Am I expecting too much from ND pre-teen?

[HippyKayYay]

Parents of ND pre-teens how do you know where to draw the line between supporting them and pandering to them?

We do a lot to support DD (12, high functioning ASD and ADHD) in the mornings and at bedtime (two toughest times of day for her). But I'm feeling totally burnt out by it and that I will never be able to meet her incredibly high standards and unrealistic expectations about what we can and should be able to do for her. If we try to draw lines (e.g. if you want a lift to school you must be ready to leave at X time, so that we can get on with our day') it leads to huge conflict, accusations of us 'being mean', or 'why can't you just be nice to me?'.

Bedtime is a long, protracted affair that requires me and/or DH to push her through the various stages of her routine (otherwise she gets 'stuck') but being careful not to nag her (because then she explodes). Her bedtime is getting later and later, but she still 'needs' us there at lights out to sit with her. Suggestions that we no longer do so lead to major distress.

I've explained to her umpteen times that we can't give her what we don't have, that we have limited capacity, etc. She gets upset because she says I'm 'making her feel bad'. We go round in circles. Any attempts to draw hard cut-offs at bedtime can lead to massive melt-downs (often lasting until after midnight - we've had 3 in the last week). DH and I are knackered and have no time together at all in the evenings anymore. Added issue is she has a younger brother who gets very stressed out by all of this (expecially when he's woken up by her having a meltdown at 11pm).

So, yeah. TLDR: how do I put some boundaries in place around what support we give DD without making her 'feel bad', that we 'don't love her' and without leaving her really distressed? Because I'm becoming massively resentful about meeting her 'needs' (/demands), which are feeling increasingly unreasonable.

Does she have a phone and is she game-orientated? My ADHD friend with crazy executive dysfunction has found an app where she gets a little digital pet, and then if she can check off activities on her list (drink water, do yoga, journal, bed by 9pm) she gets points she can use to feed/clothe/treat her little digital pet with. She is a 40 year old woman. She says she knows in her head it's silly but somehow it's more motivating than anything she's tried before. I forget the name of the app but might this be useful for your DD to establish some good habits?

We tried this with this exact app, and dd got so focussed on it and it would cause massive meltdowns if she ‘forgot’ to do it because she felt really bad for the bird 🥲 It is a nice idea though.

Of course you aren't this bad. But MIL jas never questioned her decisions or he rparenting in any way. She's stll confused about all sorts of things!

Aaargh - not for everyone I guess!

I will say I loved it though as I downloaded it too 😂 The app is called Finch if anyone is interested.

There is light at the end of the tunnel op, we were where you are a few years ago. There has been some great advice on this thread and I’d agree that she can get herself to school, it’s good for her to have more independence and it can be framed positively.
I did have a mantra at the time of let it go and I think we eventually only insisted on teeth being brushed and face washed which we had to stand over her to make sure it happened.
Something that I believe helped my DD to start to get perspective was watching programmes featuring ASD characters together such as Atypical and young Sheldon (although I believe the writers have said the character isn’t on the spectrum). Your DD maybe too young for Atypical atm but YS could be worth a pop.

Just a question about this @TinyTear - the 'we need to leave now' idea. If we ask DD to do anything she always says 'just a minute...' or 'can I just [finish this chapter/ finish this episode/ etc]'. It's a major point of frustration for us and we spend a lot of time negotating how much time she can do stuff for, agree on a time limit (e.g. 30 mins on the Switch) and then when the timer is up she will ALWAYS ask (admitedly, nicely) for more 'I'm nearly finished with X, can I just have 5 more minutes'. If we say 'no' it a) feels petty and b) leads to conflict/ accusations.

I'm just realising now what a big issue this is as it's at the source of a lot of conflict. Her not being able to stick to the agreed boundary/ limit. Us being rigid about them = explosive conflict. Us being more flexible = fucking irritating negotation about how much the boundary/ limit is being extended. This is an illustration of how I'm currently struggling with whether we need to hold firmer boundaries/ rules or be more flexible ('roll with resistance').

Hi we have a bit of this issue but I was also like that when little "just finishing the chapter".

I think for us what worked was some rules

• when we can be flexible we are but things like school, doctors, travel, when I say we leave we leave. I won't be late for that.

• just finishing - we let her finish the battle, the chapter, the claiming of rewards - I also game so know how it is - but she needs to show us the respect that when that's done that's done.

She is now nearly 14 and secondary school seems to have helped her sense of responsibility. I let her do a lot of things as long as she shows me the respect of being home by X time and letting me know where she is and so on.

She knows I will let her do a lot of within reason so she tries not to lose that. It's hard to explain as it took a while to get here and I used to lose my temper but them apologized and tried to explain my side and why we needed to do X at X time, for example

In her case I think puberty helped her maturity

My daughter has PDA. She is 26 now and lives with her boyfriend. So I'm through it now!

I guess you know about demands making some children disregulated. Some people see it as bad behaviour but it's really a sort of panic attack.

In the moment you are stuck. They care about winning much more than you do and they can drag it out.

My main advice is not to force a battle. Constantly be thinking how you can give the appearance of being in charge, even if you are not. So never show anger or frustration. If you know bedtime is a trigger, prepare for what's going to come.

Try crazy tactics, like get a baby sitter round when it starts up and go out. Every night. You need to set this up in advance of course.

Send your son away on a pgl camp or similar while you do this so he's not impacted.

But the main thing is to consistently give her the message that you understand her and have her best interests in mind at all times. This means consoling her even when you think she is over reacting, stepping in to fix sth or stop sth before it all goes bad. Making sure you aren't battling over small stuff. Giving her as much autonomy in ways she can cope with eg her clothes.

So choose the thing that most upsets you eg bedtime and just focus on that for now.

Boundaries aren't going to work. You've tried that. You need horse whispering rather than horse breaking xx

Oh god I feel this comment so much. Sorry to jump onto thread but god this is very real for me too

OP, fwiw the way we manage bedtime is to stay with him until he is asleep. He’s 12. DH and I alternate each night and it’s at least a full hour between 9-10pm every night. I used to hate it, but we’ve gradually reframed it to be special 1:1 time. It’s cuddles and hearing the monologue of the day. It’s a time to vent and sometimes to laugh and be silly. It’s protected time.

DH and I carve out some time earlier in the evening to catch up together, watch a tv show, go for a walk, spend time with our older NT teen, etc. Once a week without fail we pay our older teen to put DS12 to bed (spend that full hour with him) and we go to the pub or the cinema or sometimes we shut the door on our bedroom and take in a bottle of wine.

I don’t know when this need for bedtime company will abate; surely it will! But until then it has helped (us all) to frame it positively.

Solidarity OP. Your children are lucky to have you

This is 100% the same for us with ADHD 10 year old DD. Exact same list of activities which tend to get dragged out and then we have to ‘sit’ with her. 😫

OP, I don't have direct experience if parenting a ND teen so this may be completely irrelevant/inappropriate, in which case feel free to ignore it. But something is really jumping out to me, which is the way your DD is experiencing your boundaries as you 'making her feel bad', and that you are using this language yourself.

This isn't what's happening. She is making herself feel bad, because of how she is internalising and interpreting your actions in her own head. That is in no way suggesting that she is doing this deliberately, or that this default way of thinking is her fault, or weakness, or whatever. BUT it is a very powerless way of thinking. As long as she believes that your behaviours are directly responsible for her emotional experience, she will be stuck with feeling and being out of control of herself.

It sounds like she would really benefit from starting to understanding her own power and agency over her emotional response, so that over time and with practice she can start taking more responsibility for it. This is something we've been working on very hard for over a year with one of our teen DC who has significant MH challenges, and their mindset is finally beginning to shift in a positive way. It's not easy though and DC is not ND (we believe) so I'm not sure how applicable it would be to your DD.

I have a “high functioning” 14 year old DS with ASD so I do get how hard it is.
What is the worst that could happen if you left her to do her own thing and didn’t sit with her at all? It almost seems like you have to break the cycle of her needing to do those things as they have become almost ritualistic?
If she wails and screams, does it matter? I mean this kindly but she is nearly a teenager and nothing terrible is going to happen to her if she gets upset.
Can she not do the drawing downstairs earlier in the evening and unwind then?
I understand it’s a 2 hour process at the moment but it’s incredibly late for her going to bed at 10.30pm so I would try to at least move it forwards a bit.
Appreciate not every child is the same but DS is also very controlling and what has helped for him is to take away some of his choices and make the decisions for him as some of his distress is the inability to make decisions and organise. So we tell him we are taking the decisions away from him, so he effectively opts out and his need for control becomes less.
Not sure if that’s any help for your situation but effectively you are allowing her to make all her own choices at 12 and ND or not that’s not always a great idea.
I would start with, you are going upstairs at this time. You need to do XYZ, when it is done I will come up but I will decide how long for then you will go to sleep. In the morning you will need to be up at this time for me to take you to school, if you aren’t then you will walk and be late.
Yes she will be distressed and yes it will be tough but it’s better to have a shorter period of her being upset than years of this. I assume she manages ok at school and tasks there don’t take 2 hours, so she can do it.

Yes to some of this. No to quite a lot of it! Honestly, it's the constantly having to be 10 paces ahead to set things off at the pass (e.g. stressful situations/ things that will tip her over the edge) is part of the reason I'm burnt out. It's just impossible to do that effectivtively indefinitely, because the world is a an unpredictible place. And 'never show frustration'? I'd have to be a saint, or a robot to do that. I mean I really try. But I also think that if she's asking for unreasonable things that I can't really do it's ok to show I'm frustrated. Or maybe not... I don't know!

But yes, I hear you that boundaries aren't working (I think). But then others are saying firmer boundaries are what's needed.

This is useful, thanks. She definitely blames others for her emotions and whilst extremely aware (and hyper alert) about other people's emotional states, has little understanding of her own.

I'm hoping this will develop with maturity and support from us

Just going to list a few things that helped us:

Use sand timers instead of telling her and giving verbal warnings. Be clear what it means and what you expect her to do when time runs out.

Do a very slow exit from her room for settling down. Do not tell her in advance of the whole plan, do it in baby steps, so eg “I’m going to sit on the end of your bed” and do that until she’s comfortable with that, then gradually move away, even over 6 months, so it’s a very slow progression to you sitting in the doorway, on the landing etc.

For the run up to anything regular (getting up and going to school, going to bed) laminate a tick box list, list everything she needs to do, pick only essential things, once all ticked off she can have a treat, a little sweet, a cracker type toy, something little but an immediate reward.

Tag team when both parents are home, make sure each child gets each parent for some calm time if you can.

Learn how to scale - something like the incredible 5 point scale or similar - not only does it teach the child to learn to recognise that they’re getting disregulated, but it also helps you to learn to spot the signs early on that she needs help to prevent it all escalating.

Pick your battles. If she’s in a high stress state dial back your expectations.

Once used to using lists use paper lists so you can start switching round the order (if this is something she needs - we used it for days out to be able to allow flexibility - eg if it was rainy we could pick another activity from the list, or add in something else and cross something else out, but pace it, start slowly).

I haven’t read the whole thread so sorry if I’ve repeated stuff.

I guess what I mean is that she is running the show atm and I'm trying to suggest ways for you to take back control, because it will make her feel safer and more able to trust your decisions. Others are suggesting this too, only they are suggesting tougher boundaries. I'm suggesting a different approach where you take control in a less obvious way. Sorry if I didnt make that clear.

There is a parenting technique called NVR (non violent resistance), which is really aimed at very challenging, often violent situations, but also young people who dont "launch" when they leave school and just live in their bedrooms and get their parents do everything for them.

And in nvr, the theory is that you cant necessarily change your child but you can stand in your own truth, make it clear what is acceptable and what isn't, regardless of outcome. You disengage from their behaviours. Any change in their behaviour is great, but what really matters is that you are taking back control in your house.

Nvr is a big, big subject, and the full programme includes aspects that aren't always helpful imo.

But some of it is good advice. Choose one behaviour to work on. You choose the biggest issue and ignore everything else for now.

You stay calm and prepared. You have a strategy - i suggested the babysitter option but you could eg warn the neighbours there might be trouble, have a friend pop round. You could offer alternatives.

You will get kickback. It will be hard. But you will get your evening back and she will feel safer because she will see that she isn't in control.

Well. If we just left her to it she would probably sit at her desk for ages (or get stuck at any one of the other stages of bedtime) and then realise and then get stressed out that she didn't have reading time and then if we tried to reign that in she'd start kicking off. We might be able to mollify her by giving her more time. If we try to hold the pre-agreed bedime boundary she will get loud, accuse us of putting too much pressure on her (to get her light out 'early') and probably wake up her younger brother (who gets really anxious when this happens). If she was an only child (or was the younger sibling) I would absolutely have far less concern about her kicking off/ shouting at 11.45pm.

I think we just need to just experiment with leaving her to it....

But, as an example, she was supposed to be in bed reading by 10pm, with her light out by 10.15. Between 9.58 & 10.03 she came into my office (next door) 3 times to tell me or show me things (this is after DH had left her room - he'd been sitting with her for about 5 mins). All stuff she's already told me or shown me. And also to ask me (for the millionth time) whether a sleepover can happen this weekend. When I asked her to get into bed, she said 'can you please just be nice to me'. Aaaand now (10.05) she's decided she needs to do something in the bathroom and can't get into bed until she has... I absolutely predict that when DH goes in there at the pre-agreed time to turn her light out (10.15) she will kick off, say she hasn't had enough time and will accuse us of putting too much pressure on her.

She's 12! Cracker toys aren't going to cut it and neither will 'gradual withdrawal'. Although this stuff was somewhat effective with her when she was younger.

Ah, ok. I see (I think). So what would that look like? Us saying 'bedtime is 9.45' and then forcing her to turn her light out even if she's not ready? Or just refusing to engage with her at all at bedtime? I don't see how the former is practical or how the latter isn't detrimental. I'm probably just not getting how to apply it to our situation.

Should add, that the reason she wants us with her at lights out is because she's anxious. This is actually a newish thing (last 3 months). Before then we could just say goodnight and leave the room (but we did have to do that when she turned her light out). But then she started getting really anxious after lights out (worrying about death in particular) and wanted one of us with her. It would have felt cruel to deny her, no?

But now it's become habitual rather than needed I think. But if we try to withdraw it she gets anxious about being anxious if we don't do it (if that makes sense).

Worked with mine at 12. The instant reward was the trick. Tailor it to your child, but maybe try some ideas from parents who’ve been there and done that and come out the other side. Preteen stage is tough.

Edited to add that there are elements of these things that I do with my 14 year old, particularly the lists. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

Edited again to add that gradual withdrawal worked last year with my 14 year old. I had to lie in bed with him as he was so anxious.

Edited again to add that your response has really annoyed me. I took the time to respond with methods that have helped me with my children who sound similar to your dd. One of the main things that got me through some really traumatic years was trialling suggestions from more experienced MNers who’d survived the very same issues. I hope you find some peace, it’s a tough road, but I’ll bow out now.

Ah, ok. Sorry! From your post I thought you were talking about a younger child...

The scaling thing we need to figure out. DH and I can tell when she's on the road to a bedtime meltdown, but it is very hard to head it off at the pass. Mostly because if we point it out to her she gets really stressed. So we need to figure out how to help her start recognising (and accepting) the signs herself.

This is the basic idea of scaling. The trick is to take a step back and learn to spot the little signs that things aren’t going well, so for eg ds would go a little red under his eyes at a stage 3, if we didn’t take certain measures (like sensory stuff) he would end up at meltdown.

Until we learnt that we missed loads of little signs, so it was very useful, and then great to teach ds how to spot things for himself. My daughter is in her twenties and I still find myself watching for her signs as she still misses them for herself when overwhelmed.

Re bedtime - you might find that heading her off much earlier before there are any signs at all makes for a more successful bedtime. Do you do any sensory diet activities? That might be worth looking at. Mine liked to be squashed - so squeezing their arms, squashing under cushions.

No @AcrylicPink - I've never even heard of 'sensory diet'. I'll look that up...