To not know what to do with DD12 please help

[Cocopogo]

DD12 behaviour is getting worse. I’ve tried hard discipline and I’ve tried love bombing type approach but nothing seems to be helping.
Their doesn’t seem to be any sanctions that she cares about much and once it’s gone and she’s had a tantrum about it it seems to be forgotten and the behaviour continues.
The worst behaviour is the taking food. She will eat EVERYTHING in the house (she’s now overweight) I don’t just mean junk food, I don’t buy it because she’ll just eat it. I mean everything. She’ll go in bread bag and take 5 slices of dry bread, she’ll eat a full box of cereal, she’ll eat all the yogurts out the fridge, she’ll open random tins in the cupboard and eat it. She’ll stick frozen fish fingers in the microwave for 5 mins and then eat it. All these behaviours happen when I’m out the house or very early in the morning. I’ve even considered putting a lock on the kitchen door but that isn’t teaching her control is it. Yesterday she ate all her siblings birthday chocolate.
I don’t even know how to put boundaries in as she has no phone now, she no longer goes to dance lessons she used to love, singing lessons she used to love, a youth club, watch tv, most of her toys have gone and none of these sanctions seem to have helped.
Other behaviours are that she doesn’t look after herself. Matted hair, doesn’t wipe after the toilet, needs telling every single day to brush her teeth, her room is very untidy and I end up having to sort is as it becomes a health hazard.
Please help, I don’t know where to start.

But how does she feel? What she is doing makes it seem that she's probably really miserable. Forget what she's doing and focus on why she's doing it.

There could be any number of issues some quite serious.

I would say from personal experience that she may have autistic traits and that you need to press for an assessment. However, regardless of any diagnosis, you need to find other ways of handling this eg by positive ways of influencing her behaviour even in small ways. The sanctions you are imposing are clearly not working and may even be making things worse.Sounds miserable all round. Please seek some help.

Schools don't want them to be SEN because then they have to actually do something.

Press for her to be formally assessed.

Mine has ADHD and ASD. She struggles with certain things like hygiene and definitely comes across as a bit immature.

However, she understands now that some of her challenges have a reason behind them and it makes our conversations a lot easier.

The more sanctions you put in place the more she is going to try and take some control.

She probably needs to extra curricular activities, if it was me I'd get your DD back doing that or taking up a new sport like tennis or something.

Obviously, I can’t and won’t try to diagnose your DD via internet. However, everything you have written suggests that there may be some additional needs or mental health issues. I would push hard for assessments.

In addition, I would look very hard at your interactions with her and the level of control you are asserting. Why are you insisting that a 12-year-old must stay in bed until you allow her to get up? Why does she go to bed so early? The constant punishments and removal of everything she enjoys sound dreadful and suffocating. If there are special needs or mental health issues at play, you can’t punish them out of her.

I would try to rethink your relationship with her and take a giant step back. She sounds desperately unhappy. One approach I would take would be to give her more freedom, more breathing space, and more responsibility. She’s nearly a teenager. Having some measure of control over her daily life and activities is appropriate for someone of her age.

GP

I think you need to contact your GP on Monday and get some professional advice ASAP - she’s clearly going through something and you need qualified help for this one.

You could contact BEAT for child therapists specialists in eating disorders while you are waiting for what the NHS can offer.

@Cocopogo you have had some very good advice on this thread and I know it must be hard to process the difficult things that you are being told by others.

Can I just double check something? You posted this morning that your DD had cut off her own hair recently. Do you mean she cut a few inches off the length and trimmed her fringe? Or has she hacked it short?

Sounds like some mental health problem there, the non stop eating ,poor personal hygiene, you need to take her to see someone asap

It sounds like attachment disorder to me but I'm not an expert, I just work with kids like this. The behaviour around food especially.

Op,
What form has the 'love bombing' that you have described, taken?

I'm a Samaritan, I have spent many, many hours on the phone to teens and preteens who are in turmoil, their pain is raw and visceral yet they show nothing of this to their parents. I have heard hearbreaking stories from these children.
Your poor little DD. She is confined to her room and what is going on in her mind is pain, pure and simple, yet it's complex to unpick. She needs kindness, not sanctions, punishment. Search beneath the behaviour. My bet is that she weeps into her pillow.

Forget your own experience of being a child with your parents and reinvent your parenting, to her in a kind, loving perspective. As PPs have said, your child is sending out deep distress signals.
I wish you luck, OP. There has been some superb advice on this thread, take it!

Honestly - to me it sounds like she's really really depressed. Look at the things she gravitates to - food, soft toys etc... things that give her comfort. You are treating her behaviour as simply that - behaviour/disciplinary things - when it's almost definitely something more that needs to be tackled in another way. Everything she DID enjoy you've taken away - so she's left with food... that's it - that's her comfort. She needs help & support - not sanctions - when you're depressed sanctions mean nothing. It's just another push further down into depression. She may also have elements of ADD - it's different in girls and as someone diagnosed in adulthood - I recognise some of the things you've said as me in younger years. Everything becomes overwhelming - it ends up a vicious cycle - she doesn't know why she feels how she does - she just does. ADD or not - I'd be 99% sure on the depression part - I have experience of both.

Please look at getting her help... and please stop with the "sanctions" - at this point ask yourself if they're actually helping anyone?! She needs outlets, she needs to have things of joy in her life. If everything that gives you joy and comfort in life is removed - you seek comfort wherever you can find it - regardless of whether it is healthy or not.

Give her back things that give her joy... help her clean and refresh her room... make things feel nice, calm, pleasant. Even if you have to do it all for her - don't make it sound like a chore or like she is a burden... it has to come from a place of support, love & positivity. To her it will all feel overwhelming right now and she can't see a way out of the fog. And in the meantime, look into getting her to her GP or a counsellor or someone who can get to the bottom of what is going on. Treat the cause - don't just deal with the behaviour as though it is just her being "naughty" - the poor girl is struggling, probably feels horrendous and has no idea why.

Why on earth would you take away her activities?????

Before getting to that part I thought the poor girl needs a hobby, somewhere to channel energy, somewhere to have a life outside of the home.

I think taking these away is only making it worse

@alfagirl73
110%!

Adhd springs to kind esp if you are shocked she has been put in bottom set at high school - underperforming.

IF something like ADHD emotionally they can be at least 5 years behind their peers.

I know you are a single parent OP. Do you have any real life support?
It sounds like you need a shoulder to cry on x

You say she is overweight but you’ve stopped her exercising (dance lessons). This won’t help anything.
Call your g.p. Something is not right

I am sure you have really tried to help her, but I wonder if she needs someone professional to help her understand what she is feeling?

FWIW (and may not be much I accept!) my mind went to the following when I tried to think what your girl might be trying to communicate.

Sounds like a lot of acting out behaviour - eating without restraint, making a mess - and that she is trying to express something with this but she doesn't know what, doesn't have the emotional language to tell you about what is going on for her. She is doing it instead of talking about it?

She sounds like she is trying to show you she feels like a mess, that things are a mess, and that she has a great worry about not having enough of something, or having a hole to fill up inside?

She wants to communicate this to you, but she doesn't have the capacity?

I guess I would try to see her behaviour as a communication of something rather than naughtiness primarily.

That's not to say there shouldn't be boundaries - but a boundary that at the same time understands the communication as well as setting a limit, is what is needed. Not something merely punitive (sounds like you experienced quite a punitive atmosphere yourself as a child, OP).

Otherwise there is a danger that when you shut down the behaviour you are actually shutting down the communication.

Anyway just my thoughts. I am not an expert.

Is she 'stealing' food because there are no meals made for her? Or she's too hungry to wait until you get back ? Nothing wrong with 5 fishfingers in the microwave; I ate that many times as a teenager, and loads of bread and cereal. I was just home alone and hungry.

I think you both need a fresh start. Re-set your expectations and remove the "sanctions" she's a child not a rogue state.

I also think you need to accept the following:

1. she's not mature enough to be left on her own in the house
2. she's not mature enough to be left unsupervised with food
3. she's not mature enough to be responsible for her own personal hygiene
4. she's not mature enough to keep her room tidy

It's no use saying a 12 year old SHOULD be able to do things. Your DD can't (for whatever reason) and you need to parent her accordingly. CAMHS is probably a good shout too, but first and foremost you need to parent the child you have not the one you want.

Hi OP I’d get referred by your GP for assessment for ADHD or autism or both , some kind of autism like pathological demand avoidance profiles don’t present like typical autism . The fact that live bombing or other sanctions don’t work make me think there is something more going on that’s just regular naughtiness . I have a son with ADHD/ autism and he can be social at times on his terms it’s not all black and white . He also his issues with brushing teeth and hygiene and is like a blank slate every day in terms of discipline etc .

Also if she does have any of the above issues the last you want to do is make her world smaller by taking things away and isolating her .

I'd not use sanctions like cancelling activities that give her exercise for overeating.

You seem to have gone straight to harsh punishment instead of seeking to find what the issue is.

My sister did some of these behaviours and she had BPD with psychotic symptoms.

It's absolutely a read flag for her mental health.

I agree with @alfagirl73 and @Bumpsadaisie. All your DD's behaviour is communication, and she is telling you in every possible way (except perhaps in words) that she is desperately unhappy. The response should not be to remove everything in her life that gives her the tiniest amount of pleasure. She needs help and support, not constant punishment. Please seek out professional guidance ASAP.

Why did she see a neurologist?