To refer myself to SS?

[LifeSucksBigTime]

I am honestly at breaking point with my 12 year old. I have raised another child who is now an adult, and is the sweetest, kindest girl you could meet. My youngest is the polar opposite, and honestly she makes my life a misery.

This could be a very long thread if I went into the whole, complicated story. But the bottom line is that I’m not coping anymore, mentally. She’s getting worse and worse with age (and she’s never been easy, from the word go).

I really need some help. I don’t know who to talk to, whether I should call SS, or the GP, or her school? I do love her but she doesn’t make it easy, she really is a spectacularly unpleasant individual.

You can contact early help which is part of ss but not as serious

If school are supportive, I would go to them. They likely have someone that they can recommend to help you and her. Also if your MH is suffering go to GP too.
Teenagers are very hard, is there any SEN needs?

Maybe start with her school when they re start in September if you can wait that long.
Im sorry your having these problems.
My daughter is the same age and a only child and can be horrendous at times.

I don’t know how bad your daughter is but if you feel you can’t cope maybe speak with your GP.
I’m sorry again and hope things get better without you having to contact social services.

I had the same problem with my teenager years ago (he's 21 now). I constantly went to SS saying I couldn't cope and that I needed help with him. They did sweet FA, well apart from offer 1 hour of respite a week which didn't start for 6 moths after I asked for it. Before that there were loads of meetings and assessments.

I hope they can help you but school and GP would be your best bet before SS

I am so sorry. Can you describe some of the behaviour and how you deal with it? I have a child with Autism and some of the behavior has been difficult, but has got better. They were diagnosed aged 13.

Please do get some support for yourself. Are there any parenting support groups local to you?

I am not sure what Social Services can offer, but I would probably try the school and GP first.

Schools are on the bones of their arse. They can help with issues that affect a child at school - or with poverty related issues (which again, might affect that child at school) - but this is a parenting/possible medical issue, and I'm not sure what you'd expect them to do.
Sorry OP, but that's just the reality. I hope things get better soon (and believe me, as the mother of 3 girls, I DO sympathise!).

If you contact school they are likely to offer an Early Help referral, rather than wait it might be work contacting the council yourself to self-refer

Nothing wrong with referring yourself to SS if you need to - it may help or it may not. Bigger question is "what's going on w your dd?" Special needs, trauma, mh problems? Behaviour is communication, what is she "telling" you?

Where is her father?

And much sympathy for you. Whatever is going on it sounds really tough to have brought you to this point.

Contact the council and they will help you. There may be parenting classes (with others so you remember you are not alone and lots of others face challenges), or a family support worker type to mentor you for a number of weeks to help you make a plan and signpost you to others.

Sorry its tough. Holidays are long....

She has ASD (diagnosed) and suspected ADHD.

Behaviour wise, she truly believes the world revolves around her. She steals, breaks, loses mine and her sisters possessions and then lies about it. She is uncooperative to the extreme, to get her to do ANYTHING that doesn’t benefit her involves me first asking nicely, and escalating gradually to me losing my shit and having to threaten to take her phone away (and often following through with this). Everything is always a battle. She has zero respect for me and no gratitude at all for the time/effort/money I put in to her very expensive hobby, which she doesn’t deserve to do but at the same time is the only thing which gives her any kind of focus or sense of achievement, so I’m loathe to take it away from her because I think it’s the only thing standing between her being a complete reprobate.

If I explain to her how her actions have made me feel, she sits there with a smirk and says “I don’t care”. She genuinely doesn’t care, it’s almost psychopathic. She only cares about what she wants and things that benefit her. She’s the same at school, it’s endless emails and phone calls from them, she skives lessons, misbehaves and disrupts the class when she does go, and if the teachers pull her up on her behaviour she just laughs at them and gives them a lot of verbal abuse. If they give her a detention she will just refuse to go, knowing full well they can’t physically make her.

She’s always been difficult, and I’ve always been on my own with her. She is getting worse with age and honestly I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. On the very rare occasions she does something nice or is compliant I thank her for it and make sure she knows how much I appreciate it. I start every day with a clean slate, hoping it will be better, but things invariably escalate to me having to lose it with her. I don’t enjoy that, that’s not how I am.

It’s awful being trapped with living with her. I wouldn’t stand for being treated like that by anyone, I have zero tolerance for dickish behaviour and I’m very selective about my friends and who I spend time with. But she makes my life a misery from morning until night and there’s no escape from it.

We contacted SS when we were at the end of our rope with our 15yo dd. They were brilliant. Got me parenting classes and her support from CAMHS which was fantastic. They also sent a SW round every week for a bit to talk to her. They also assessed whether she needed to go into a foster place as we couldn't keep her safe, but she stayed with us. I would call them again in a heartbeat.

Re trauma, I had a really stressful pregnancy as I was literally in fear of my life from her father (who is a diagnosed psychopath - or has antisocial personality disorder to use the correct term). She was a really unsettled baby who never slept. Then at 19 months was kidnapped for 5 days by her psycho father, and the police eventually got her back. I will never know what happened during those days, but she came back with open, bleeding sores all over her nappy area, which took 2 weeks to heal and she would scream in pain every time she sat down. He hasn’t seen her since then (banned by the court from any sort of contact for her whole childhood). I’ve studied attachment theory and I know this could explain a lot with her. She was different when she came back, a lot more clingy and anxious and scared of people.

I’ve had MH problems myself as a result of the above, but I’ve always done my best with the resources I have to give her the best life I can, the same as with my older dd. If anything the younger one has had a lot more attention as she has always demanded it, whereas my eldest is a lot more passive. And they have turned out so differently.

I'm so sorry to hear this. I have a son (9) who is very difficult too.

I think the long summer days can be hard - school will give structure at least.

I would definitely go to the GP...could she see a psychologist? A counselor? Nobody wants to be a dick - she must be very unhappy in herself.

You're absolutely right to let her keep her expensive hobby. Is there anything else she could do to keep busy?

You have my sympathy...there were times this summer when I wished my son was gone - my other kids are very sweet and good...but he starts arguments out of thin air and is often awful to be around. He has been diagnosed with ASD.. this summer he has seen a counselor, gone to Lego therapy, done yoga classes regularly, etc. He will be doing play therapy in September and having a monthly zoom session with a counselor. I am always on the lookout for anything at all that might help him.

@Beachdays44 I can really relate to that, it’s awful to say but if I could turn back time and not have had her I absolutely would. WRT keeping her busy, I’m either working to pay for her hobby or doing her hobby with her (at least 2 hours every day), and by the end of that I’m exhausted and have nothing left in the tank, I have chronic fatigue caused by years of stress and just doing what I’m doing is the limit of what I’m capable of.

Do you pay privately for the therapy your son gets?

All of them. In my experience you can't tell who will be able to help. There's a lot of luck involved, things run differently in every area, programmes stop and start.

Ask all of them if you can get onto a parenting programme (group/class/workshop whatever) You'll get to meet a load of parents going through similar shit or worse, and it can be quite comforting when someone tells you what their horrible teen is doing and you can think "well at least DD never thought of doing that!"; and you might get a few helpful tips. Ask all of them (Dr, school, SS) about it because it's random which one will know.

If DD has autism then some specialist help would be good. NAS ran some parenting-teens workshops but that was a few years ago now. I went along with a pal who I'd met through DS's social skills group, though as it happened adolescence was quite kind to our DCs and those years were better for us rather than worse. But I know from other mums, it can go either way.

Have you tried the MN Special Needs boards? They don't turn up in Active threads but there are quite a few experienced mums of kids all ages with ASCs over there.

Op
There will be a local renting support service. Please research. Email today as say you are at breaking point.

Monday - GP

And then school school school. Email them before term starts.

Don’t be proud. Be absolutely honest.

and forget about SS. They have much much bigger fish to fry then parent self referrals because in it self - that is a positive sign.

Renting should read parenting

What on earth is this 2 hour hobby? Horse riding?

that is not an automatic right Op. if you daughter is rude and abusive and smirks - you withdraw this hobby for that day

Yes good guess, she has a horse. Withdrawing the hobby when she’s rude would mean her never going because she’s always rude, and also would just be shooting myself in the foot because I just have to do all of the stable jobs myself (not that she’s exactly masses of help when she’s there and we have the same battles as at home where I have to get cross with her to get her to help). But I think making her go and help teaches her some sense of responsibility. That’s the theory anyway, not sure it’s actually working in practice.

But op surely you can see, it most definitely is not working.

It sounds like she probably has trauma as well as the ADHD. There is a really good Facebook group called Therapeutic Parenting where you may get some tips for handling her behaviour and some support from people who have similar issues.

In the sense that it’s not making her any nicer to be around, no it’s not. But it does keep her occupied and it’s a reason not to let her go and hang around with her mates in the park doing god knows what, which is all she’d want to do otherwise. And it does give me a bit of leverage, there’s always some event coming up that she wants to do and I can use not going as a threat to make her comply. So no she absolutely doesn’t deserve it but I think she’d be a lot worse if she didn’t have it.

I self referred. Best thing I ever did.
The difference is though that my child has severe and complex learning disabilities. So we got a social worker specifically within the field of special needs and they have been amazing. Helped us get respite, sped up camhs referral, chased paediatrician for us, holds child in need meetings where everyone involved in my child's life (professionally, ie. School, SALT, paed etc) sit round a table to discuss where we are at etc.
Whilst im not sure the situation re your child (behavioural or special needs) - Do it. If you need help, you'll get help.
SS get a bad rep and in my experience it does make me wonder how. 🤔

Op

you are trying to convince yourself that continuing a very expensive and time intensive hobby on your part is a good thing because you can’t imagine having her around for those 2 hours at home. And that is understandable

but it is very very clear - a drastic change needs to be made. And this very expensive hobby is something that you, as her parent, need to make her realise is contingent on her being a least a half way civilised human being

Just saw re ASC. Defo do it!! My DS has Autism, global development delay, sensory processing disorder (think - smearing every night 😭), tics/tourettes, non verbal and ADHD. His aggression and violence is on another level. He's 8. Has an ehcp and attends SEN school.