it doesn’t work for either of my girls for different reasons, but I just saw red.

To top that she’s also quite random and we are trying to help her not come out with random comments - I say we all have random thoughts (ooh that man’s wearing a funny hat or what am I going to have for tea tonight, but we don’t say them in the middle of a different conversation because it sounds weird and like we aren’t listening to the other person). We were talking about something that she had brought up in the car and after I’d said something she said ‘that’s the 7th interesting thing you’ve said this morning mum’ - 1. Weird as I’m pretty sure she doesnt Count up in quite that way, 2.it sounds quite rude as if everything else I say is boring and 3. It shows she wasn’t actually listening to the conversation she had raised herself. I was by the point at the end of my patience so i did say that it was an odd comment and sounded weird and she needed to keep those thoughts in her head or people would think she was weird. Usually I temper those thoughts and don’t say them that bluntly, make it more gentle, but I’d had enough this morning. So I’ve left my daughter thinking that either her mum thinks she’s weird or thinking she is actually weird. She can be very different for sure, but usually we try to validate her differences and teach her coping strategies whereas this morning I just shot her down. I feel utterly utterly shit.

Please help. How do I keep my shit together? Is this normal 8 year old behaviour? Are my standards just far too High?

OP, everything else aside, I think you summed up the whole thing very well when you said that she wont remember if she had clean clothes in her drawers but she will remember if mum was a shouty bastard.

Just reading that gave me the mum guilt as I know I am a shouty B far more often than I want to be. But yeah I also wish they sold bottles of patience at Tesco.

You are not a shit mum. You're doing your best plus looking to make yourself even better so good on you.

Wouldn’t the process of dx be alarming for her? We went down the private route for diagnosis, as I didn't trust the public route (we are in Oz, so things are different here WRT private assessments I believe) as I know of 2 girls who were told no, only to be told yes later down the line.

It took 4 hours. Waiting, testing, talking, waiting, form filling etc. When they took us back in, the first thing dd said was "so, am I autistic" because she needed to know. Yes, it was exhausting. Dd wasn't alarmed, even when they took her off by herself for assessment. However, she did shut down that night and needed to be in my bed, close to me. But ultimately, she needed to know. And they treated us beautifully.

Well, yes, I haven't pushed for a diagnosis for mine despite being pretty sure she isn't NT, mainly because I know what it is to feel weird and different and I don't want her to be self conscious. I was going to wait for it to be a problem, but it doesn't seem to be yet. She has a whole lifetime ahead of her of adjusting her behaviour in order to 'pass' as normal.

At the moment your daughter isn't self conscious enough to monitor her own behaviour and adjust accordingly. That's a good thing!! Because when she does have to start doing it, it is so damn tiring. You also start to feel like you lose yourself a bit, every time you're in a group of new people. I spend a lot of my time on my own rather than have to mask.

Instead of inwardly cringing, just have a laugh when she says something odd. I say odd things ALLLLL the time. My husband makes a joke of it, I realise how odd it is from his perspective, we laugh. It's nice that you want to protect her, but what are you protecting her from? Snooty intolerant people? Screw that.

Ass - if I’m being gut wrenchingly honest, I want to protect her from people like me, who will judge her. Wow, I wasn’t anywhere near expecting that as an admission. I think I have some work to do on myself before I start on her, don’t i.

Different - what if they say no dx and she is left with the conclusion that it’s just me who thinks she’s weird?

Times - thank you. I need to remember the shouty bastard mantra.

I want to protect her from people like me, who will judge her.

Honestly, there's nothing that weird about her behavior (IMHO), lots of people are flighty and messy and drift around in the clouds. Generally, they find jobs and friends and partners that are similar or who accept that about them.

I'm not saying stop making her do chores or making sure she stays on time, she needs to do those things to function in life, but maybe don't worry so much about comments that seem odd to you.

Wouldn’t the process of dx be alarming for her? Wouldn’t it make her feel different, odd, dare I say it weird?

Of course everyone is different but fwiw my dd was completely unfazed by the assessment process (NHS) and not at all upset by the dx - in fact she is proud of it. Partly I think she likes being "special" but also it is reassuring for her (as well as us) that there is a reason why she finds certain things hard that others find easy. This may not be true for all children but just wanted to show that it can go both ways.

Interesting op, my dd is like this - I also wonder if my dh and dd are very mildly on the spectrum, she’s always described as daydreaming and not listening to instructions at school and she’s doing well academically so we don’t worry.

I agree plenty of people are different, I’m terribly clumsy and disorganised myself and I can see I make some people crazy but it all worked out.

You need to have a think about corners you can cut on the housework and worrying front as it sounds to me as though you have high standards and a lot to cope with on your own. We all have bad spots as parents, berating yourself is nowhere near as useful as promising next time you’ll try to be a bit calmer.

I agree Jess. I think I needed a bit of self berating though to get to the analysis part.

So:
Calmer, by doing less
Modelling behaviour with DD
Lowering expectations
Stop treating Home like army camp.

See, I’m even listing my ‘relaxation’...eek.

Curiousaboutchoices Then you change the words. Quirky, different, individual. You talk to her about who she is, and how special she is and how much you love her and will always love her.

And you forgive yourself for a slip of the tongue that she will likely not remember because of all the other more important, awesome you do for her.

Change your goal set for mornings. Atm you're focused on her doing x,y,z. Give yourself one goal only : to get DD out the door happy. When you prioritise that your approach to everything else will change.
My DS is very anxious about school. DH has a tendency to get shouty at him when he faffs about. I'm not a morning person at all but the strategy that has worked for me is making my sole goal to ensure DS is happy when he leaves the house. School may be a disaster but at least that little bit of the day (which is within my control) is happy and safe for him.
Does that mean relaxing demands on him? Sometimes. Does it mean putting my household tasks back till later? Often. But we're all much happier in the mornings now.

I sympathise, I also find having a mental checklist helps! I also banned all tv and screens on weekday mornings - this helped minimise the distractions once I can get her out of bed!

I find the mornings I lose my temper as I’m late for school and then late for work I’m not only always still late, I also feel terrible all day. Better to be late and not have the monster mum guilt...

I think id get on great with your dd! We are very similar. I'd have found the 7 interesting things comment an amusing and unusual compliment, and would have asked what they were.

I've never been diagnosed with adhd or similar but I've occasionally wondered. If it reassures you, as an adult i am doing fine. I have friends and a boyfriend who enjoy the occasional random observations, because it matches their sense of humour. I got an excellent degree, and can support myself financially, though maybe not as high-paid a career as some peers i am more keen to follow random interests than doggedly persue a career path. I still am often late and often lose things, im doing my best to work on the lateness, and i just accept that from time to time i need to buy replacements of things I've lost. I still find verbal lists of instructions extremely confusing, for example if someone gives me directions i can't remember more than two steps, but i can navigate with a map or build a huge complex spreadsheet with no problems. And I never make my bed!

I admire the self examination you are doing in this thread. I think you are unlucky to have a very contrasting personality to your dd, which means that it's not easy and instinctive for you to see where she is coming from. But on the plus side, it means as she grows she will have a whole set of strengths that compliment yours - she can bring her humour and off-the-wall ideas and laid back perspective to the family.

Try to appreciate her for who she is, and try to simplify what you ask of her by separating what's actually important from the things that don't matter too much. And unless she is hurting others, or she is looking for your help to fit in better, don't worry about mild social oddness - she will find her people, and the more comfortable she is in her own skin, the quicker that will happen.

Can you put some time aside to really get to know your DD, to get to like her, for who she really is? I'm not saying that you don't like her but what I'm getting from your posts is that you wish she were different, possibly for her own good, put also partly for your sake.

What does it matter if people think she is a bit odd? If her family thinks she's fantastic then yes she may be a little hurt by people being rude to her, but her overriding feeling will be that she's fine the way she is and that she's loved, even if she is 'odd'. In time she'll find other 'odd' people and be her wonderful odd self. When that happens what you don't want is her to turn around and say 'I knew you wanted me to be different mum.' That, above all things, is the thing likely to hurt her the most.

Also, in general, I think it's a shame when parents get fixated on preparing children for the future. Yes, it's important to give your children skills, but you have to remember that they are living their childhood right now, and it's never going to come around again. If everything is focused on making them 'better' for the future, at the expense of their present happiness, the life they actually have is being forfeited for the future they may or may not have. It makes no sense. Teach them but also allow them to live and be who they are in an environment where they're loved. They may struggle as adults but that doesn't mean they also have to be miserable as children, does it?

Sounds like me at 8, I was diagnosed with ASD as an adult.

The "away with the fairies" / "in her own world" could just be overload. Where there are multiple competing tasks to do, I struggle to do any of them. The skills that control your ability to start doing something, stop doing it once you've started, and not get distracted are known as executive function skills and a lot of children and adults on the spectrum struggle with this. EF also controls the impulse not to blurt out inappropriate things!

Whether your DD is on the spectrum or not I think you're right to be identifying that using techniques for children on the spectrum could help - it certainly won't hurt. Try looking for executive function skills for children - there's a page on it here www.aane.org/executive-function-challenges-children-asperger-profiles/

Getting up and dressed in the mornings against the clock involves a lot more than most people think it does. Particularly if you process verbal instructions a bit slower than most people, and by the time you've processed "do your teeth" things have moved on to "why are you still in your pyjamas?!"

There are all sorts of games you can play to improve executive function. And this will sound absolutely mental and may horrify both you and your DD, but it works really well for me and is working with my DD too - try singing instructions and getting her to sing them back to you. You know she's heard it and processed it if she's sung it back!

That's a really interesting article wiggy. The tips are great.

Do you find problem solving always hard, or just in specific situations? For example, i can solve a complex maths problem, and would enjoy doing so, but i get completely stuck and overwhelmed when packing to go on holiday. I've never really understood why.

Not always @Porpoises I'm a great problem solver in some situations. I'm quite competent and cool-headed in a crisis. I'm really good at applying logic (which is what I need for work) and setting out structured arguments, which is what I should be doing right now.

Getting off Mumsnet and starting the damn work though is a totally different story. And I'm in my 30s and if I can't find matching socks then I still get distracted getting dressed (sorry OP, that's probably not what you want to hear!)

Try the Solihull course to help you out.

Like a pp said girls can hide certain spectrum traits better than boys. I think you sound like you really care and are trying and have just lost it a bit, like we all do sometimes. You are on your own with no support right now and it's tiring. You are only human. Explain that to her - she is at an age where they need to be shown that it does sometimes go wrong and how to handle it when it does (again, part of the Solihull course)

Be kind to yourself.

@WiggyPig I just wear odd socks!

Hah, I can't do that - if they're not from the same set it feels like I'm walking round lopsided all day!

WIGGYPIG yes finally someone gets it?

how can anyone bear odd socks? they make your toes feel opposite ALL DAY

She sounds utterly normal to me, she’s only eight! Is she quite clever/bookish? Often clever kids can seem a bit offbeat because in some ways they’re a bit precocious, mixed with the standard maturity of being eight.

Do people really think there’s enough in daydreaming and occasionally making odd remarks (at age 8!) to diagnose asd or add? It seems a bit overkill to me.

But you know your dd best I’m sure.

I get up very very early, so there is no rush. Bedtime starts very very early.