Hello I was wondering if anyone could resonate with my email below, which I have tonight sent to a psychologist. I’m at my whit’s end with my 3 year old. I’d just like to know i’m not alone and she’s not the first child to behave this way. Or if there’s any signs here of something else being wrong:
“She is 3 years and 3 months. From birth she has always been sensitive and had high needs. In December, she was eating a and choked on it, and since then things have got drastically worse. We also moved home a week later, then came Christmas, and the obvious disruption/distress from the pandemic.
She is now refusing to eat most foods. She has never been a big eater but has always enjoyed healthy fruit and veg. We are now at a point where she won’t eat anything much really, except on a good day. Food she deems as being a choking hazard, like peas, blueberries, raisins (all of her favourites) she now won’t touch. She doesn’t like her baby brother eating these things and screams hysterically if she thinks he is gagging. She mostly won’t eat pretty much any other foods. It’s all about control, some days she will scream blue murder about eating some bread, some days she will eat it. It’s not a genuine phobia as she will eat small sized sweets if offered. She is obsessed with controlling a situation. Her favourite dinner is , a few nights ago I served this, only for her to scream at me that she didn’t want it, and the extreme meltdown lasted 2.5 hours, eventually ending in her falling asleep from exhaustion having had nothing to eat or drink.
Outside of food, she will only wear a few items of her clothing. She will only wear a few pairs of shoes. If she gets a tiny minor cut she will moan about it for weeks. She doesn’t enjoy leaving the house, seeing friends, going to the park etc. She now won’t bath, because her baby brother pooed in it once. she also won’t shower. She is so fearful/too busy moaning when we are at the park for example that she can’t enjoy herself, she just wails, over nothing. She moans continuously, about anything and everything. If a single drop of water lands on her clothing she will scream she wants it off.
As a final straw, she now won’t poo. So she is in pain, uncomfortable, grumpy. There’s no reason for this, it’s control again as we are asking her to do it. She wants to do the opposite that she is required to do.
She isn’t naughty per se, she is too cautious to do things that would normally be deemed naughty - like running off, or doing dangerous things.
As a positive - she is excellent at solo, imaginative play, she is kind to her baby sister and cares for her a lot. She loves to play a lot with imaginary friends, I am finding that with real friends she finds it too overwhelming.
She has been attending nursery 2 days a week since she was 1. They have never advised of any issues there. Other than that, she has not had much interaction outside of her immediate family over the last year, for obvious reasons. She had a baby brother born in april.”
Does any of this sound familiar please