Struggling to cope with 7yo

[SausageShop]

Sorry, it's a long one. I'm at my wits end. My 7yo DD has constant tantrums and meltdowns if she's told no or asked to stop doing anything and I just can't take it any more.

A lot of it is screen-related - we noticed a pattern of awful meltdowns when screen time is over and she's told to turn it off (despite regular warnings and a digital timer to count down how much time is left).
We limit it to an hour or two at weekends now, we pre warn each time that if we ask her to turn it off and she kicks off she won't get it again for a week and we try to follow through with that (although DH struggles if he's WFH after school pickup and will sometimes give it to her while he's on a work call for example as she's asking relentlessly and refusing to find something else to do).

We have to ask a thousand times to get her to do simple things (get dressed, brush teeth, finish a meal etc) which is normal child stuff but if we say something like "if you dont get dressed now you won't have time to play with your toys before we leave for school" she moans because she wants to play but she still won't get dressed because its boring and it takes too long. And on and on it goes until I end up losing my rag, I'm on the ceiling, one of us is crying and we're rushing around inevitably running late.

She cries about everything. Everything. Kid next door cant play out as he's having his tea. There's not enough of that cereal for breakfast so you'll have to have this other one you like instead. I can't listen to her howl any more.

Recently she's started to have meltdowns where its like she's in a trance she can't snap out of, an example being she was at a bowling party and she wanted money for a toy grabber machine, we said no because every time she doesn't win she throws a huge snotty crying tantrum without fail - she went off on one, repeatedly screaming "i want a toyyyyy" until we carried her out to the car and then she unbuckled her seat belt and tried to run across the car park back inside - i caught her before she narrowly missed getting run over. It was so out of character for her i couldn't look at her for hours.

These meltdowns are getting more frequent. I'm at a point where being ignored and repeating myself and listening to the moany voice and howling crying is chipping away at my sanity.
I try and remove myself to calm down before I shout but she just follows me, howling and repeating herself.

I feel like I go straight to losing my absolute shit now and I'm physically incapable of controlling my rage any more. And I know its pointless and gets none of us anywhere but I cant help it anymore. I think my brain is broken.

DH is an absolute equal parent, we share the load and he is at the end of his tether as well. He says he sometimes wants to leave because he's depressed every day - we cannot get through 24h without someone having a tantrum and someone shouting.

I'm doing and saying awful things - telling my DD I want to leave and never come back because of her behaviour, saying I want to kill myself - sometimes I do, mostly I'm just saying it for impact to try and shock her into behaving but it doesn't work either way. I know this is wrong but in the heat of the moment its like bile that spills out of my mouth.

I always worry my shouting and the things I say is going to ruin her - but she wakes up the next day as if nothing happened and asks me if she can have the ipad / a treat / something else, then when I say no because of your behaviour last night the whole thing starts again.

I'm exhausted. I have a stressful full time job and we have no childcare support because our families either can't help or dont want to.

I think I need medication or therapy or something but I'm terrified that if I say how I really feel I'll be referred to social services or something.

I feel like I'm failing at being a mum. It's my fault she's like this because I'm not consistent in my parenting because I'm never sure I'm doing the right thing.

I feel like I might have a stroke at any given moment, my stress levels are so high. My eyes throb, my chest is tight all the time. I'm in constant fight or flight.

I dont even know why I'm posting. Maybe someone can tell me what I should be doing because I'm clearly not getting anything right.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

Sorry to hear this op. It sounds tough and you’re in a bad cycle. Your reactions will heighten your dd’s response.

Ik you know this already but first bit is to break that cycle. Some good advice on here.

Oh and we both work in education and have lots and lots of experience with young people with all sorts of challenges and difficulties.

Did this help us?

Nope.

I do have an idea about PDA Thankyou. I work with it every day. I also see the difference between an environment where behaviour will develop. I may use PDA tactics on several children. But do they all have PDA? No.

Autism? Possibly pda profile ? Look into it. You have my sympathy. This is what my life is like. Very similar. I have 2. It can destroy your mental health. My marriage is hanging by a thread. We just operate as co parents mostly.

If it is autism the kid might need that screen for brain regulation/ a way of coping. I know mine do. Its brutal but its necessary. I see my autistic pda go into meltdown over stuff and when she comes out of it she needs the screen to come back down again. My 4 year old is non stop with autism and adhd. Switched on constantly. The screem helps her relax so I can get a cup tea and some head space from the constant mum mum mum and demands.

This is why I comment on threads like this. The kids are not naughty they are struggling.

If its just adhd without autism though it could be counterproductive and be driving addictive behaviour. We have had to really watch out for this with our kids to help them understand that they have a propensity to use things for a dopamine hit and that they need to be aware that that is what they are doing. So banning some things completely when they were little and helping them to set sensible restrictions with us as they got older.

We have tried complete breaks from handheld screens previously and it has made a huge difference to overall behaviour for both kids.

I also have a 5yo DS who is the definition of annoying little brother and can take a lot of my attention. DD gets very irritated by him and I often have to give them time apart to help her feel less stressed by him - thinking it over last night I think some of this behaviour from DD is a need for more attention and one on one time from me so I'm going to try more of that as well as looking at some of the other things here.

I think I'm not always consistent in my approach to consequences which likely doesn't help as one minute I'm choosing my battles and the next minute, reflecting on how I was parented, I think there's an element of not letting the child "win" because they'll just do it again next time to get what they want. There is so much conflicting parenting advice out there that I'm trying to do it all and it's gone horribly wrong.

Fine, but maybe post in a more compassionate way?

Working with children with challenging behaviours is very different to bringing one up (I do both myself).

If I had received advice worded like that in 2020 it might just have tipped me over the edge, because I was already blaming myself harshly despite being in an extremely challenging situation.

I have reported your post to Mumsnet and they can decide if you crossed a line or not.

OP you have been honest and despite already knowing you've gone too far in the things you've said you quite obviously want to do better and support your daughter too or you wouldn't have admitted to it. Please go to your GP, your reactive behaviour is likely also being driven by the anxiety of the high stress, the anticipation of certain triggers (subconsciously you will have picked up on this, like screens) and one important thing is we have to give our children our calm, because they aren't able to regulate and use their own. This applies for all undeveloped brains ND or not. You've lost your calm (no judgement here) but you do need to find it again.

Some posters have given some fantastic pointers for information, and it does sound like this is beyond the realms of usual behaviour. Engage with school, in my experience things only got picked up in our childcare setting once I started raising the red flags (my DC isn't PDA but masks). Our non negotiables are very basic for age at the moment though.

Build a calm space in your house, and let your DD see you and your DH using it too. You have to model more than ever right now to pull this back together. Tag team your DH when one of you is getting to the end of your tether, don't both go in together, and don't always be the first parent to prep her or step in when she shows the first signs of struggle, it needs to be a mixture so you can both be the calm when she's in a storm.

If you can see from advice either on here that posters have been there and done it, try some of their suggestions and see how you get on.

If you find removing the screens makes a huge difference, get rid of them and see how you go.

Regarding sometimes needing entertainment to get stuff done.

DD watched a heck of a lot of CBBC on iplayer on the telly at that age and I think it benefitted her - particularly Tracy Beaker and the spin offs, and Malory Towers, because she really has no idea why people behave the way they do (my autistic husband doesn't either). She watched them like documentaries and it led to a lot of good discussions: "Why do you think Tracy's so angry?" "Why do you think Gwendoline's being so mean?" "Why do you think JoJo lied about what happened?" "What should the teachers do?"

You may find your 5 year old is as emotionally mature as the 7 year old...

You mention DH needing to hop on work calls after school pick up as a reason for needing to use screens sometimes (which I totally get!) Is a lot of time spent trying to manage that type of scenario, to avoid wrap around childcare? I may be way off the mark, but my 8 year old’s behaviour is at its worst if I’m trying to watch her while also working, we’re all much happier if she goes to after school club and plays with her friends, then comes home a bit later when I can focus on her rather than semi-ignoring her trying to work while she’s at home.

I think this is good advice even if not PDA.

The no punishments and not authoritarian will help.

It may be worth knowing about the Coke bottle effect.

The Coke Bottle Effect - Connective Family https://share.google/bYuBhv1W9odia63Fq

You had me at the start and when I got to the end I changed my mind and thought, ah you’re the parent I meet every day.

Do not underestimate parents behaviour and the results we have with children and their behaviour. It’s a daily battle with parents who will shrug their shoulders that their child attacked an adult or child because what do we expect? That’s just them. It’s also all their siblings. Not our fault it’s one of those emotional problems. They then leave screaming at their kids to not fucking run off, if you come back we’ll go for a McDonald’s. That’s extreme but you understand?

But report my comment. That tells me everything about you.

I took DD to a "person centred" counsellor therapist for three sessions aged 7 and it was invaluable. It was the start of a new relationship between us partly because the therapist identified that I was blaming DD for behaviours rather than trying to connect/be her safe space. I didn't sit in on the sessions -they did art together!!

I agree that a psychologist would possibly have been a waste of time and terrified her. Later on she completely shut down during family therapy (we had this from the LA to support our SEN child,) so I agree that any sort of invasive group sharing didn't work for her.

Regards work, I didn't work except very part time and tbh a lot of parents with SEN children find themselves going part time. As a parent we too can be like coke bottles and worrying about work responsibilities being late etc would have shaken me up beyond capacity. That's why it's important to look after yourself, whatever form that might take. For me, looking after myself was not to take on the responsibility of a demanding full time job as well as coping with my children and turning just COPING into something more positive for all of us.

Get rid of the screens completely. She can do some colouring or Lego or play doh or listen to an audio book or watch a bit of tv. But no phone/tablet/gaming console ever. It will make a huge difference. Their brains can’t cope with it.

Yes I’ve definitely realised that a lot of the thinking we need to apply our SEN children also applies to us as parents of SEN children (not least because often we come to realise we have some of the same traits ourselves - I am late diagnosed ADHD myself!)

I gave up a very high stress job for a lower stress one because I couldn’t do it AND be a good parent because I was seeing some of that reactivity that OP has described in myself. 100% I was a coke bottle.

I realise that is not an option open to everyone (we were very fortunate we could manage with me taking a salary cut) but at the level of complete burnout that OP is experiencing I would be seriously looking at options - even if it is a short term period of unpaid leave, temporarily dropping to part time or similar. It sounds like they need breathing space to implement a complete reset.

I see Mumsnet did delete the post that I reported @Sometimeswinning.

I hear that you are disappointed in the lack of engagement from the parents you work with.

So am I, sometimes.

However, if there's one piece of advice I'd give to parents with a particularly challenging child, it'd be, keep an open mind and do more of what works - and don't worry what others think because some of them will judge you anyway.

I've reported the one above as well, because it's a personal attack@Sometimeswinning and FYI they don't just delete anything.
MN has Talk Guidelines.

This is sad. We are all so obsessed to give a name and also too scared to ask questions about home life. Luckily I won’t stop
saying it. It’s not always pda or adhd.

You haven't got any evidence whatsoever that the OP's home life has anything to do with her daughter's difficulties.
I'm not sure why you keep derailing the thread in this way.

I'm also puzzled as to why you presented me with a virtual bunch of flowers (on my last comment) and I assume you did it to be sarcastic.

Hey OP.

have you considered that you both may be neurodivergent? You sound like you are struggling with regulating your own emotions, which is what you are expecting her to be able to do.

Saying things such as you want to leave / kill yourself is emotionally abusive and you need to stop doing it. Please speak to school/ do a parenting course / see your GP for help with your own mental health.

Yes. Yes I did.

Im not derailing. I’m answering points and having an opinion.

I have the same info that you have about the op. How you can’t recognise a chaotic family life in there is beyond me.