to change DD's school & move away to have a life separate from DM?

[YesSheCan]

Namechange as too much personal info on previous thread, now deleted.

Yes, I have not lied to school and said she's ill. I have told them the truth and asked to speak with her head of year. Will explain the phone confiscation and ask for her to be given homework instructions verbally to write in her planner straight away supervised by teacher. Surely all the kids should be writing homework instructions in their planners as it is given anyway?

Have you come across therapeutic parenting? It is often used with adopted and fostered children and others with experiences of trauma.
I'm wondering if some of the techniques might be helpful here. Have a Google, there are books you can buy, and also a Facebook group.
www.facebook.com/groups/therapeuticparents/

Thanks for that link, Arti! I'll find that useful.

Thanks so much Arti. I have requested to join

Am I the only one who feels sorry for your dd in all this? You took her away from her friends and school to somewhere completely unknown (Yes I realise there were reasons) and then come over super controlling. Poor kid has nowhere to go.
You, her only contact, are them too busy working (again i realise you need to work but maybe shorter hours whilst everything settles down?) to spend time with her
I would consider some leeway - forget nagging about washing, she will get there soon enough on her own, let school deal with homework - and do stuff together otherwise things may become entrenched and in 4 yrs time she will leave
and FWIW I wouldn't leave a child that age alone at home all day in a strange place with no phone and nothing to do.

i do say this as a person who had extremely controlling parents so maybe I am biased ...

Can I just ask those of you with experience of ASD girls if any of these things seem to fit in with that diagnosis? These are things that DD has done for ages that I kept hoping would improve as she got older...

Not seeming to be aware of the space around her, for example when out walking through town I frequently have to point out she's about to walk into someone or apologise to someone she's already bumped into. Instead of saying 'excuse me' if she wants to get past me at home she will just barge through a narrow space. While helping her with homework last night, we were at her large desk on two adjacent chairs but she was half sitting on mine.

Despite having the fine motor skill to play violin beautifully, her movements seem clumsy and awkward when spreading butter on toast or attempting to rub shampoo into her hair despite having been shown how to and encouraged to do herself multiple times.

Making lists of all the characters in her favourite films and writing out bits from the script, not to produce anything in particular and not kept nicely and neatly - I find torn out pages from her notebooks littered around. She used to give all her animal toys names, line them up and make lists of their names, organising them into different teams which would be given scores like top trumps of strength in battle etc etc

The not washing thing I've already talked about.

Having a staple outfit she wears most of the time.

She does appreciate puns, 'gets' sarcasm and can tell when I'm joking and enjoys us having a laugh together.

I know I should have asked for an assessment sooner but I had thoght3 that it was the weirdness of us living with my mum and the godawful confusing boundaries or lack of that she had that was affecting her behaviour.

I think you are. And I think you need to read the previous thread and RTFT here. Not very helpful comments AT ALL.
Her behaviour is appalling and there comes a point where, what ever the "reasons" a line has to be drawn.
Do you actually have any teen children,?

@yesshecan, yes I recognise all that, plus a lot more you have mentioned in passing. ASD presents very very differently in girls to boys, a lot of girls mask very successfully at school then meltdown at home. Also DCD/Dyspraxia might be worth looking at? Fine motor movements are possible with it.
If you want to pm me please do.

6springcats I'm sure most of the PPs feel sorry for my DD. I have worked one full day amd 2 mornings since the end of August - not sure reducing my hours is a good idea! Rest of the timr has been taken up with dealing with the house move(s), sorting school issues for DD, applying for bursaries for DD, and being there for her every morning and evening and most afternoons. Every time we go out she gets a posh milkshake or some such treat. I have driven her back to see her best friend which involved a 4 hour round trip and cost me an overnight stay in a B&B in the area before picking her up the next day. I have bought her gadgets and worked with her to find ways to help her get up in the morning. I've hardly watched any TV of my choice. I know there is plenty I could have handled and could be handling better but I am not supercontrolling and am not working long hours at the expense of spending time with DD.

DD will weare the same pair of shoes until they fall to bits, despite having other shoes, ditto clothes, worn for days on end. She prefers dirty / worn clothes as they "feel better" Same with bedding.
Watches endless re runs of TV shows even though she's seen them probably more than 100 times before and can recite them. Collects series of books and used to "act out " the plots, and made up lies about home life (to get us into trouble when she was angry with us) based on said plots. Endless lists of baffling stuff yes cast of films or TV shows, books, etc. Obsessive interests in brands of make up, shampoos . It's not the same as ASD in boys, but when one looks more closely ... It's the same underlying atypical stuff.

@aYesSheCan, of course I'm sorry for your DD in the same way I'm sorry for mine!
But that doesn't excuse her behaviour, and if she does turn out to be AT and diagnosed with ASD or some other developmental disorders, or ADHD or ADD, that still doesn't excuse her behaviour.
You have a right to a quiet life and enjoyment of your home as well.
What would you be saying if someone came to you and described what they were going through and it was what you had said to us in here?

chickenloverwoman Thu 11-Oct-18 19:32:43
I think you are. And I think you need to read the previous thread and RTFT here. Not very helpful comments AT ALL.
Her behaviour is appalling and there comes a point where, what ever the "reasons" a line has to be drawn.
Do you actually have any teen children

Sorry that was in response to @SpringCats

@6SpringCats arrgghh Bloomin phone!

Oh gosh I agree, an ASD diagnosis does not excuse bad behaviour. I am not prepared to tolerate DD's behaviour and hope I'm starting to make it much clearer to her tgat she cannot continue to get away with behaving as she has been. But I need to know, and she needs me to know, what is the appropriate way for her behaviour to be managed. If it turns out she has ASD there is likely a lot I'll have to do differently to encourage good behaviour. And she will hopefully find it helpful to realise why she melts down.

but also bear in mind that children who have experienced trauma can present in a very similar way to a child on the autistic spectrum.

My take on the phone/screens situation would be.
It is very bad for aperson's health to spend too long on screens, use them too late at night etc
Because you are her mother, your job is to keep her safe.
She has shown that she hasn't been able to manage her use of screens healthily herself, so you need to do this for her to keep her safe and healthy. As there has been so much fuss over this recently and both you and she have ended up getting hurt when it is time for her to stop using a screen, the only safe thing you can do at the moment is take away all screens.

Then, give her the opportunity to show that she can responsibly turn her phone/tablet over to you after a set period.
So you might say you are giving her an opportunity to manage time on phones/screen whatever on Saturday.
You will give her the phone/screen at 10:00am for one hour (set timer) When the time stops, she can practice handng over the phine to you without a fuss and you will go out together for brunch/coffee whatever ( bonding time).

If she gives the phone back to you without a fuss, you will allow her another time to practice managing time on Sunday ( and then again on Monday, Tuesday Wednesday etc - you set when and how long she gets the phone for. Keep it an hour (or even less on week days).

Even if she does make a fuss, still try and go out for the treat as that is about spending nice time together not reward and punishment.

Explain before hand, if there is any fuss or problem about handing the phone in at the end of the hour then you will need to leave some time before you can allow her to practice managing her time on a screen again.

Both you and she have been through an extremely traumatic time recently and both of you have been trying to manage a difficult and manipulative relationship with your mum.

She needs time to adjust. She is trying to manipulate you al lot at the moment. try not to get bothered by it other than pointing out the natural consequence.
DD " Well I'm not going to school tomorrow"
You " Well you will end up getting very behind with your learning."
DD "I don't care".
You "I'm wondering if you are quite angry with me for making this change in our lives. I know it feels horrible right now and I'm sorry you are hurting about it but I did it to keep us safe. Hurting yourself by not going to school isn't going to make it better though."

It is really hard to do though!!

The other thing I've been wondering YesSheCan, is whether some counselling/therapy for you might be helpful. Partly because then you aren't so on your own with it all and have someone who can help you with your own reactions and responses and partly because your mother brought you up and giventhe way you have described her, it seems possible that you have left over trauma from childhood and your daughter's behaviours will be triggering/interacting with that too.

I have rtft and yes I have 2 teenagers.

I just hate patents being overbearing and overcontrolling to a young person- she is no longer a child

Another setback - DD actually brushed her teeth this morning so I rewarded her with 30 mins on her phone. She chose to use it on the train as I had to go into town to do something important. Ended up having more than 30 mins but I picked my battles as we were having a nice time out and I did a couple of silly quizzes on there with her... I just finished the washing up and she was watching TV. Went into living room. She's sitting at table half watching TV and with hand on phone about to do something on it. I realise I'd got caught up putting shopping away, washing her school shirt, doing washing up, having to spend ages on toilet with IBS guts and hadn't asked her to hand over phone when we got in. But she had been told she only had it for 30 mins beforehand. I said to her, 'oh, you've had that for way over 30 mins now. Time to give it back please.' Protestations of 'No no no, I want to listen to my spotify playlist in bed tonight'. I say, 'ok, set up your playlist now and we can bluetooth it from your phone to your speakerbut your phone is staying in my room' takes me several attempts to get this sentence out as she keeps shouting over me. 'O-KAYYY, the playlist is on there already. Stop going on'. I say, 'right so there isn't a problem then, I can take the phone back and start your playlist at bedtime' I go to unplug the phone from the wall and say I will charge it in my room. At which point DD yells, 'NO DON'T UNPLUG IT IT NEEDS TO CHARGE HERE' while at the same time grabbing my wrist tight with both her hands. I can still feel where she gripped me. I said as calmly as I could, 'right, that's another week then' and she said, 'it's your fault. That wouldn't have happened if you hadn't gone on'. That's the worst thing about her attitude as far as I'm concerned - that she is totally unwilling to take responsibility for her actions and blames others. She's slammed her door and I can hear her ripping up paper. At least I followed through on rewarding her for the set time and will do so again for fuether positive behaviour. Have not nagged her to have bath tonight despite her being filthy and greasy.

Arti, I had cognitive analytic therapy the year before last. It really helped me to gain the strength to assert myself with my mum - I realised I was slipping into compliant child role so often and my daughter was seeing me do this. I don't think I could have mustered the psychological strength to move out without having therapy because I'd been so scared by my mum's reactions and the resulting anxiety was debilitating. I can deal with stuff better now than I could but yes, some more therapy would help me at the moment. I just can't afford it and NHS CBT isn't really what I need.

It isn't a set back. It was extremely likely she would try and push the boundaries, especially as you hadn't stuck to the 30 minutes you said originally.
But you held the boundary. She is angry and upset and showing you this.
I'd really go for the "practising managing time" angle and make handing it over without a fuss the condition of the next try.

Yeah she really is a child. She isn't 15 and demonstrating signs of being independent. She's 12 and demonstrating that she wants her own way and none of it is good for her and she's got no insight into that fact. Not blaming her, she's 12 and been through a lot.

OP I think you're doing all you can really xx

Op l have followed your thread from the beginning , and l am so impressed by your resilience in the face of such challenges, whilst you still have some way to go with DD you have come so far.....hang in there..

Op I think you are doing really well and no she isn't a young teen, she's a child still and needs boundaries. Which you are setting. Keep going.

Such good advice arti. I will definitely try that. A very quick turnaround again this evening after the phone outburst. I made sure I didn't stay angry with her, just said, 'the next time you have your phone for 30 mins, maybe you could set a timer so you know when to give it back without me nagging you.' And I made her a hot chocolate and the atmosphere started to improve. Later, DD came into bathroom and said, 'Do I need a bath?' I said, 'hmm, what do you think?' DD said, 'I really need to wash my hair. Will you help me rinse out the shampoo?' So I supervise her washing hair in bath and help her rinse it. Full of nits again. We do conditioner and comb through. Takes ages. She read book on toilet while I combed and combed. Has calmly gone to bed listening to her playlist which I am bluetoothing from my room to hers. I have just finished doing my own nitcombing, ugh!

I remember this! It's not fun! But well done you handled it just right.
A lot of it is sensory I think.
I have a useful book list if you are interested. Also websites.