AIBU to feel like a failure? My daughter is so badly behaved!

[beebeegee]

My daughter is 7 and honestly the most turbulent child. She does well in school, but at home it’s an entirely different kettle of fish. She can be really funny, kind and caring, however she has daily meltdowns that are really breaking our family. This has been going on for years and it isn’t letting up. She screams at the absolute top of her lungs when things aren’t going her way. She wants control of everything and absolutely spirals when constraints are put on her. She quite happily follows all the rules at school but just won’t at home. I work with children and know all the strategies but nothing works. If we are firm, she gets more defiant. Distraction methods don’t work. The gentle approach has resulted in a massive power imbalance. She hits us and screams. These melt downs can even last an hour or two. Afterwards, when she is calm, she begs us not to talk about it. Getting mad if we talk about it. The neighbours have to put up with this daily, which just isn’t fair.

ive tried so hard with her but I’m just failing. I’ve made her a quiet place she can go to when things get too much, I’ve got staff in her school giving her extra support. The problem is, they see none of this in school. They see a very well behaved compliant child.

Ive wondered about things like pathological demand avoidance, but to be honest, nothing like that quite fits. I just don’t know how to move forward. Home life is now so unhappy, including for my other child. 😢 What do I do?

You say you work with children and you’ve really not considered ASD?

Thanks for all the replies.

You say you work with children and you’ve really not considered ASD?

she has never presented in a way that was consistent with my experiences of ASD.

Can you at home consider having the exact same boundaries that DD has at school?
What would school do if she screamed, hit, kicked etc.?
I would try to set up the same ramifications.
Respect for the other child (other students) would be my main aim. Could she help identify behavioural patterns/discipline systems that she follows at school?
She needs to be handled in a way that gives your other child freedom from her outbursts.
Could her teacher come for morning tea on aSaturday? Your daughter then experiences that she can behave well at home.

I would also have her to bed early and dinner wholesome and on time because she is likely tired from behaving so well at school.
Having her assessed for deafness, eyesight, allergies etc would be worthwhile to rule out any chronic illness that she manages to cope with.

Another one to say it may not be ASD. We are living this with my 7yo DD too. Had similar with eldest DD who is NT but not quite as bad. DS a couple of years older also had a phase too.

all my kids know/knew how to behave and follow rules at home and at church. As soon as they get home they let it all out and unwound. I plan for it now rather than hoping to avoid it. Think how knackered you are at the end of a long day at work where you’ve worked your hardest. Our kids are only little and their brains are still growing.

Reducing stimuli, drinking water, a healthy snack, getting them to use the toilet (is always worse if they’ve held it in all day), then just ignoring screaming are my tactics.

sometimes if 7yo has just screamed bloody murder and flailed and hit her dad because she isn’t getting her own way, she will get told off by him. This leads her to scream and scream and I just wait for her to come to me. I then just cuddle her and tell her I want to help her but I can’t understand her screaming, and that usually gets her to stop. It then leads to a calm conversation and still whilst cuddling I’ll explain what’s happening and why. Remind her i love her etc. If I feel she’s going back into tantrums I usually tell her I can’t help her when she’s like that and I have to walk away. On occasion I carry her to her bed and deposit her on it and tell her I still love her, but it’s not fair for her to make me listen to her screaming. More often than not she will calm herself down then…. Eventually.

God knows what my neighbours think.

Children like your DD often hate the noisy school lunch room environment with all the food smells and so don’t eat much at school. Maybe give her a substantial snack when she gets home or even dinner straight away. Is there anywhere calm you could go for a walk with her? She needs a way to wind down after school.

My autistic dd was exactly the same at this age.

It really sounds like autism .. in girls it's completely different

My teen dd was diagnosed at 16 and both the psychiatrist and psychologist said high functioning autism in girls should have a different name . They mask so well and it sounds like she is blowing a gasket when she gets to her safe space ..

Please explore a diagnosis before she gets to secondary ( ie now because it will take forever ) because if it is autism she won't cope without help .

Does she have any communication difficulties or repetitive behaviours? Do you considered her behaviours as severe enough to be described as "impairment"?

Most children respond best to continuity and structure yet many modern parents expect them to be very flexible. School is very predictable, with very clear well imposed boundaries & consequences so lots of children behave well there. There's also often far too much stimuli.

Have you tried:

• clear, consistent boundaries, over years?
• reduce intensity. Cut back on scheduled activities outside school
• very consistent sleep schedule
• reduce screen time, especially tablets & phones
• more time outdoors

We occasionally get prolonged phases of behaviour like you describe. We impose the above & find it improves rapidly. We often look back and realise the bad behaviour was happening when we were living too busy lives and expecting too much of our children.

Sounds exactly like my girl (9) though in school in p1/p2 she was put in nurture room to help with social skills - she is now 'perfect' in school. Mine was always this way, emotional dysregulation, really hard to help her get back to calm state. Demand avoidance also. She'll cry the minute she sees me at school gate about...30% of the time now? That can go on for about half an hour. Its all classic for autism in girls, including the teddies (my daughter carries her fave teddy almost everywhere but finds human touch v difficult). We are 18mo into waiting for a diagnosis. I would look into it because the wait is usually really long.

ASD presents differently in girls. Another vote for SEN here.

My DD is 11 and being assessed for ASD... we started the process over a year ago (lockdown was a dream for her, too, and she was "better"). This is just like her at 7.

Also "fine" in school, but wasn't really, hence the epic meltdowns at home.

ASD is a spectrum with widely varying presentations, and presentation in girls is very different to boys.

Another vote for really considering she might be autistic have a watch of the program on the BBC that Christine McGuiness did about autism in women and girls.

My daughter isn't obviously autistic especially at that age it's more obvious now if you spend time interacting with her.

She makes eye contact and did imaginary play to a point if you listened properly to the play it was slightly off, it's hard to describe but it wasn't fluid and was often a rewind or copy of a program she'd watched or her day.

I always knew there was something not quite right from when she was a toddler, our nephew is autistic and I was convinced she wasn't as she didn't present in the same way as him. Then one day something happened with her other cousin and I realised she couldn't predict what people were thinking/feeling even when it was quite obvious and it was like a light bulb went off in my head. I did a little reading about autism in girls and everything fell into place.

Her interests were acceptable for a girl of her age and she does mirroring basically copying what her peers are doing or how they are reacting. A great teacher pointed this out when we were going through the assessment, she watched her and realised she reacted a bit behind everyone else. So the class laughed she'd look at her peers then laugh herself.

Look out for if your daughter can do lateral thinking or is quite rigid. An example is ours had a meltdown when primary taught them to look something up on the internet. They used Chrome web browser to access the website and our laptop only had IE no matter how much we showed her and explained to her she couldn't get it.

The start of secondary was when it really became obvious she struggled really badly but because she's 'good' and not disruptive she got very little support eventually we moved her to a small private school and she is thriving.

What are the consequences of these daily meltdowns?

If it is autism, “consequences” aren’t going to prevent meltdowns. A meltdown is not a tantrum; it’s extreme sensory overload. It’s taken me years to able to spot the difference with my DD, but now I know that stopping meltdowns involves removing/reducing the triggers, rather than disciplining the behaviour. Firm, boundaries and fair, predictable consequences help with tantrums, as with any child, but meltdowns need to be handled differently and with a lot of care. Often they’re a result of the child having spent hours masking/bottling up at school, then they finally “let go” once they’re at home and they feel safe.

This was my first thought too

@beebeegee I have PDA and adhd and she sounds exactly like me as a child.

My son also has PDA (and adhd [these are actual diagnosis, not self diagnosis]), and is similar to your daughter. An angel at school due to effective masking but explosive at home.

Screaming/hitting/harming himself- refusing to talk about it afterwards is because they feel ashamed, they know it’s ‘wrong’ but they genuinely can’t control it.

PDA children generally are more pro social, make eye contact more readily and are often EXTREMELY good at creating imaginary worlds… they are often happier doing this than at other times.

Think of PDA as a panic/anxiety disorder brought on by lack of control when a demand is made- then with a bit of classic autism thrown in.

My friend is going through this with her DD who's 10. She's a delight in school and she comes to my house regularly and is the loveliest, polite girl, but at home she's a different girl. She has been diagnosed with ADHD which girls are so much better at masking according to the specialists.

This is an useful document to read through as it really highlights the difference between girls' and boys' presentation of autism.
Very important read for anyone in education...so many girls are flying under the radar at school.

autisticgirlsnetwork.org/keeping-it-all-inside.pdf

Sounds just like my autistic DD. The meltdowns build up from a day of masking at school. So it’s not home causing them, it’s school that causes them and she just waits until she is in a safe space before going to pieces.

You should flag this up and ask for an ASD assessment, if she had accommodations in school then a home meltdown wouldn’t be pressure cooking all day inside her. School is also very regimented, and so the reason why she needs freedom at home (so refuses everything you ask her to do- she’s trying to have control over some part of her life). If she had accommodation, they’d have a quiet space and a pass she could use during school to just quietly leave the classroom and self soothe, recharge with a bit of alone time before going back into the classroom which for an autistic person can be very stressful and too much sensory input.

ADHD is also a possibility. ASD and ADHD also frequently occur together.

Another one here suggesting autism.

My son has autism, he's extremely affectionate, massive imagination, and makes good eye contact. So these things can't be seen to exclude autism IMO. How are her school friendships? How is she with food? Clothing?

Fireworks, hairdryers, etc all stress my son.

What sparks the meltdowns? PDA is often due to anxiety when faced with a demand

It really does sound like ASD - my dd was diagnosed at age 13, having given every impression of absolutely thriving through primary school - it all fell apart at secondary. The meltdowns you describe sound very much like autistic meltdowns (especially the sense of shame afterwards 😞). The imaginative play thing is quite nuanced - I thought that my dc played imaginatively (they would pretend to be animals or set up huge train sets and make it a safari with dinosaurs, for example) but it is more to do with being able to use things as something beyond their literal purpose, like pretending that a banana is a phone, that sort of thing. My dd has quite a detailed fantasy world in her mind that she retreats into - girls with autism are often hugely imaginative and creative, but not in quite the same way as NT girls. I hope that makes sense. My dd's older brother is autistic and we still thought dd was NT until she started to completely fall apart in year 7 - it is often very subtle in 'higher functioning' girls - most of the teachers at school just thought she was quiet and beautifully behaved. I would see your GP and look into a private assessment if that is an option (NHS waiting lists are years long) - obviously no one on here can say for sure, but I do know that being diagnosed earlier would have saved my dd an awful lot of heartache, so would encourage you to explore the possibility. Best wishes op.

My youngest DD is 8 and is exactly like this. Meltdowns (including hitting, throwing things etc), control issues, aversion to crowds/noises, everything must go exactly as planned or there's hell to pay. School didn't see any of this behaviour as she was making, she is well behaved and puts a huge amount of effort in to keeping herself under control at school then completely lets loose on us when she's home. The strain on the rest of the family, particularly her siblings was getting to breaking point. The CAMHS waiting list for assessment is currently around 3 years in our area, so we paid for private assessment and she has been diagnosed with ADHD and low level ASD. She started meds for the ADHD a couple of months ago and there has been a marked difference in her behaviour. It's still a long way from perfect, there is a lot of learned behaviour there too because it has gone on so long, and she still has some quite bad days, especially if she's tired, but it is getting easier. I really would recommend getting her an assessment if you can. ADHD in girls can present quite differently than the commonly perceived view of it, so it is often missed.

It was DS being like this over the summer of being 7 that led me to make a GP appointment that resulted in an autism diagnosis at 9.

Patterns of behaviour since being about 10m old all clicked into place once I started mindmapping all his idiosyncrasies.

Sometimes there are things that you adapt to without noticing.

Common trigger points for DS have been busy/ loud/ bright places, decision making, changes or differences to things he's been anticipating. He has a termly cycle of start-of-termitis and end-of-termitis with the sweet spot being weeks 2-4 and the hardest week being the penultimate week, before easing slightly as the end comes into sight. He needs time to recharge in the holidays before we go away and time to settle after.

It's felt like a continuous terrible-twos since he learned what "no" meant at 10m until he seamlessly merged into the teen years. Some phases are more intense than others, but summer y2 was particularly awful with SATs disruption then the usual off-timetable stuff. He could end up having meltdowns lasting 3-4 hours of screaming and lashing out.

Perfect at school. He had one "tantrum" at nursery, I remember the key worker's astonishment.

These days I can read his mood as he walks up the road to me and I let him take the lead on when he's ready to chat.