Update to 'I don't want my five year old'

[icann]

I thought I'd start a new thread because the other one had 800 plus responses and I think the limit is 1000

Anyway we started a private assessment with a strong suspicion of autism and possibly PDA. And maybe even ADHD. We've had the first assessment. We were going to be waiting too long on the NHS and our in laws helped us out with the costs. We've checked its a recognised society and it will be accepted by school.

We had a massive issue which is why it's taken too long for a reply. She broke her arm. She refused to go to school and we have been pretty much dragging her to school. I need the break..unfortunately she threw a cup at my 3 year old and she required stitches to her face.
I reacted way too slowly to stop it. I should have seen it. My 3 year old was bleeding a lot, apparently face injuries bleed like crazy. I had grab my 5 year.old and I am not ashamed to say I physically locked her in the living room so I could phone my husband to get home now. She trashed the entire living room. Her arm needed re casting as she broke it. My 3 year old needed stitches.

We've reached breaking point now and this second assessment can't come any quicker

Even if they were, it’s an absolutely heartbreaking decision to make.

We’ve just arrived at the point of organising respite and it’s been a really tough decision. I don’t believe anyone is just packing their kid’s bags.

If PPs haven't found Casey/ At Peace Parents useful for them, Kristy Forbes is brilliant. She is a PDAer with PDA kids, and incredibly articulate about PDA. I was able to have 1:1 sessions with her a few years ago, and I will be forever grateful for her wisdom and understanding. She has an excellent online course 'inTune with PDA'.

Would you though? The child is 5. With Autism.

What do you think would happen in care?

If you don’t have kids already please don’t, when we decide to get pregnant and have a child we get no guarantees about that child and what issues they may or may not have.

you can’t just pack their bags and turf them out. Jesus Christ.

I don't really have anything to add op, just sending strength

What an awful time for you all

💐

Not sure if this is at all feasible, but would it be possible to send your youngest to grandparents a couple of evenings a week to sleep over?

Whilst things settle down?

Neither do I, my response was to the person I quoted who seemed to think it was an easy decision they'd have done ages ago.

Social Services don’t just allow this anyway. It would be the absolute last resort for children who weren’t safe at home & I can’t imagine them making that decision about a 5 year old.
I’m sure now that OP has a diagnosis it will open up avenues for support and things will improve in time.

Things will hopefully improve in time (especially if an appropriate school setting can be found), but there are very few "avenues of support" in this country without applying £££. Sadly.

We have been offered nothing at all in 4 years. Not even a follow up appointment.

No I know, I was agreeing with you. Sorry, could have made that more clear!

Yes I am a mother. And I also have more than one child I have a responsibility to. If one of my children had deliberately hurt the other - was known not to be safe around them - had to plan our entire lives around monitoring them so a younger weaker child wasn't hurt and that younger child was suffering and scared and their entire childhood was - let's be honest - being ruined and their sibling had put them in hospital on more than one occasion then yes I would consider care as a long term option.

What options do you think you might have?
It's all very well sating this when you don't have a disabled chold and you will never find yourself in this situation, but many of us do and understand that " care" is neither an easy or simple solution.

So sorry to hear of your struggles OP. This may or may not help:

So in essence, you’d pick one? How awful.

No helpful advice to give, but sending 💐

A relative lived a similar scenario and it did get better over time. Getting the EHCP and then the support needed was not that straightforward, even when the child was very obviously struggling, but it will be a journey to more stability.

Their child is now an older teen and does a lot of volunteering, she’s pleasant to be around. No one today would guess that she repeatedly hurt her sister, destroyed the house, self harmed and was too disruptive for school.

Managed this many times over the years with my child who has ASD. Perhaps slightly outing but I would suggest a tall stair gate across a door. So you still have visibility what’s going on inside. Make sure the room is safe, things are as much as possible attached to the walls and finally a camera because when the do injure themselves or others it’s a lot easily to evidence how the injury came about.

No you wouldn’t. Once the reality of the care the children receive. Well not unless you lack affective empathy

When we were at breaking point trying to cope with the needs of a several disabled child and keep their siblings (and them, and us) safe, and were fighting the LA over the right setting, our social worker said if we couldn’t cope ‘you could try a foster home’. We said no, as that was totally inappropriate in our case, but asked out of curiosity how many foster carers they had who could cope with children with such high needs, and he said ‘probably none’.

OP, I hope the risperidone makes a difference here. I totally endorse the EHCP suggestions if not already in place. Specialist places can open up, and it will put your daughter on radars. I’m quite surprised that the A&E safeguarding referral went no further too and you need a carer’s assessment on the grounds of your youngest daughter’s safety at least.

My child with PDA was at their most challenging at 6/7 with multiple exclusions. They’re now coping a lot better in a specialist secondary setting. We have a low (but not no demand) approach at home, which helps, but it was moving from mainstream primary into a specialist setting that made the big difference.

You are doing amazingly coping with everything 💐

Hope you’ve been surviving the last 24 hours @icann

Having to care for a sick child alongside the demands of an unsympathetic sibling is very difficult

Even if things improve, the system has been decimated over a number of years, so noticeable improvement isn’t going to be in the foreseeable future, sadly.

My youngest is still sick. I've called into work tonight to be with her. My eldest is furious that she had to go to school when her sister didn't go. Told me that I love her sister more and just a whole load of abuse. She's hurting herself. She keeps pulling her hair and biting herself. I've got the prescription for risperidone and she is starting it. I've been on the phone for 3 hours with school about her EHCP. I have a meeting with the SENCO tomorrow. They've admitted she is massively masking and isn't coping. I'm so tired. My youngest is miserable. I don't want to push her away by always being at her grandparents. But what else do I do? Have her as a sitting duck. I'm failing one of them regardless.

I'm tired and I'm tired of fighting my eldest.

😢 OP it must be heartbreaking.

It's not your fault.

I feel like it may get better. There's an unavoidable vicious cycle at the moment; so much change and uncertainty from starting school, her diagnosis, and the various knock on effects of her behavior especially to her sister.

When things settle down into more of a routine again she may cope better.

Mine both hate it when the other gets to stay off school, though the reaction is less extreme. It must be even harder given your eldest is finding school really hard at the moment.

Could you (I appreciate this may be impossible for a variety of reasons) take a day off to keep just her home from school one day at some point in the next couple of weeks? Don't put pressure on it to be an amazing day (you know it's probably going to have at least one enormous screaming fit about some seemingly ridiculous trigger), offer some activities she might like or just chill out in front of the tv together if she feels like it.

How is your 5 year old managing with learning to read and write? Mine had severe dyslexia to add to their woes. It was completely unrecognised by school at the time so I kept plugging away trying to get them to read at home and thereby setting off more and more tantrums. Child was feeling more and more useless and wretched too.
just thought I’d mention it in case it rings a bell.

BTW I never let my child have a day off school (unless ill obviously) . I said they had to go because it was the law. I thought if I ever gave in then they would refuse to go back.