I don't want to be a parent to my child anymore

[helpmepleasea]

I don't know what to do with my 6 year old and I need some help

She's 6, about to turn 7. It's fairly obvious to anyone who meets her she's either autistic or has ADHD.

So the issues.
She's aggressive with me. She's trashed the house more times than I care to admit. She hits me, spits at me, pulls my hair, bites me. She speaks to me like I'm the most stupid person on the planet
No consequences work. She isn't motivated by anything.
She won't get rid of anything. We have baby toys from when she was 1 because she screams for hours if I consider getting rid of them. My house is full of shit for lack of a better word
She has no friends. The couple of friends she has have all drifted away because she's bossy, it's very much her way or no way. She also lashes out at them when she gets overwhelmed
She is never wrong. I can watch her smash a cup and she will tell me it wasn't me and she genuinely believes it

I'm chasing a diagnosis but it's a 6 year wait list and no I can't afford private
I'm broken. This is just the main couple of issues but any questions please ask and any advice please help

I'm a single mum. It's just us two. But I don't want to. I'm covered in bruises and bite marks and I honestly just give up

Has you looked up oppositional defiance disorder? It's frequently associated with autism. Also see if you can get a referral via the doc to the school nursing program who hold therapy sessions for children. You might also want to ask your doc about triple p - not suggesting in any way your parenting is rubbish btw. Triple p gives techniques to help parent children with difficulties. If nothing else you will hopefully find a tribe of people going through the same thing. Triple p and school nursing team have been brilliant while we wait on Cahms. In the meantime if she is behaving at school and freaking out at home, this more than likely means she is masking at school. This means she is holding it together in school then when she comes home, she views you as her safe space and she can crash out from having held it together all day because she knows you are not going to leave her. There can absolutely be consequences for behaviour as it is not on that she bites etc. you are unfortunately in for an absolute uphill battle to get the support for you and your daughter. Good luck and big hugs

I'm in South Yorkshire..I'm going to eat. I've not eaten since last night because this is all we do. And then I'll lay in her bed and try to sleep for an hour and then get up and do it all again because this is my life and I hate it. He got to walk away and I'm stuck here

While I can't advise on the crisis at the moment, as others have done. What I can tell you is that you can apply for DLA for a child without a diagnosis. It goes on the extra care and cost needs compared to a average child her age. I use my undiagnosed daughters (on the waiting list) to pay for private occupational therapy etc to support us, while we wait for the NHS lists.

Nothing is happening at home. Unless you count a mum who is absolutely on her knees.

I agree with others who have suggested PDA and autism. She sounds EXACTLY like my children.

Rather than home being the problem, it's far more likely to be her useless shitty school pretending it's nothing to do with them at all when a parent is coming in with bruises all over became the child melts down at home because she can't cope at school that's contributing to this problem, with them refusing to put support in place at school. Unfortunately many many teachers are absolutely shit when it comes to neurodivergent children. They don't care. No point trying to rely on them unfortunately op. Get to the gp and ask for a right to choose referral. Support is supposed to be based on need, but a diagnosis definitely helps because people believe you then. Also ask for a referral to early help and a team around the family meeting.

I see you've been advised to keep her in school - probably by someone who, fortunately for them, had no idea just how fucking clueless schools are about ND children. Taking my audhd pda children out of school and home educating them has solved about 90% of their meltdowns and removed a lot of my stress. This child is not coping with school. That WILL be causing issues at home. If you're having to use force to get her in, stop it - once their attendance figures are affected they might be slightly more useful.

We use declarative language, low demand techniques and try and avoid meltdowns starting - once they're in meltdown, there's not a damn thing you can do apart from ride it out. No point talking to them in meltdown either - talk about it with them later but she's only small - she may not have the skills yet to control herself.

Please, please stop telling her people don't want to be friends with her. Just limit the opportunities she has to play with others to times she's well regulated, and able to cope. PDA children can really struggle socially because they need autonomy - other children can't accommodate them so you'll need to be really hands on to manage the interactions and intercept if she's started to become dysregulated.

It's hard op. It's harder than 99% of posters on Mumsnet can even imagine. There's light at the end of the tunnel - my dc are slightly older than yours and things are so, so much better than they were. If you want to dm me you can - I've been there, done it and got the t shirt. I know exactly how you feel.

The At Peace Parents Facebook page really helped me to work out why my children are so different to everyone else's easy children.

It sounds incredibly difficult OP. Hope you get the help that you and your DD need, there has been some great advice on this thread.

I feel so sorry for the both of you.

It sounds 100% like PDA

Even the wanting the 'babyish' items - being a baby means there are no demands, you are safe, you are looked after, you want to go back to when things were simple and easy.

how was she as a toddler - did she go to nursery at all?

did this all start happening at school.

Was Brownies and swimming after school? they are both quite demand heavy and I can see why they may have become overwhelming.

She seems to be spiraling, as you spiral too, and that makes her fear of rejection and abandonment greater, and she meltdowns more - its feeding into itself. Its no surprise that self sabotage lies heavy on the sholders of those of us who have PDA, and who watch our kids with PDA cut off their noses to spite their faces, from the outside.

It can and it will get better, although I know the knot of fear and desperation, and feeling of being trapped. Of having your hand forced to home school when you know that its impossible. My daughter didnt break until year 7, and she was never physically violent to me, but there had been absolute shockers of meltdowns over seemingly ridiculous reasons before there, but her other medical issues had also help mask.

She is 25 and just finishing uni this year. Living at home, and threatening to quit maybe 4 times so far this year, but I think she will stick it out. Schools havent really been much cop - we did eventually get an EHCP which did help a little, but she didnt follow the same pathway as other kids. But when she is doing the things she wants to do, wowee, she is building an incredible career path on the side of Uni. That tenacity and drive and bloody minded focus will take them far when they find their passion.

But when they are little, and they are exhausted by keeping it together, because they REALLY want to be liked, and they REALLY dont want to lose face in front of their peer group, but their feelings are huge and they live in fight or flight - well it all comes out as soon as they are at home. And its horrible, yes, its really horrible, and you need some help.

Hi OP.
I’m from South Yorkshire originally. Our councils are town/ city specific. So google Rotherham/ Sheffield/ Doncaster/ Barnsley emergency duty phone number, which ever you live in x

• Sheffield: 0114 273 4855 (Safeguarding Hub) for children
• Barnsley: 0844 984 1800 (Emergency Duty Team).
• Rotherham: 01709 336 080 (Children's Social Care Out of Hours)

Call any of the above and they will give you the correct area number if none of these is it x

These are the out of hours numbers I can find. Hopefully one of them helps.

We self referred last year and ended up under Early Help. There was absolutely no suggestion that we were failing, and the support from our worker was really, really useful.

They worked with us and school to make some really helpful changes that helped our son massively.

Well, if it isn't forward to suggest it, perhaps you could send OP some details about what you did when you've had a chance to write it down more fully. If it really is "just" autism (you know what I mean, I'm not belittling it) then you have a potential solution and God knows the poor woman needs one.

Does autism present like this? I'm asking because while I realise people with autism can easily get very overwhelmed and lose control, what OP is describing sounds like more than just that. Like the child waking up and then going to wake her with a kick or a slap. Does autism make a person wake up and go seek their caregiver and attack them while they're sleeping?

Op I'm in Thorne if I can help if you're local to me

I know this will invite abuse and bitchiness from the mob, but nonetheless, I do question the rush to diagnosis, or at least to explain away everything OP has described with a condition.

Maybe I am 'clueless', but how is possible for a child to have a mental health condition that is only present at home but not at school?

People have suggested they hide/mask it at school all day but why and how would a six year old have the emotional regulation required to do that?

(If you want to answer these genuine questions, you can do so with kindness.)

OP has started several times on this thread that she doesn't like her daughter, can't see the good in her, doesn't want to be her parent, and so on. I imagine her daughter can certainly sense that. What an unhappy existence for a little girl.

I think that discussion might be better served on its own thread rather than subjecting a woman on her knees, begging for help, fearing for her life to reading it.

You need social care support now. Please call your children’s social care duty line, the number for which you can find on your local authorities safeguarding page. Tell them honestly about the level of distress and risk to you both that is happening right now. They may send out a duty social worker or (more likely) they will send the police to do a safe and well check (who will the. feedback to social care to drive next steps). Make sure you tell them that you fear that when she wakes up there is an immeadiate risk due to your psychological distress. .

It’s completely fair enough to have questions, but I really don’t think this thread, right now, is the time or place to post them.

She isn't. Her brain thinks it's under attack and is desperately trying to keep her alive. None of it is deliberate and despite the laughter (a fight/flight response) she's probably enjoying it about the same amount as OP - she'll be feeling terrified and out of control, and probably unlovable and in constant fear of being rejected. Whether or not any of these things are objectively true isn't the point - she's in meltdown, so her reasoning brain is offline

I completely and totally agree with this. It feels so personal and it's horrific to hear these things and be hurt by your own child. And I'll probably get flamed by people who think your dd is just a bad kid, but what I've found very helpful and i wish i had known earlier is that telling my child "im here. I'm not going to leave, you're safe" over and over again brings them out of meltdown far quicker. Even when everything in my own Audhd brain is telling me to run away as fast as i can. Your dd is scared out of her wits when this behaviour is going on.

@surrealpotato it's because children on the spectrum don't react in conventional ways to sensory stimuli, parenting and punishment methods, often sleep badly - they need different approaches.

If you had an autistic child you wouldn't find it so astonishing that they are entirely different at home and school in some cases.

If you use the search function on here you will find lots of threads debating the supposed "enormous increase" in neurodiversity.

So now she's not screaming at me I can think.
She went to nursery at 11 months. She never expressed upset or any negative emotions. I remember her key worker said she was very placid and go with the flow. She's a January baby so she's not the oldest or the youngest

School is hard. Reception was ok. Hated the uniform. But we muddled through. Year 1 and year 2 have been hard. She hates it. And the gap between her and her school friends is widening

She is desperate to fit in. Like so desperate. We started rainbows and swimming because her school friends did it and if her school mates ran into traffic she would. She is desperate to fit in. Rainbows she was asked to take a break because she was getting very aggressive and demanding. She never went back. Swimming she wasn't being safe. Not listening. And it wasn't safe.

Why not? I am hearing a mother repeat how much she dislikes her child, wants to stop being a mother, can't see any good in her daughter, etc... asking why her daughter is having emotional trouble at home, but not at school. Can noone here see that maybe there's a link between the two? It might be something for OP to consider, at least.

Austism is a massive spectrum so presents differently for different people.

But yes, from ages 4-6 my son would regularly attack me in the night, attack his brother, we had a makeshift panic room my youngest from age 3 knew how to use in case other son was having a meltdown.

I would say for things to get this bad it will have been getting worse and worse for a long time. Some autistic people respond to stress by lashing out and if the response is something that makes them more stressed (like a punishment) they then lash out worse and worse like a vicious spiral. In our case we didn’t know he was autistic so just treated it as bad behaviour and did consequences and endless discussions about behaviour and doubling down on homework just made it worse.

The only thing that helped was totally flipping the cycle and not punishing bad behaviour but just ignoring it (mental, I know - and very much NOT what we do for our neurotypical kid) and then making endless lists of all the triggers and fixing them one by one.

Now punishment doesn’t come up as his behaviour is always lovely pretty much.

I don't think this is helpful right now. This is a woman having what sounds to be a severe crisis and a mental breakdown. She is trying to seek emergency help to safeguard them both - perhaps we should show kindness (as you have requested in your own comment) in this moment to support her efforts in keeping herself and her daughter safe. It isn't up to us to investigate into where she's going wrong right now - we don't know her, all we know is she isn't in a stable place so perhaps comments like these could be withheld right now. I get putting things on the internet opens you to criticism, but there are two vulnerable humans on the other end of this.

Please don’t insinuate that OP is at fault here.

Feeling trapped in your own home by a child you feel is targeting you is deeply distressing.

Too many parents of children with behaviour that challenges feel like they’ve failed them, they do not need that fuelling.

This sounds so awful. I never advise thus , but I’d take her to ED and refuse to leave until you saw CAMHS.

It will invite bitchiness because it’s wildly inappropriate and shockingly without empathy to ask these questions on THIS thread. There are many resources available to you in order to educate yourself if you are interested.

Yes, lots of us can see the link between the two, but I think we disagree with you about causality. Do you ever see a person posting on MN saying they can’t stand their child who turns out to be pleasant, rule abiding and loving?