How can I punnish my daughter for her behaviour? Nothing seems to work.

[mummyloveslucy]

Hi, My daughter is nearly 6. She's just messed herself and I've had to clean her up as she refuses to do it herself and probubly couldn't anyway. She hates being cleaned.
She got really angry while I was cleaning her and I have a saw finger at the moment, it's swollen and red (possibly chilblaine?) anyway she said to me "Which is your poorly finger?" I showed her and she grabbed it and squeezed it really hard.

I put her in her room and told her to stay there for 5 minutes. I've just gone in and said "Are you ready to appologise? and she said no. I told her she could stay in there until she does and she said "good, I want to stay here".

What can I do when this kind of disapline dosn't work? She's just sooo stubborn it untrue.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

She could only recognise the urge once it's too late to get to the toilet which isn't unheard of. Does she generally get consequences, work out what's happening next or does she really heavily on routines?

She does rely heavily on routines, if it's not in her routeen, she'll keep asking over and over what's comming next.

I'm going to sort out a visual diary for her soon, that should help.

MLL - if you get a continence nurse referral then they look into the behavioural side of it as well anyway.

For her then her body suddenly starting the process of elimination isn't going to make her think, go to the toilet now, I shouldn't think - she probably isn't able to link those tummy sensations with elimination happening 5-10 minutes later.

It's so hard, I think if you push very very hard you may get a more thorough meaningful/helpful diagnosis.

Who has she seen so far and when are they going to review her?

I read the her the book "The little Red hen" tonight.

It's the one where the hen finds some wheet and none of the animals will help her in making it into bread, but when it was made they all wanted to help eat it, so she said no and ate it herself.

Trying to explain that to Lucy was impossible. She said "why can't they eat it?" I said because they would't help her to make it, so she won't let them share it. "Why", she said. I tried every way of explaining it and in the end she said "Oh", I thought she'd got it, then she said "but why?" [aaaagh]

She's got a school nurse referal. She'll be comming to the house. It's strange to think we'll get far more help while home edding than we did while she was at the private school.

I have to go to work now, so I won't be able to answer until tomorrow.

Thanks everyone for all you're help. I'll look over it all again tomorrow.

at getting some help and also huge that you are going to look at some of the treatments available that are out there.

Did you ever do the NDD questionnaire??

www.inpp.org.uk/questions/index.php

very glad to hear that you'll be getting help from the school nurse.

You sound like a lovely mum .. i think some posters have misread/misinterpreted what you've said. It must be so hard to have a six year old who you love so much to be behaving like this. You have lots of good advice but the best i can give you is pay no heed to those who jump on what you may have said. Your little girl is normal. No one really likes their bits and bobs wipes so it's understandable that she plays up when you try and clean her. Not every child does but some do. Toilet issues are never pleasant but the more you tend to focus on them, the worse they tend to get. All those that think you need specialist help...they may be right but i think it's waaaaay over the top. It's been blown way out of proportion. She's just a little girl....forget the 'treatments' for now or there will be a real issue. I'd make a little deal as possible out of it and try and clean her in the bath. Good luck and don't be brainwashed by the doom mongereres out there! Lots of things that we see as 'adults' as abnormal is quite normal in kids and they grow out of it XX

I do the annoying "he's great thanks" thing at my ds's appointments. The paed will ask can he do x,y,and z and I'll say no, but look how cute he is and he did this really sweet thing with his brother etc. It quite draining having someone give you a big list of your child's percieved failures. I do all ds's stuff alone but it must be hard for you having to be the parent who points out the negative things all the time.

shelly, the posters who have recommended courses of action and treatments have probably spoken to the OP on her ebefore.
she knows her daughter has some special needs and sadly may not be getting the help she really needs right now, so it IS important that she keeps going with it

MLL i was thinking about this early this morning and I can't remember from your previous posts/threads if you've talked about it or not so sorry if repeating

but you say you often have to clean her up 8 times a day? 8 poo accidents or is it sometiems just wee?
I only ask because 8 times is a lot of poo isn't it? and it got me wondering whether or not she had been investigated for food intolerances/allergies?
my little cousin used to have soiling issues and it turned out she was intolerant to lactose and gluten. it was causing her poo to become impacted, and then the resulting "build up" would leak round the edge
she doidn't feel it happening, and it happened many times a day

it just sounded so similar to your experiences with your daughter I felt it might be worth mentioning

I agree with the read "playful parenting" suggestion.

My dd is 5 1/2 and we have "meetings" as suggested in the book above. It usually goes - sit on the floor together to calm down, discuss what happened, how everyone felt, what we could have done better, agree some action to remedy the hurt (if necessary), finish with a cuddle, then forget all about it.

I like this approach because you are treating them as a "grown up", exploring a better way to behave and modelling a sensible, kind way to resolve problems.

Sometimes it is very hard to fin the time to take this approach (late for school etc) but I've found its worth taking the trouble.

This works really well and we rarely have to have meetings these days, maybe 2 a month, down from 2 a day.

Shelly, the OP is a longterm poster on here: we have been following her struggle to get support for her daughter for a long time. Suddenly pretending that her dd doesn't have special needs, when her family know she does, would not be helpful at all. Recognising the importance of support for a child with special needs is not the same as doom mongering!

OP, you've had some great advice on here- and good on you for getting her the help she needs and withdrawing her from that awful school! I would certainly do the following:

*get her medically checked out to make sure there is not a physical reason for her frequent soiling- having learning difficulties does not mean you cannot also have a physical problem. Soiling 8 times a day does sound a lot; I would be wondering about impacted faeces and constipation, like thisisyesterday said. I knew a little boy who was soiling frequently (and wetting himself) at the same age, and it did turn out to be impacted faeces; it can cause wetting too btw.

*try to stay as calm and non-reacting as you can (but I think you've worked this one out for yourself really). She clearly cannot help the soiling, but you need to overcome the emotional charge of the situation by modelling calm and competence. Try to pretend to yourself that you are dealing with a younger child and adopt the brisk cheerful approach you would use then.

*see if you can help her find something to soothe the soreness

*try not to draw out punishments for too long at this stage- you don't want her to focus on her failure and become stressed out about cleaning sessions

*accept that she will be going through an angry phase. This happens to most children with SN/disabilities when they realise they are different. I used to have to restrain my dd, so I know it well. Do try not to feel hurt by it, or don't allow yourself to think that there must be something dreadfully wrong morally with a child who tries to hurt people.

My dd, as it so happens, does not have learning difficulties, but she was angry because life had been unfair to her and the only person she could trust enough to take it out on was me.

Lucy has just discovered that life has been unfair to her. Eventually, she will hopefully learn to express her frustrations in a socially acceptable way, but it can take time.

I tried to concentrate on stopping dd from hurting me- I would hold her and repeat calmly, "no you will not hurt me, no I cannot let you hurt me". Eventually, dd grew out of her aggression. But I think it went all the quicker because she saw that I stayed in control.

*accept that the school probably have done a bit of damage to Lucy's confidence and it will take time for her to get over it. Dd took a couple of years to trust adults in authority after a ghastly experience of junior school. We got there in the end.

Playful parenting sounds good, it is also a way you can model being in control: somehow, that approach seems to radiate more authority than a constant stream of punishments.

Thank you so much everyone. There is some really good advice to go on. I'll get the book playful parenting, it sounds fun.
Thisisyesterday- yes, she is soiling up to 8 times a day. She's on movicol but still becomes constipated and I think the soiling is overflow most of the time as it's never that much but very often. When she gets days like this, you can't go out and do anything. Her bowels dictate her life really.

Oh poor you, it sounds horribly stressful. And poor her, it must be quite uncomfortable.

MLL - my DS has had similar but less severe problems, and has been referred to the continence nurse. When I phoned up the continence nurse, their usual approach is to give 8 sachets of movicol a day for a short time, to make sure a child is fully cleared out. Am hoping to escape this as DS is finally doing well on 1 sachet per day, fingers ccrossed.

OMG 8 sachets?? Lucy's been having 1 every other day. I did try giving her 1 every day but it gave her the runs.

She can go from the runs to hard lumps of pooh in the same day. There dosn't seem to be any pattern to it.

I think the continance nurse will help and maybe she'll be tested for food intollerances? I hope it isn't that, she's fussy enough as it is.

it must be so hard.

what do you normally use to clean her? i found that the chemicals in some baby wipes were too harsh for my kids, so we now use washable wipes.
I just got a couple of packs of flannels from poundland (think it was 5 flannels for £1) and I just use warm water and a flannel each time

I think it will take time for the negative reactions of the school to wear off, but I am sure they will.
Just keep reassuring her that it isn't her fault but that you do HAVE to clean her and once she is clean then you can carry on doing whatever fun thing she wants to do]

I will admit now that I am really not a fan of star charts, but in this case it may help? a sticker each time she gets cleaned up without a fuss- offer for her to do it herself and you only heolp if she struggles.

then when she has say, 20 stickers she gets a treat.
or, if she does really well all day then she gets a small treat (just a chocolate or small colouring book or something)

I'll try that. It'll feel much nicer being cleaned with something warm as well. Especially in this cold weather. I use the fragrance free wipes, but even they can be harsh. Do you put anything in the water to clean her? Some baby wash or anything?

I think I will do the sticker chart thin for a while, just to get her used to being more compliant in general.

i normally use just plain water, but you could use something if you feel it needs a bit extra oomph!

Yes, it usually needs a little extra oomph.

you might be better off splitting it so it's 1/2 sachet per day rather than 1 day 1 sachet, 1 day none. I sympathise, it's hard to get the right dose, and to figure out whether runniness is impaction or too much movicol. At first 1 sachet was too much for DS so he had 1 every 2 days , but when he went back to school (so probably drinking less) he got bunged up again so had to increase to 1, and touch wood is sorted. very much touch wood with all this!