Horrific play date

[SapphosRock]

I am mortified. DD is 5 and in year 1. She is quite highly strung and has the occasional meltdown but otherwise just a normal 5 year old.

Obviously there have been no play dates due to lockdown so this was her first proper one. A lovely little girl in her class bubble (let’s call her Lily) invited her over after school.

I arranged to collect DD after an hour as I know she can get overtired so thought this would be enough. Had a big talk with DD about manners, playing games Lily wants to play as well as her own (she struggles with this), being kind. DD can be sweet and charming and was confident the play date would go well.

Well, I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life. Lily’s dad was clearly very ready for DD to leave. Apparently they couldn’t agree on what game to play and she’d kicked Lily’s bookcase over. She was wearing one of Lily’s dresses and refused to take it off. She then refused to leave. Had a full on meltdown when i tried to help get the dress off, screamed, shouted, ran into Lily’s Dad’s bedroom, pulled his curtains and tried to get in his bed, shouting ‘no no no no’ the entire time and ‘worst play date ever’.

I would have physically carried her out but I had baby DS with me too so couldn’t carry them both. I asked if we could return the dress at school tomorrow to make a quicker exit but this made Lily cry so I had to get it off DD.

No exaggeration DD kept up the meltdown for over half an hour with Lily and her dad staring at us with shocked faces. I was apologising profusely and trying to calm
DD down enough to leave. In the end I had to leave DS with them, carry DD to the car with her kicking, screaming and clawing at my face, lock her in the car and go back to retrieve DS. It was hideous.

How should I have handled that? She’s lost her screen time for a week and no more play dates for the foreseeable. When she calmed down she said she didn’t know why she got so angry and she made Lily a card to say sorry (unprompted).

I don’t know how that could have been avoided? I made sure she had a snack after school before going to Lily’s so she wasn’t hungry. Other kids just don’t behave like that.

How can I make sure that never happens again?

@DrinkFeckArseGirls

ADHD diagnoses are NOT handed out left right and centre. People who say that have never had the pleasure of attempting to get one.

Indeed, we waited 14 months and found out the waiting list had increased to 2 years so we went private and used DS DLA money for the cost.

I don't wish to pile on a mother that is doing her best and dearly loves her child. I have 3 children (now 19, 17 and 14) so relatively close in age and I know how exhausting it can be when they are little and you have a baby to care for. But I have never had anything close to this behavior from any of them at any age. If this is frequent (and once or twice a month is frequent IMHO) I do think you need help. You sound like a very loving mum who knows your child very well. If in your gut you know this doesn't seem right, I think talking to your child psychologist friend is a very good idea.

I feel for you SapphosRock we can beat ourselves up so much. Make sure you get some self-care and make sure you allow yourself to forgive your child and give her the love you want to show her. Whatever is going on - she is 5! - let's not demonize a little girl who couldn't control her emotions. The fact that she immediately wanted to write an apology card bodes well.

@MrsWooster

I know others have said this but 5 is too young for unsupervised playdates. You need to go along and endure the horror of forced sociability with people you may have nothing in common with until well into y2 or when there have been enough playdates at the same place that everything is familiar and on track. Which is why my kids barely ever went on playdates because I am rubbish at it.

And yet others have said they had play days from this age alone. It might be too young for you.

My DD also got remarks from the midwife about her temperament at a few days old. She was very strong and fought back when the MW tried to hold her and examine her. She had a permanent look of fury on her face. She was the grumpiest baby ever. (Though she is now very loving and caring and can be very funny too, she's still a mardy bum)

But I have never had anything close to this behavior from any of them at any age

Luck and genetics.

I have a sister...I was a very passive, compliant child. My sister was the absolute queen of tantrums...she has no sn.

Sure, it makes sense to investigate whether there's a root cause - and yes it's definitely true that girls with ADHD/ASD mask it in a different way to boys...

But if it's of any reassurance remember that as parents we're always secretly pleased when it's not our offspring causing a fuss, so Lily's parents were probably relieved that Lily was comparatively well behaved.

Do try not to worry, three children in and I really do think so much stuff we stress about gets sorted with time and maturity. My eldest is highly strung and I had to stop play dates til he was about 7 because he...and thus everyone...found them so stressful! Refusing to share, crying constantly because the child had their own ideas about what they wanted to play. It just wasn't worth it! At 12 he's in cricket and football teams, lots of friends, extremely bright...he's still a control freak but he's learned to manage himself and his emotions. Do not stress...just maybe give the play dates a miss for a while. And as comfort, never had these issues with my easy-going other two!

Hi OP, sorry you and your dd had such a traumatic time. Other parents are quite understanding usually, so don't worry about Lily's dad.
You know your own child best OP but, for what it's worth, I think you're right to keep an eye on things and to talk to your psychologist friend.
It's not a one-off tantrum, of course, that's the issue, but rather recurring difficulties. You mention she's more difficult than her brother, for example, and looking for a dummy could indicate some sensory issues possibly?
The posters who said:
Is this a joke? Autism/ADHD don't start when a child is 5. They're born with it, and more often than not are showing symptoms before their 1st birthdays. It's a bloody joke that people instantly jump to sn when a child is naughty
and
Autistic traits show themselves as early as 18 months and certainly before the age of 2.Why are people scare mongering?
aren't entirely accurate. Yes, ASD is a condition that you're born with, and maybe a trained expert will pick up early signs, but in verbal children it can often take a lot longer to recognise fully that something is amiss. The differences between children with ASD and their peers can became more obvious as they grow older.
My own DS was diagnosed at 8, but really started showing us he had problems aged 5/6, after he'd started school. (The school didn't notice any issues as he was 'good' there btw.) Sensory issues only became apparent then too, as he was reacting to the increased stress.

It may not be SN at all in your daughter's case of course, she's very young still. But I find that many of the strategies used for helping children with ASD are very useful for NT children too, so exploring this won't be a wasted journey in any way.
You know your beautiful daughter OP. You've already considered SN so no harm in looking at a bit more closely. Wishing you both all the very best.

Hope your psychologist friend can help with deciding what to do next OP, and I'm glad the dad sent you a nice text.

Another thing that might help, whether or not your dd has SN, is a parenting course. I did Triple P years ago, and found it helpful, especially with regard to being consistent and using appropriate discipline.

She's got a lot better but we do need to manage her very carefully (make sure she's never hungry, always gets to bed on time, keeps to the same routine)

This made me smile, as an adult in my 50s with ASD and ADHD, this is partly how I manage myself! Your dd may not have SN, but if she does, it sounds like you will be great at giving her all the support she needs.

Visions of the spirited baby now, what did she do exactly?

She would scream and get worked up into such a state she wouldn't latch on. It took more than a month to establish breastfeeding. I remember the midwife saying 'she's going to be trouble'

She also got very overstimulated very quickly as a baby. We always had to leave baby massage class early as she screamed so much.

Another incident was when she was 2 and had a huge meltdown when we were out and I had to take her home in a taxi. I remember the taxi driver saying he had 4 kids and he'd never seen anything like it.

Her meltdowns are truly epic.

But when she's not having one she seems completely normal.

Going from any behaviour at a rate of from zero to ten (zero showing no behaviour, and up to ten, on a scale of ten out of ten, showing a full blown meltdown so quickly just like that is typical of adhd.

There are a few flags you’ve mentioned OP. The sheer level of the tantrums and the fact that she can’t even be bribed/threatened out of them - the “red mist” effect. The fact she gets cross when others won’t play her games. The need to manage her very carefully - never hungry, never to bed late, etc. The desire for a dummy may be one too - does she chew clothes or nails or other things? Does she struggle to wind down at bedtime?

All of this suggests a particular difficulty with emotional self regulation and winding herself down once wound up. This doesn’t necessarily mean she has a wider diagnosis with a name, it could just be this particular skill she struggles with. It means she will benefit from learning ways to calm herself, ideally before she reaches the “red mist” stage. For example puffer fish breathing or square breathing (basically slow breathing) may help her. Also zones of regulation - you and she learning to recognise when she is in “yellow” (starting to get agitated) and making a change such as having a cuddle or a bit of quiet time, before she gets to red and can’t calm herself.

You mention you need to make sure she's not hungry etc. Have you investigated diabetes?

Sympathy though. I've definitely been there, albeit my son does have ASD. The first time we went 'out' after local we went to a play area and he pushed a toddler down a huge slide.

Thank you @minipie that is great advice

I don't think a midwide should be eyeing up a baby saying " She's going to be trouble"
I find this quite wrong, along with unecessary labeling and the fact that lives have been massively disrupted by a bloody pandemic and the child is 5 years old!!
Things change, kids change.

Thanks for your post @minipie I've been meaning to download an app my friend showed me, to help my daughter visualise square breathing, and had totally forgotten about it!

Op I've posted up thread saying my daughter sounds a bit similar. We've found mindfulness helpful, we sometimes do visualisations together if she can't wind down to sleep. And Cosmic kids yoga.

Going the other way, I've 2 books useful for a bit fair but firm discipline, how to talk so little kids listen. And 123 magic.

Yikes, if this is her first play date, you should have definitely attended as well or hosted at your house. In the future I would have friends come to yours. And if she is invited to another play date at someone else’s then I would attend.

Once my dd went on a play date at a friends age 5 and the girl wouldn’t share any of her toys! It’s was very strange to me as I’m used to kids sharing when having play dates. We stayed for an hour and the girl was screaming and crying when we decided to leave as she wasn’t being nice to my dd. However, this didn’t mean we wrote her off. Eventually we had her at our house for a play date and all was well. Thankfully my dd is good at sharing. And eventually the little girl got better at sharing (but my dd also started bringing her own toys to the girls house, which also helped in case the girl didn’t want to share). Anyway, kids will have squabbles or issues and it’s our job to help them along the way.

I would try to arrange a play date where a parent comes to yours w their child for an hour. You guys have tea while the kids play. If they can’t handle playing on their own, make a supervised activity such as baking, play dough, legos; art. And this way you and the other child’s parents can step in.

When she loses it there's absolutely no reasoning with her. It's almost like she's possessed. She suffers with night terrors and it's similar, as if she's not really in control of herself.

Oh I definitely recognise this! DS is usually excellent at expressing himself verbally, and has been since he was tiny, but mid-meltdown he completely loses the ability to communicate. It’s just screaming. He hasn’t had one for a couple of years, but holy moly, “like being possessed” is a bang-on description!

@minipie that’s great advice! I wish I’d read your post when mine were younger.

What time did she get up? A full day at school and a playdate? A strange house and instructions which an adult would struggle to recall 8 hours later?

Some good advice on here re behaviour management but please also consider the contents of the snack she had before the play date. I used to work in an allergy clinic and got used to kids morphing from lovely people into hell monsters after brief contact with sugar or additives or dairy or whatever their trigger was. If it happens again or anything like it, start keeping a food diary for DD.

DD had another huge meltdown today. Came out of nowhere, she was being very sweet and helping me make lunch then all of a sudden flipped. She screamed the place down, woke up her brother who was napping. DP dealt with her and she lost her TV time this afternoon.

Once she'd calmed I tried minipie's suggestion and talked to her about feeling green, orange and red. I said I wanted to help her not get to red. We made a deal that she would tell me next time she felt orange and she would sit on the stairs and have some quiet time until she felt green again.

She seemed very on board with this idea so we'll see how it goes.

DP and I know we need to put firmer boundaries in place. We punish the meltdowns with losing treats or TV time but it just doesn't work, she has the meltdowns anyway.

I really think you need some help. She clearly doesn't have the wherewithal to think ahead to losing privileges and having that be a deterrent. It sounds like she can't really think at all coherently at such times.

One of my children turned out to have a subtle learning disability that I'd mistakenly treated as a discipline issue. Please don't make this mistake. It creates new problems and helps no one. You're out of your depth and you need to check everything is ok with a child psychologist. If I were you, I'd pay for a consultation as it would be a priority that we could manage. I don't know your position but please consider it. If all is well, the lights system seems marvelous. Try How to talk so your kids will listen and listen so your kids will talk (there are two versions for different ages).