To resent those with easier children?

[stilltiredinthemorning]

And really feel like they don't get it AT ALL!!!?

My kids are brilliant and I love them to death but they are pretty challenging. My daughter (5) is a little delayed in most areas of her development and is also quite anxious (probably as a consequence) as a result school is quite challenging for her and she struggles socially. My son (3) seems pretty bright, but is VERY high energy, never does what he's told and seems to break everything he touches.

They may well end up with a diagnosis or 2 (I work in paediatrics myself) but for now it's too early to tell and that's not really the point.

What is driving me a bit crazy is that everyone I know seems to constantly bang on about how hard parenthood is when their children are obviously a breeze in comparison. I know every child has their moments, but really, they are having an entirely different parenting experience.

Most of my friends, like me, are older parents and middle class. They blatantly think that their children's academic ease, steady behaviour etc. etc. is down to their parenting but I know from experience (from my job) it's mainly the luck of the draw. We are so careful with our parenting and work so hard to be gentle and consistent and keep a steady routine and a healthy diet and limited screen time etc. etc. and I know it's still worth it, but our kids are still pretty difficult. I feel completely exhausted and like no one I know gets it and are completely obvious as to how much harder it is. It's actually beginning to impact on some of my friendships. Am I being an arse?

Yes yes yes. I wonder daily how so many people I know seem to just breeze through their children's milestones while I spend every month fretting about why they havnt done x yet. My DS 6 is being assessed for ADHD and ASD and my 18 month old while so far seems neutotypical, still isn't walking and only has 5 words or so! Meanwhile my friends 20 month old is talking up a storm, running and kicking a ball. I just don't compare anymore it's too depressing.

How do you define middle class op.
I'd presume your dd aged 5 is in private school therefore you need to request she has extra tuition. Hire a nanny? Make it less stressful for yourself. I would have if I had the money when mine was younger.

Just took my 11 and 6 Yr old out for tea. The eldest didn't want to bring her phone so tormented her sister and then decided to lay on the sofa (pub restaurant). They wasn't running round but driving me potty

Unless you are a fly on the wall inside these ‘easy’ family homes, you really cannot say what goes on behind closed doors OP. You are sounding very naive IMHO especially for a health care professional. ALL kids at some point on the journey to adulthood will, I 100% assure you have their ‘thing’. You cannot necessarily predict what this ‘thing’ will be ….but it will happen, might be sooner, might be much much later on. Remember, many mental health conditions do not present until late adolescence or early adulthood….
On a positive note, I’m sure everything that you are doing will really pay off longer term even if you’re not receiving much validation for it day to day while the kids are still very young.

The thing is though, would you want them to acknowledge that your situation is more difficult because your DC are more difficult?

My DS is being assessed for something (as in he doesn't tick the boxes for ASD but everyone agrees there is... something). I don't like it when friends acknowledge that it must be tricky sometimes, and imply that their child is easier/smarter etc.

Basically I think it is easy to frame it that what they say is insensitive when what is really bothering me is the obvious difference between DS and other kids.

My ds was the most easiest passive chilled out child who entertained himself for hours.

Some people were awful to me assuming I thought I was some kind of parenting whizz.

I didn't think that and knew I wasn't. I knew being so wrapped up in his own little world was unusual. He also didn't sleep well or to routine but people didn't see that.

He was eventually diagnosed with autism.

He's still the most polite and passive person I know but it really does have its challenges. The anxiety, mixed sleep and meltdowns are draining for us both!

I have two children and one of them literally takes up 90% of my time while the other just lets everything wash over them. Neither have any additional needs, just totally opposite personalities and I believe it is totally by chance. I wouldn't change a thing, but i do often wonder what it's like to have two easy ones, or conversely five challenging ones! It's all largely relative at the end of the day

Sounds tough OP. I know what you mean, but maybe we're both unreasonable..!

My son was born a teenie preemie - he was unwell and not strong enough to breastfeed properly. I get a bit upset wishing that we could have made that work, and how it is surely easier for the mums who (seem to) make breastfeeding look easy, with their big, hungry, full term babies! Which I know is unreasonable!! But I had loads of milk and I did manage to express for three weeks, and I know not everyone can do that. And who knows what other struggles people have. So I try to keep things in perspective - I struggled in that respect but in other ways have been lucky that some things were easier for me than others.

I am currently battling PND so the above is easier said than done some days...

That1GreenBottle every example you've given shows me exactly how much some people don't get it. Yes, my friend may well be doing her thesis at soft play because it's the only time she's got and yes that's bloody hard work, but what I'm trying to say is that coukd just NEVER happen with my 2. They need to be supervised all the time, I couldn't play a game of candy crush, let alone formulate a coherent sentence. If I got a baby sitter the kids would just stay at up - not a problem you might think, tired grouchy children in the morning... Nope, they would still wake up at 6am regardless of when they went to sleep, they would then become increasingly wired all day, it would be virtually impossible to get them to sleep the following night, this would go on for weeks until we finally got the sleep routine back on track - so again, literally not a possibility. This is ditto for a sleepover. It doesn't matter how tired I am or how little clean washing their is I CANNOT stay in the house all day with my kids, they would not cope. I HAVE to get dressed and get them dressed and go out.

What you have described is 'normal' parenting and like I've said it feels quite different to my experience.

My one thing is that I can't get my young children to sleep before 9pm every night which means they struggle to get up for school. I am jealous of parents whose kids go to sleep at like, 7pm. I'm hanging by 9. My eldest also has trouble coming off screens. I wonder if most families have trouble areas that you just don't see though.

YANBU. My DTs are nearly 3.5, I love them to death and they’re wonderful kids, but fuck me, they’re feral. They don’t give a shit about parental approval, as they’ve got each other and they just get crazier and crazier. I feel like the worst mother in the world most days, I have to fight them at least once a day on something simple, and I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Even their nursery has started making comments, on one hand I’m glad they’ve seen it as it’s not just me they act up for, but I’ve spent the whole weekend worrying on and off that they’re going to kick us out or report us to social services for their behaviour. I realise SS is unlikely, I’m just so scared of them and I’ve done nothing wrong!

They were lovely easy children until they hit around 2, and it’s been downhill ever since. Obviously mixed in with all the naughty we have beautiful moments where they’re model behaved children to lull me in to a false sense of security and it’s like I imagined it all.

I read somewhere once that difficult toddlers = easy teenagers, so I’m clinging on to that. If you know something different, please don’t burst my bubble!

I've got two DC now 15 and 10.

DC1 three primary schools, four secondary schools - fixed term exclusions, two managed moves, then finally a transfer to a smaller school for 14 years plus. After 12 years of being gaslighted that it was all poor parenting, they've agreed to do an assessment for autism, they'd discharged twice age 5 and 10 but only ever looked at behaviour never underlying conditions. DC1 is sitting upstairs with their best mate, headed to do internal work experience in architecture next week and actually revised for his mocks last week. We've found a school to suit his needs. At one point in tears on the phone to a headteacher he asked me if I had another parent to talk to. Well no was my answer as they are all professionals with perfect kids at tennis, pony club and rowing and they wouldn't understand how hard it is. They would look down at me. That was during lockdown when the only parents I had contact with were via work. Since then I've hooked back up with a few parents (DC1 mates parents) who's DC are also a little more challenging! We say it's been the longest years of our lives, the years do not fly by!

DC2 has been in the education system seven years and I've not even been asked to 'have a word' at the gate yet. At the last parents evening, they said if they really had to fault on anything they could increase the size of their handwriting.

If I'd had two like DC2 then I'd not have the skills I have and empathy for other parents. I'm an education professional and managed to work all the way through this but I have developed an anxiety condition which I am hiding well and I hope it will right itself one day.

I also am treated differently when dealing with childcare providers, other parents and schools, depending on whether it is DC1 or DC2. DC2s friends parents love me, DC1s primary school parents judged.

So no YANBU. Parenting is damn hard but IME harder with some children than others.

I think parenting on the whole can be very very hard compared to a young free single life so of course people will complain about various aspects of it and there's nothing wrong with that, it's perfectly normal.

I think though you're not been unreasonable feeling frustrated when you hear them complain about circumstances you'd love to have for you and your children and I think they should be more tactful in your hearing.
I think maybe you could be on higher alert to how fortunate the average parent is not only with what you experience with your own children but also some of those children you encounter through your work.

My children are grown up now and coming out the other side my eyes are open much wider than in the first few years of parenting. There's many many factors that affects how parents feel about parenting at certain stages and it's often not down to the child themself.

Out of curiosity do you know people who've children with more complicated diagnosis than you expect yours to have, how do you speak about your difficulties in front of them?

'Luck of the draw'? 🤨 That doesn't fill me with much hope. What's the point of 'parenting' then? lol

I completely get what you're saying OP. (I've only read your posts, not the other responses).

My son is very mildly ASD, which is quite difficult, because he is the kid that looks "normal" (sorry). He does have quite significant challenges, but other people don't see. Those people don't realise that the reason why he is doing so well is because he and I work damn hard all the time to make sure he is fine.

To complicate things, I am also mildly ASD, and I have to work damn hard to keep my life OK, while also working 200% to keep his life okay. It's really a lot to cope with.

When he was a toddler I constantly got little remarks from people who thought I was a bit of a helicopter parent. They genuinely don't realise the challenges that DS and I were coping with. It was very wearing indeed.

The thing that has helped me was actually getting the dianoses for myself and DS. I can now tell people directly that there is a diagnosis. They then change from telling me that I need to chill and let him be independent, and say "oh wow, you're doing a great job, I would never have known." They also then let him be himself and are just glad that he's coping.

What's more, because he is doing so well, we kind of became the poster-child for our ASD diagnosis, which is kind of nice. It's nice to feel appreciated, rather than constantly like we're just hanging on by our eye teeth.

I think it's really great that you work in paediatrics. That must help a lot.

The other thing that I would say is, it's probably a good idea to visit a private paediatric clinical psychologist asap, and get advice. Get a recommendation of a good one. Everything got a lot better after I did that. The more you understand what's going on, the easier things get.

Trying to go the NHS route and through the school was a total waste of time for us, as we were always knocked back as DS was considered to be "coping".

Good luck there. I'm sorry it's so hard. Some people do just get a harder hand of cards I think.

kessiebird thank you so much, much of what you've said really resonates with me. I have also developed an anxiety disorder and sometimes I think it's actually harder in a way if you work in paediatrics or education.

I do try to remind myself that I am developing skills that I would never have had otherwise and I do think it has made me a better clinician in many ways.

Lotusmonster I really don't think I am naive, that's exactly the point I have MORE experience/insight than most. I think it is a FACT that some children are harder to parent than others.

Everyone has their issues in life. My children are fairly well behaved for their ages - they were hideous as babies, server reflux due to allergies. Only slept when been held, even now the 2 year old will manage 2 hours sleep by herself until she needs to be cuddled all night. On the outside my life seems easy but we don’t get any outside help with the children other than school which DD1 has obviously missed a lot of. Either I or my husband has the two year old. My parents are very ill and I’ve had to care for them while looking after a screaming toddler. This year has seen very worrying as DH was ECV so as a family we had to shield. Just because one area of someone life appears easy it doesn’t mean it is or that it all is.

I’m an ex teacher and cultural capital counts for a lot in education.

You will drive yourself mad looking at your people’s lives and comparing.

Yanbu. I have 5 dc, 4 of whom have disabilities. Sometimes it's really hard. I take comfort in knowing that nobody finds everything easy. Dc1 hardly ever slept for the first year of his life and was a nightmare toddler but is now the perfect teenager with 2 rows of badges on his school blazer showing his achievements, grade 5 on the piano etc. Dc2 sailed through the toddler years and still regularly had a nap aged 5. He is now and an emotionally fragile, self harming teenager.

The thing is though, would you want them to acknowledge that your situation is more difficult because your DC are more difficult?

This is absolutely true 😂 I have one DC who is much more demanding than average (SN play a part) but if I’m finding her hard work and having a bit of a moan to a friend, the last thing I want is the friend saying “yeah you’re right, your DD is a PITA”. I’d much rather she says “oh I struggle with mine too” even if secretly we both know her child is far far easier than mine.

The thing is, different personality traits (and yes they are born with them) are percieved very differently at different ages. I have a friend with a Dd same age as DS. At 2 this child was a dream, sweet, easy going the kind of toddler you could take out to dinner. DS was on tbe go all the time, he appeared to get bored quickly, things which would keep other toddlers occupied for hours would last 10 minutes if lucky, I had to go out twice daily rain or shine and be out the door by 10am latest or all hell broke loose, he also bit. They are now 17 my friend is disappointed her laid back easy going girl doesn't seem very academically motivated, my livewire DS studies every hour of the he day, does extra reading and is hell bent on a certain course. Those same charecterics now seem to have reversed as to what is seen as "good".

It is what it is my child has severe autism and learning disabilities, I used to compare myself to other families but realised there is no point

I actually don’t mind the parents who are finding it hard work (even if their dc are objectively much easier). It’s the ones who are sailing through and loving every moment that get my goat

For example, my DC woke several times a night until toddler age and then still woke often until school age. I know someone whose children never woke at night past 8 weeks. They are also therefore never tired and grumpy in the day. She has never said it’s hard work parenting, because it isn’t!!!

YABU

You have no idea what goes on behind closed doors - lots of children are beautifully behaved out on public or even with others but turn into little demons at home

Have you thought maybe your "gentle" parenting is the problem.....

Dunnesstores yes you're absolutely right, I would never complain about my difficulties to a parent of a child with complex needs.

I know I'm lucky in many ways. I guess I just wish that my friends could understand how lucky they are too. They really have no idea. Perhaps that's why I feel lonely, because I can't talk to people whose children have more complex needs, but my friends are pretty clueless.

@TheYearOfSmallThings I think it's a really interesting question about whether we want other parents to acknowledge that there is a problem.

Since I got my ASD assessment at 43-ish I have been thinking back to my early years. I remember when I was primary school age, that some other women used to nudge my Mum and whisper something to her while giving a sideways look at me. My Mum would just say "She's Fine" in a very definite way, and change the subject.

I realise now that I was not fine, and I'm not sure whether it would have been better if I'd known, or not. Maybe my Mum would not have been happy to acknowledge that I was somehow different.

It's all a bit complicated.

Things are hard for everyone in their own ways though. One of mine is autistic, has a hard time at school, rubbish sleeper, rubbish eater. However, when my friend moans about her daughter waking up in the night I don’t think oh well her problems aren’t as bad as mine, her child woke up once but mine woke up 5 times, why is she moaning.

On the flip side, seeing a child who has worse problems than my child doesn’t make me feel that my problems are now okay. Everyone has their own difficulties.