To not want to look after my daughter any more

[Goaheadflameme]

My daughter is 8. She is recently diagnosed with autism. No problems at school but a nightmare at home.

Predictably, being out of the school routine has made her challenging behaviour more challenging. She regularly tells me she hates me, wishes I was dead, that things would be better without me. Everytime
I say something she mocks me. She won’t do anything she is told and consequences are meaningless as she just doesn’t care. Today she has also thrown food round the living room and when I tried to stop this she has violently attacked me multiple times. Previously she has broken my finger and scratched me to the extent that I was hospitalised due to a serious infection in my arm.

I just honestly can’t do it any more. This has been going on for more than two years now. It’s completely ruining me, my relationship with my husband and our family life (we have other children). The violence triggers me so badly due to childhood abuse and I don’t feel safe in my own home.

Do social services take children away in these circumstances?

DS was similar at this age, and targeted me during meltdowns, I had three visits to A&E - broken finger, head injury, punched in the eye. He would also bite me, at one point my right arm was just one huge bruise.

DS did get help with emotional regulation via a locally commissioned service provided by a charity, which improved things no end - it's hard to make recommendations when what's available can be so different in different areas.

OP should definitely ask for a carers assessment, and for help from social services and the local parenting team - you have to keep asking, and will probably have to spend a lot of time on the phone explaining the situation.

Also look for local charities - find the voluntary sector council for the area and see if they can signpost to any relevant organisations. Ask large charities like Barnardo's and Action for Children if they do anything locally.

And everyone saying CAMHS - we're on an our third time of being turned down by CAMHS, despite DS now talking about wanting to die/harm himself.

When my 10yo was saying she "didn't want to exist" CAHMS advised we talk to the school SENCO.
Who was actually part of the fracking problem

First time DS referral was refused, school intervened and CAMHS agreed to an assessment - further involvement was refused on the grounds his issues were ND related (this was prior to ASD diagnosis)

Second referral was made after our TAF (team around the family) worker requested it. Assessment done. Same as before.

Third referral after multiple appointments and months of DS talking about suicide/self harm, then escalating to school refusal - refused because he's on a waiting list for six sessions of counselling in a school he won't attend and can't cope with even seeing the building. And that's specialist provision within a mainstream school. There's not really anywhere else for him to go as the provision for children with EBSA is on the same site.

And he has started harming himself now - mildly so far, just scratches atm, so back to the GP who'll hopefully take it back to CAMHS.

My son has learning disabilities and doesn't understand when I say no and explain to him. I've noticed the triggers now and I've learned to change the subject to something else. I've always put a pillow in front of him when he was younger when I could see a meltdown coming he used to punch the pillow and cry to get his frustration out. It's so hard and I'm single mother as his dad passed away but I'm lucky I've got his older brother to help me. I got restbite, PA in place and day centres aswell

Unfortunately social services is going to consider 'the best interests of the child' and not do a holistic assessment of the family - because they simply cannot take on all the children whose families would be better off without them. That's the sad fact. OP is the parent and has to step up to the plate and take this on full time, as hard as that is.

@ClosetBasketCase

Im just contemplating how you would get a child in the middle of an autistic meltdown to A&E

Then you need to claim Disability Living Allowance for her. There will be organisations in your area who can help you with the claim form, such as Citizens Advice etc. That might afford you some respite so you then get some time to decide on a way forward.

CAMHS and medication.

OP is the survivor of childhood abuse and triggered by the violence from her child. Is it reasonable to say she just needs to ‘step up to the plate’ without acknowledging her own trauma - and how that may impact on the rest of the family?

There are also other children in the house - are you suggesting social services do not consider it worthwhile to conduct a risk assessment for their safety, concentrating only on the child who inflicts the injuries on the rest of the family?

So is becoming a punchbag to your child part of mothering now? Doesn't seem like a good deal for women.

What do you suggest the child is 8?

The threshold to get a child into residential is quite high. As it costs the local authorities anywhere between £250k-£500k a year for these placements.
I know of 3 families that had to do this. In two of the families; adopted boys who became such a danger to their parents and siblings that there was no choice. But parents had to beg for a few years before that happened. They were 12 years old when they finally went into 52 week residential. And my lovely single mum friend who had her 8 year old son forcibly removed from her because he had become a safeguarding issue to her. She didn't want that at all, she'd only ever wanted the LA to provide respite which didn't exist. But they took away her parental rights after he hospitalised her with concussion and she had no choice-she did get her rights back after 2 years of court cases. He's been in 3 residentials in the last 7 years and they have all been sub-par. He did have a a couple of years back home whilst they tried to find a bespoke solo placement which he is now in and during that time at home she had 2 male carer/pyschiatric nurses 24/7 in her home to keep her safe at a cost of nearly £2 million pounds a year to the LA.
Currently there is no adequate help for families facing child on parent/sibling violence.

All of which is irrelevant aa the Ops daughter doesn't even have an EHCP at present so a residential school isn't even on the radar at the moment, I really don't think going into extreme cases is helpful how will it help the Op?

@Goaheadflameme you say she is recently diagnosed. What support are you receiving? She should have been referred for additional services following her diagnosis - e.g. SALT, OT etc. Did they say she has a PDA profile? If so, what resources are you accessing? Can you say a little more about how autism affects your dd other than the violence - what are her triggers?

I'm sorry for all the questions. But I could have written your post two years ago (dd is now 8). I actually called my dh on one occasion and told him I wanted to put her up for adoption. I cringe to read that sentence back and it makes me so sad. Our relationship now is very close, a whole world away from where we were. She's still undiagnosed, but we did manage to get some support from CAMHS. Other than that, it's been self taught strategies, getting to know and understand her, changing the way we parent her to accommodate her needs.

At the time, my own poor mental health as a result of all the chaos and violence was feeding the cycle. We became detached from one another. Once I was able to remain calm and walk away from the extremes, my own state of mind improved and I realised this wasn't the real her and she desperately needed me to help her re-regulate. So my advice to you is to prioritise yourself, take time out, do something regularly that you enjoy.

You've reached rock bottom in your relationship with her, but you cannot help and support her (or your family) if you don't first make yourself stronger. I'm so sorry you're going through this. But please take heart, it can improve. Most days nobody would know any more what we went through, or how hard she was to parent.

This poster has experience and knowledge of the matter - a violent child. The post is very informative in fact. Your trying to shut down people sharing their information is unhelpful.

I disagree the poster is talking about people they know that's not knowledge
How is informative to waffle on about residential schools ,when it's completely irrelevant at this stage and terrify the Op by talking about extreme cases of people losing their child ??
I'm 15,years down the line as a parent of a severely autistic teenager, and whilst my child has very different needs I do have a good idea of what is and isn't available and Whst the Op could be offered at this stage.

If you don’t think it’s informative then scroll on by. I find the post very helpful as it deals with actual situations and financial content. You have posted about your family issues which are completely different to those of the op - I imagine that people have scrolled on rather than pointing this out. This poster has actual relevant information and it’s helpful.

The cost of residential placement isn't informative to the Op as it's just not an option at this point, and talking about parents having their rights removed and their children taken away is very extreme and very unkind.
I have posted about early help ,and looking at the local offer which I think is far more useful at this very early stage than ridiculous suggestions of residential school, s if you don't like my posts than suggest you take your own advice and scroll on by

I have scrolled by your posts here, as you don’t have actual experience of the OP’s situation, until you picked on this poster who contributes actual experience and financial data. It’s hard facts - it’s a difficult situation. It’s important to read this.

Your own suggestion wss to get the Ops child into foster care so I think i can safely assume you know absolutely nothing about how things work and for some reason just want to pick fights with posters you don't agree with
I'm not engaging with you anymore as it's pointless.

Yes - I have suggested to call the Samaritans, social services contact and foster care. Many other posters have said the same. The difference is that I don’t attempt to shut down the discussion, shame posters, pretend to know the solutions or complain about actual relevant information posted by others.

@x2boys yes you are quite right. I left out a lot of important detail.
Of course all these boys had EHCPs from a very young age, DLA, combinations of MASH and/or Cafcass involvement, CAMHS, had been in SEN schools. Social worker involvement from a young age. You name it. All sorts of family support workers assigned to them.
The road to residential is very long.
The costs were to highlight why the threshold has to be high. Local authorities are broke, residential is the very last resort.
And yes a lot of parents are scared to report and push for help for a violent child because social workers often start with an Occam's razor point of view (they certainly seem to in our authority). A violent child must mean bad parenting( so often parents are referred to parenting courses) and/or violence is being modelled in the home.

In thst case i completely agree ,it i just find it infuriating when posters blithely suggest residential school, s when they have no idea how hard it is to get a place and without an EHCP they wouldn't even be on the radar and rightly so as you say they should only ever be a last resort for children with the most complex needs.

So no recourse for self defense at all and are expected to take the physical beating their child delivers?