I’ve just completely lost it with my daughter

[imsoverytired82]

I’ve just completely lost it with my 11 year old daughter

I’ve been so stressed this week. I’ve got issues at work and I haven’t slept

my daughter has been nagging all week about her world book day outfit. She’s asked so many times despite me telling her I’d ordered it. It arrived today and she’s still asking for more for it even though I’d said to her I can’t afford any more. Now she’s onto football boots (she’s had 1 session) and keeps asking. She is autistic so deep down I know she can’t help it. once she gets what she wants she’s onto the next thing.

its 11 and I finally got into bed and went into a deep sleep.My first in ages. She’s shouting my name lying in bed saying I need to take her to buy boots.

i wake up startled and go mad at her an drag her out of bed. Say some really horrible things to her. Scream at her. I’m so so sick of her just constantly not being satisfied until she’s getting something. It’s almost that she doesn’t care what it is as long as she’s getting something.

im so sick because she doesn’t care about anything other than ‘getting’.

My son is autistic and was similar at that age. We were advised to give him more control over money and we did. It really helped. At 11 he got £3 pocket money just for being, then he chose a couple of jobs so dishwasher ever day for him £3.50 a week and putting his clothes away got him £1.50 so he ended up with £8 a week and that was his to do as he liked. We also engaged him more with our costs, were quite open about income, mortgage, food costs. Talked about a choice two cheaper caravan holidays or one abroad etc and made things more family decisions. He really entered into it all and is so much better now, managed to save £300 recently and bought an electric guitar! I think once he understood more about costs he was far better as managing his expectations, his brain seemed to just get it whereas he didn’t jus get ‘no’

We also talked about buying things for fun and buying for more purpose, so when he wanted trainers or his electric guitar, we’d say well if you save x amount we can contribute x amount. But buying for his own fun like Roblox’s we weren’t prepared to contribute. He is quite a saver now and his has got his first real job to earn his own money, it’s interesting how he sees where the money comes from and goes.

Normally it's not something the gp will prescribe but a child psychiatrist. As @Muffinmam said medication can help. My DS 16 asd has been on Sertraline since he was 9 to treat his severe OCD. It did reduce the symptoms even though he still has to go through repeating questions about certain things. Since he was 14 he gets Tercian in the evening to calm him down and help him sleep. He tends to be most agitated in the evening when the fatigue of the day and anxiety takes a hold.

I tend to avoid him because he's not very pleasant to be around unless he wants to interact. I've noticed that he overloads quickly so even a simple question will send him into panic mode in the evening. I am there if he wants to talk, if not I leave him alone.

I think this is really good advice. I'm normally team "don't pay them for jobs, they need to learn it's just family life" but different rules apply with our SEN kids sometimes. You have really conveyed going far beyond a transactional system to help it make sense to him and calm everything down. I'm also sensing some PDA expertise in there, which I think would help OP too.

Yes definitely some pda going on. I think though he also just couldn’t visualise where the money was coming from so was always asking for stuff, presumably for that dopamine hit of getting something new, he isn’t imaginative, he works with hard facts so seeing we get x in, y goes out or we’re homeless and z costs this much is helpful to him. He was just able to work so much better with that
in his mind. We are very open now though he’s older (15), so he knows what me and his dad earn etc and he knows where we spend it. He actually asks for very little now, seems much more satisfied.

a different point, but we found imposed ‘punishments’ like we take your phone away just didn’t work. Again the psychologists we worked with told us that you wouldn’t punish a child for getting maths wrong, so why would you punish an autistic child for behaviour they can’t actually help? They taught us to work with him, small difference but a consequence is different to a punishment. He really needed to understand that his behaviour wasn’t ok, specifically the swearing and being aggressive, but that we recognised he wasn’t doing it on purpose and we were on his side to help him overcome that instinct behaviour. Have you read the chimp paradox workbook with her? That was good for us.
Him always having his own space to retreat to (bedroom) and us ours, which would be respected. At times it was hard, we’d hear him trashing something but with time learnt to leave him, then when calm discuss what he was feeling and how he would fix the damage he’s done, or he lives with it…there were holes in his walls for a while but funnily enough as he got older they embarrassed him and he used his own money and asked his granddad to help repair them. also repeated door slamming - the hinge broke so the door had to go, he lived with it until he again was embarrassed and he asked if he could buy a new one and he used his birthday money for it. We helped him put it on so there was no additional cost. He’s not slammed it since! It was hard to act indifferent to his behaviour at times and not to shame him, he felt enough shame after an episode as it was. It took a lot of patience on our behalf, but it has helped enormously. He takes responsibility for his own behaviour now, he respects boundaries and space and is good at communicating with us re what he needs in a calm way. He is very much ‘autistic’ and we respect that and work with him rather than against him. He is a different child 4-5 years on, a much happier one for a start and one able to far better regulate his feelings, not hide them away but work with them and acknowledge them appropriately

it’s so sad there is no funding for help OP, we too had to pay for the help and it was invaluable. It’s worth looking at the Naomi fisher stuff online if you haven’t, her work was a great source of help to us. And you are absolutely not alone at losing it too….we’re all human x

I am in a similar situation to you, OCD myself, severely autistic child with OCD (who is medicated). I would say:

1. It is very difficult to get a child medicated for OCD (e.g. with an SSRI). A Psychiatrist has to prescribe. Similarly for 'something to put her to sleep at night'. You might get melatonin but I know even very severely disabled children who their doctors refuse to prescribe melatonin to. Melatonin is not particularly powerful. No doctor is going to give a low needs autistic child a sedative to 'put' them to sleep.

2. My child is medicated and his OCD is still severe and completely dominates his day. It's like the effect of the medication has worn off now. Different people react differently to medications. I would be so cautious about seeing it as a panacea.