My DD is hitting me everyday

[Issue46]

My six-year-old is hitting me each day. She gets mad at the smallest of things and then hits me violently. She bites, screeches, screeches my face. She’s doing the same to my DH. She’s an angel at school and lovely to her friends. She has a friendly friendship group with no issues there. We talk about it afterwards- she says she doesn’t know why she does it. We talk about the zones of regulation. We have even seen a play therapist - yet to get her advice. She eats ok; she goes to bed in good time.
I am mentally exhausted from walking on eggshells with her being hit daily. It could be due to school - she's one of the youngest.
We could get her assessed, but at the cost of £5k, we are unsure what use it is. Our friends just did it, and while it gave them a diagnosis, it didn’t offer any help on how to manage the behaviour. Equally the school won’t do much as both kids behave perfectly at school and don’t exhibit any behavioural problems. The therapist equally said she’s far too young to get assessed.

Help.

Thank you for sharing x

Hmmm, so you can't firmly hug your child to calm them down, but you can smack them as long as it doesn't leave a mark?

I think shutting a distressed child in their room is way more cruel than sitting with them and calming them down TBH

Total waste of time telling her it 'makes you sad'. She doesn't understand, she's too small.

You need to get down to her level next time she does this, hold her firmly by the shoulders and say very loudly and firmly 'you do not do that!' next time she does it.

Pussy footing around doesn't work.

Autistic or not, it's unacceptable

Dimly lit room, cuddles and teddies, and a screen should help calm her.

^^

Yup, screen will do it

Begs belief

Ds was like this.
He was so disregulated after school that he would attack me - I could no more stop it than stop a seizure.

Things that helped:
Sensory things immediately after school - trial and error to work out what worked. For ds things like chewy sweets in the car, being squashed once home under cushions, digging in the garden.

Read The Explosive Child by Ross Greene
Look up low arousal parenting on YouTube, Bo Elven (I think).

PDA resources (PDA society website is good) - even if no pda the strategies are helpful in situations like this.

Talk to school - if homework is such a trigger ask if you can forget it for the time being.

Even though she’s behaving at school, it’s quite typical for children to hold it in then go to pieces once out of school (coke bottle effect). You could ask school to allow her some quiet breaks at certain points during the school day, maybe with a calming activity like looking at books of her choice or playing with fiddle toys.

You have no reason to feel ashamed at all! As for posters saying don’t let her hit you - how helpful 🙄

I refuse to do homework with my DC (one has violent meltdowns). I've told the school this and they have said it's fine, they both enjoy reading and we do leisure things like games, science experiments, puzzles etc that get their brains working at the weekend.

I let my DC decompress after school and kids club however they choose, low demand and it's helped immensely.

She grew up and got better at managing her emotions, and articulating it. But ASD is a communication disorder and she often wouldn’t speak to us about it. We learnt that sanctions and raised voices made everything a 100% worse, so we learnt to ignore a lot. Screens helped regulate her tremendously. We learnt that everything is anxiety driven which is what makes it all seem so unreasonable. We also read The Explosive Chikd which helped a lot. She liked the texture of Jellycats so whenever she started we’d give her one of those to stroke. Bubble wrap is good too!

It was a hard and steep learning curve.

She was diagnosed late at 16, and then refused to go to school anymore. 9 fab GCSE’s and A level tipped her over. They usually tip in year 7 or 10.

She has been out a year and is recovering well. She starts at a ND 6 th form soon. It was just so quiet and peaceful compared to a mainstream. And so supportive. You need an EHCP. And don’t listen to crap from teachers about her ‘being angelic at school’ she’s masking to fit in, which is why she’s in such a state when she gets home.

Have a look at this.

https://autisticgirlsnetwork.org/keeping-it-all-inside.pdf

@coxesorangepippin by the time a child is melting down like this talking to them is more likely to escalate the situation.

OP I hope you can ignore the unhelpful judgements for some posters.

Some of us have been where you are now. It’s tough, but finding the right strategies can make a real difference - and sometimes it involves parenting methods that go against parenting norms.

I've an austistic child who has ADHD. Having those 'labell's is no excuse for shit behaviour. My child attempted to hit me once. Never ever did it again.

And frankly, that's what this is. EVEN IF she's neurodivergent she doesn't do it at school therefore knows 100% it's not ok.

Deep down you know this is due to how you're parenting. Why on earth are you walking around on eggshells! You're the goddamn parent. She senses a weakness and is making a mockery out of the pair of you. You need to toughen up.

You'd be much much better off paying out to go on a parenting course. Sounds harsh but that's the truth. Stop pandering to her.

Waiting for the backlash, but honestly, this whole country went to shit went parents started going all softly sofly are you alright darling. Watch how a lion mum deals with cubs that are stepping out of line. They need to know boundaries and they need to know who's boss. Right now, she's walking all over you. You're looking to blame all sorts except yourselves. EVEN IF she was autistic, she still doesn't get to hit you. End of. You need to fix this whilst she's still small or else she's going to be a 14 year old beating the hell out of you both.

I think you need a hug.

It’s not ‘shit’ behaviour though. It’s dysregulatikn. Some kids lash out and some don’t.

Thank you for sharing. Do you think it’s wise to try to move the school?

Very much yes to this. You are in the stage where you are still not sure whether you are just barking up the wrong tree, and actually it’s you that’s the problem. You’re a bad parent, you’re making it up. You just need to parent like x does. What you have described is so classically neurodivergence with unmet needs and nothing to do with you. Have the confidence to ignore the “be stricter” gang and all the conventional parenting wisdom. Seek out some of the books (Explosive Child) and websites (PDA society) mentioned above and arm yourself with info and ideas.

Can you imagine what it would take for you to do what your daughter is doing? You’d have to have had something pretty horrendous happen to you, right? Treat your daughter as if she is having that happen to her, every day. Use that as your starting point.

Homework🙄she’s exhausted from masking all day. Thats why she can’t do it. She probably wants to because she will be scared not to. So all that’s going on in her head.

The school my dd is going to don’t do homework even at A lev. They do supported study periods instead.

I have 4 autistic children. 3 of them have never lashed out in their lives. 1 attacked me regularly.

This is not parenting top trumps. You were clearly lucky in the autistic child lottery to not have one whose frequent meltdowns were very violent in nature, and your smugness at suggesting the OP is not parenting her disregulated child well enough is just shitty.

On a practical lever you are an adult and she is 6. You stand up (can't reach your face/head) and you catch her arms if she is attempting to strike you.
You are allowed to protect yourself OP don't be a punchbag.

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼Absolutely.

No homework here either. Regulation and connection are far, far more important than homework.

It absolutely is shit behaviour. If they were doing the same at school, with teachers and other adults, that's one thing. My autistic child is autistic whether he's at home, with his swimming coach or with a teacher. He's the same child. If she can behave at school, she knows how to behave and she knows what's acceptable.

Even neurotypical children have the coke bottle effect that everyone on MN likes to blame on things like this.

But ultimately, she's learnt, at the grand old age of 6, that hitting you is perfectly fine because she has zero consequences. That's your problem. Not the child - your parenting, the boundaries she has (or rather doesn't have) and your reaction to the hitting (or rather lack of). You admitted you don't know how to deal with her.

It's not me that needs the hug! My two hug me daily and whilst my autistic child has meltdowns and occasionally breaks things, I don't walk around in fear of him, or walk on eggshells. Because when he was 2 and could potentially have gone down that path I stopped it once and for all. Stop pandering to her, get armed with information on how to parent, and sort it out. Trying to blame any of this on neurodivergency is frankly laughable. Believe it or not, there are plenty of us neurodivergent parents who've managed to parent well, even though it's probably twice as hard as with a neurotypical child. If it's touching a nerve with a lot of posters, then it probably should!

Oh dear god @brightyellowflower

You have no idea at all.

Your child breaks things? You allow it?? That’s incredibly bad parenting you know. Have you not held him and told him no?
Dear fucking god. If I rolled my eyes any more they’d fall out 🙄

Google Yvonne Newbold. She presents a lot of information about violent and challenging behaviour in SEN children.

Is it possible your children have different presentations and that all autistic children are not identikit copies of each other?

At six my child was very violent towards me. They are now at a much more suitable school and I can’t remember the last time they were violent. I also don’t recall them ever breaking things.

Just fucking unbelievable. 😮

OP I could have written your post. You have nothing to be ashamed of and are doing your best in a very difficult situation. My DD is now 7 soon to be 8 and things have drastically improved since she started art psychology around 4/5 months ago. We have to pay privately for this but luckily quality for subsidised funds through a charity. It may be worth seeing what is available to you locally. Her therapist has suggested high functioning asd and we are now going through the referral process with school. Hang in there x

OP, it doesn't cost £5k for a diagnosis. You can get an ADHD and ASD quickly on the NHS for free. Google 'right to choose'. You can choose a private provider (one linked to RTC) to assess for free. Just had my 5 year old assessed for ADHD and autism.