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?

Sorry no much to offer except start the DLA finding process, this should help with costs for external help / therapies

Look into respite. I think it’s different in different authorities. I know for my friend who has recently moved, it’s been next to useless, and she is a single parent (with zero help, i’m the only person who helps her out if she needs childcare for appointments etc) and child is non-verbal (nearly 7) and currently no school place as she has moved authorities and all schools are full or say no. So I hope your local authority will help out more.

Are you wanting them to take her into care? Hopefully they will have other things to try before that. Is your DD in a special needs school? Is there an option of residential? That’s something i’ve mentioned to my friend to ask, as I do fear she is going to have a breakdown soon as things are so hard for her. So totally hear you, no judgement at all and I do hope you can access the help you need.

I’m sorry things are so hard for you. You’re not alone - my ds still hits out, swears, says hurtful things etc. He just doesn’t have the level of control yet to prevent his feelings showing in this way.

Before you think about giving her up, you need to think about giving yourself a nicer life with her at home.

Look into summer clubs for her, is there anything which she would enjoy? Book her in 9-3 every day if you can afford it. This will mirror the school routine.

Apply for DLA to help fund this.

Contact school and insist on more support in school for next year, often the poorest behaviour at home is a reflection of how stressful school is.

Book her into play therapy and be really honest with the therapist about home life. Get them to work on her “window of tolerance” to help reduce incidents.

Work on improving her communication skills - some of the anger may reduce if she can better communicate her needs. Lego therapy is good for this.

Add a magnesium and zinc supplement to her diet. Make sure she has protein with every meal. Try and reduce sugar. If she doesn’t sleep use melatonin.

Think about whether it’s possible that she also has ADHD as well as autism. The two often go hand-in-hand.

Good luck. It’s hard to improve things at home when you’re in the centre of it, but you can make a change.

V good advice from @Secretsquirels

I have two children who behave as you describe. Both diagnosed with a range of ND, one with an EHCP in specialist school.

In addition to what @Secretsquirels said, I'll also tell you what has helped us;

ADHD medication for one child.

Anti depressants for me and my dh.

Filming a violent outburst and sharing it with our child's TA, SENCo and head teacher. It was about 10 days after said outburst and my child behaviour one morning just broke me and had me in tears. I shared the video with these members of staff and it got the ball rolling.....we got Early Help support and given a place on an NVR (non violent resistance) course where the leaders were ND and trauma informed. This has been helpful.

I have counselling.

DLA, carers allowance and a significant shift in how our family life works.

Therapeutic in put....in our case as speech and language lady who wofks with our child weekly, as part of their EHCP.

Apply for an EHCP and appeal if it gets turned down.

And, for a PP wjo said violence is not a factor of ADHD...no it isnt BUT impulsivity and emotional dysregulation ARE. When coupled with a child who doesn't have typical social and communication skills it is not a surprise that for SOME AuDHD children their presentation has a level of violence.

It's absolutely soul destroying OP. I'm in it with you. If you DM me I can point 6ou to some helpful resources. I'll outline a few here:

Sunshine Support-useful webinars and advocacy.

SEND parenting podcast.

Sarah Fisher Connective Parenting.

Another pp has also talked about sensory needs and having something which she can hit when she wants - cushions / pillows / punching bag etc. That didn’t work for us, but I know other families where it has helped massively.

The other thing which I notice is that the parents who manage the violence best are the ones who care about it least. Still caring about the child and wanting to improve things and support them. But not feeling like it’s a reflection of them - knowing it’s not their fault, or they’re bad parents, or a sign their child hates them etc. Somehow that detachment makes it easier to stay calm, which helps to calm the child.

So I like @Pebblypusscat’s suggestion of counselling, to see if you can get yourself to a place where it all feels a bit less personal.

Have all behavioural management techniques been put in place and are being used? If so, and this is still the result, it sounds as if she has other issues which need to be diagnosed. How do your other children behave? Or is it just your daughter who is 'off the wall'? You need help and pretty pronto. Champion your cause and find an association to help you both through it.

PIP is gor people over 16 it's DLA for kids.

I'm sure you mean well but posters need to stop this nonsense about residential school
Currently the child is in mainstream with no issues no residential school will take them st this stage there are residential school, s but theu are eye wateringly, expensive and take the most complex needs children usually after several different placements have failed also. It could be anywhere in the country
My friends son is in a residential school 600 miles away from as it was the only place yhst could meet his needs
Currently the Ops child doesn't even have an EHCP.

Has Your local NHs autism service offered support?

Contact your council’s family support service for support.
Ask for a referral to CAMHS

Contact Banardoes ( they offer quite a lot of support). Contact the autism society for their advice on where there is help.

Your family and your daughter badly need support.

There is a Facebook support group called Newbold or something I think.

Violence isn’t in the adhd criteria, but the reason why I, and quite a lot of pp, have suggested looking at this is because it’s so so common with adhd in children of this age. And because it’s a comorbidity of autism.

Anecdotally I probably know 30 families with kids with adhd in the 6-10 age group. All of them have problems with behaviour such as hitting, biting, scratching etc. Some in all settings, some at home only, some with parents only or siblings only. But off the top of my head I can’t think of one adhd household where it isn’t a factor.

@EviesHat and others who consistently interpret posts about social services to suit their own agenda -

Social services aren't leaving families like the OPs to fall apart because residential care is expensive. Whilst residential care IS expensive, that's not the reason that SS don't take children into care on request - it's because doing so would break up families and have life long consequences.
Social services specifically work with children who are at risk, typically (but not always) by the actions or inactions of the parents. That's not the case here.
Social services are one small part of social care, or children's services. There are plenty of services within social care that could/would support a family like the OP.
In our area for example, a family in this situation would be supported by early help. That could mean their regular family support service or the intensive service, which can be daily support for families where there is a risk of family breakdown. It can mean tailored parenting support, emotional support, it can mean parenting courses specifically for parents of ND children, it can mean funding for activities for relatives, it can mean family safety planning, it can mean linking in with services like CAMHS and in education.

All of that support is available and is valuable. It just isn't provided by or run by social workers. In some situations where things are very complex it may be that the plan is overseen by a social worker, but it doesn't necessarily have to be (in our area they've up skilled more non SW staff to do it because parents are more likely to take up the offer if it's not seen as 'social services')

Residential schools and being in care are rightly only used as a last resort because for the vast majority of families, children being at home (but with support) is the best option for everyone. The families who benefit from residential services tend to be for those children with the most serious and complex needs, often with multiple conditions.

Some of the posts on here seem to hark back to the 50s where if anyone was a nuisance they'd be shunted off to an institution. We moved away from that era for a very good reason.

Everyone talking about residentials, the child being taken away etc - the OP says she’s fine at school. So that is way beyond reasonable. It’s a home/parenting issue and I’d say the OP’s mental health needs to be addressed too. And the father being onboard and sharing the load. OP - the title of your thread suggests you need to get an urgent app with the GP and ask about anti-depressants. I feel for your child. You admit to being triggered so that’s only going to make it worse for everyone. I hope you can afford counselling for that. The behaviour you describe isn’t that outrageous, you cannot be taking it personally

Caveat to my above post, I meant to comment about children with disability teams too, as they do work with children under a broader umbrella, not just those at risk of abuse or neglect. However autism on its own wouldn't usually mean meeting the remit of CWD teams, they tend to work with children with complex physical health conditions and/or learning disabilities & mental health conditions, for children who need coordinated packages of care.

Respite is rarely offered/used, in those teams it used to be a routine part of the service but it's much more common now that children who would have qualified for respite in the past are given funding that the parents can decide how to use instead. So it isn't ringfenced for respite. Many families don't seek respite, though there are some who would want it if available but it relies on finding someone capable, and if you have a child with complex needs that isn't straightforward. Most authorities I've worked in have a specialist CWD children's home that will take children in for holidays (short breaks) if parents choose to use funding that way.

@AnotherNaCha

Its very common for children with ND conditions to be well behaved at school and explode at home.
My son has ASD and was impeccably behaved at school. Home was a different matter.
They are like a bottle of fizzy pop. They spend all day conforming and holding things in, it's very stressful and exhausting for them. They get home and it's like taking the top of a bottle of pop that's been shaken around all day.
As she is newly diagnosed yes Im sure there are parenting techniques that @Goaheadflameme could learn and she has had lots of good advice from people in the same situation
But it's not as simple as saying its a home/parent problem which is tantamount to blaming the op

No, social services won't take them away. I have a teen who is at times very violent to me. They are no seen by Camhs (very little improvement). There really isn't much help out there.

Can you work out the triggers. Does she has a PDA profile and you may have to change the way you parent. Any chance of asking social services for respite so you get a break (and the siblings too). It sounds incredibly challenging but the system is in meltdown and there is just very little available on terms of support..

Can you put her in care?

How does any of that benefit the siblings of a violent child?

Everything you have said focuses on the well-being of the aggressive member of the family, you have mentioned nothing about giving care for those that have to suffer the abuse. Do they not matter?

Not every violent child is like that because of the (in)actions of the parents. Sometimes there are medical issues - and I’m including mental health here - that are independent of anything the parents may or may not do or have done in the past.

Whilst permanently removing a violent child from the family is rightly the course of last resort, by the time parents are begging for some respite the relationship is clearly at breaking point anyway, and so are the parents.

Social workers intervene where children are at risk. Well, children with a violent sibling are at risk, yet your list of interventions doesn’t seem to include anything that keeps them safe. Expecting non-violent siblings to be removed from the family home to stay with relatives just so they escape the violence is unacceptable - essentially you’re punishing the victims.

So if the non-violent siblings remain in the home with a violent child, what then?

Has anyone ever done any studies into the effects this could have on them, both as children and later, during their adult lives?

Does forcing children to live in a home where violence occurs regularly normalise this for them? Are they at greater risk of ending up in abusive relationships because their formative years were spent in an environment where they either witnessed or received violence and no-one stepped in to give them a break from the assaults?

Yes, stage agencies should help violent children to moderate their behaviour and learn how to fit into family and society, but unless those agencies also give the parents and siblings of those children a break from the violence when they need it, then yes, the state is massively failing them.

I need to be clear here because you have chosen to misinterpret my earlier post. I am criticising the STATE AGENCIES, not the agents of the state. A system which requires private providers to step in is regressive and accessible only where those providers operate and when families have the financial resources to access them. Safety should never be the preserve of only the wealthy or those lucky enough to live in certain locations.

When parents are crying out for some help, for respite care for their child, it is wrong for the state to say it will not help. Respite care is available for the parents of disabled children because the state recognises that 24/7 care is exhausting and can be detrimental to the carer’s health if there is no break. Why does the state not as readily provide the same for parents of violent children? If removing children from the care of their parents for even a short while, say a few weeks, is so detrimental to the parent-child relationship, why are disabled children given respite placements? By your logic respite care shouldn’t be available at all.

As for “…and others who consistently interpret posts about social services to suit their own agenda…”, perhaps you need to look at what you’ve written. “Social services specifically work with children who are at risk, typically (but not always) by the actions or inactions of the parents.” “…it can mean funding for activities for relatives…” Clearly ‘at risk’ doesn’t actually include those who are at risk of violence from their siblings. How does a day trip to the seaside with a group of strangers benefit the siblings of a violent child? What message does it send to them that they cannot have a normal day out with their parents - a day which is free from the threat of violence - because the parent is being ‘supported’ to remain with the violent child? What lovely memories those siblings must have. Photographs of trips organised by SS and others, yet Mum is not in the photos because she wasn’t there. She was at home looking after their attacker and they were expected to be grateful that they were denied the opportunity to have a normal parent-child relationship. They look back and realise their childhood was stolen. All because the state decided the rights of the aggressor outweighed the rights of the victim.

No she can't

There are two parents. In a situation where one sibling poses a risk to other siblings the solution should be the parents live separately and care for the children separately not that one child is removed and cared for out of the family.

And where is the money coming from to fund this absurd suggestion?

Why don't you put your own child in care ?

what a stupid post, my kids are all grown and none of them had these problems

@Pebblypusscat @AnotherNaCha

Antidepressants?

Really?

You’re seriously advocating mood-altering drugs as a means to cope for the victims of violence in the home?

It's sarcasm because your post is so ridiculously ignorant.

So the non-violent children lose the right to grow up in a two parent household?

Their rights to a childhood in a nuclear family are secondary to the right of a violent abuser to break up that family?