Is sorry always necessary?

[tigercub50]

Long story with our family but DH & I have been getting help & getting the "tools" to hopefully be better parents. We both know we have to change how we handle DD8's challenging (sometimes extremely) behaviour. It's very hard at times but we are being supportive of each other & on the same page, at least most of the time. This is huge progress from where we were at the start of this year. Like with any couple, there are bound to be a few things we think the other one could do better or differently. DD resents DH going to work & when he comes home, she can be very over the top & also can get physical with him. Tonight, she deliberately walked over his feet twice then when he asked her to stop she kicked the furniture. For that, DH removed a marble from DD's jar & she promptly kicked him on the shin. He then took away the first thing to hand, which unfortunately was her favourite teddy, and told her she could have it back when she said sorry properly. By this point she was in tears & very wound up & I thought that was taking things a bit too far. There was a bit of a stand off where DH insisted that she say sorry properly & in the end she did but as I said to him later, she was only saying sorry to get the bear back & not because she hurt Daddy.
DH did say sorry if I thought it wasn't the right thing to do then was a bit annoyed when I went on about it, but I really think it was pointless making DD apologise. She didn't really learn anything. (I do tend to almost not realise when DH has apologised as it's still a relatively new thing for him to do sincerely, so I tend to behave as I used to & keep on when actually that could be a natural end to the discussion). However, it did seem to be a bit of a power thing when he was getting DD to say sorry.

It could be a power thing, but lots of people get stuck in a default "say you're sorry" thing. I agree that it's pointless if it is forced.

When I think an apology is necessary but will not be meant, I say "I'm not going to ask you to apologise, because it won't have come from feeling it in your heart" (sorry if that's a bit twee - just a phrase we both use a bit!) I feel then that I've made the point that apologies are important.

I think he needs to be clear on his strategy. If you're doing a marble thing, why switch to taking away a teddy?

Yes I did say that too but he replied that the marble was for kicking the furniture then when DD kicked him, he just took away what was to hand. Perhaps a marble wasn't enough for kicking him?

But she's not losing a marble, she's losing whatever that marble represents. So take 2 marbles. Or more.

Whatever behaviour strategy is used, he needs to be consistent.

It sounds like you both have a challenge on your hands though and are really trying to deal with it. So whilst I'm with you that the sorry was meaningless, I'd put this one down to "sometimes we all fuck it up" and let it go.

Why is your dd's behaviour challenging?

IME if you have a child with challenging behaviour people are very keen to tell you to implement generic behavioural psychology style parenting techniques.

These often don't work if the challenging behaviour is caused by SEN or if the child is not a toddler.

I kept getting told to do rewards/consequences with my DD who was 9 when she hit crisis point (and so her behaviour got bad). I always used to do rewards and social stories explaining consequences (and implementing them). My friends called my consequence stories 'doom and gloom'.

Her behaviour was not the problem. Her behaviour was being caused by ASD that was unrecognised, being punished at school etc and that had given her very low self esteem and anxiety.

People used to tell me to take things away from her too but I have now (that she is diagnosed) been told this is abusive as she is not capable of understanding consequences like this. I always felt it was as it was clear she didn't understand and the message she got was 'you are Bad and no one loves you'.

I agree with your DH actually. He took a marble because of her bad behaviour, then she kicked him, so she needed punishment for that too.

If she thinks she can hurt people and get away without saying sorry, it doesn't teach her anything. It's not acceptable behaviour.

I would insist on a sincere apology too, not the sorry that comes with a grunt or a sigh.

Did you think it was okay for her not to apologise?

You speak of power, I don't see it that way. A child needs to know that a parent has authority over them at the tender age of 8, otherwise they'll become uncontrollable.

I hope your disagreement was registered when your DD wasn't there, as you need to be in unison on this.

If it was me, I would have given time out to try and break the tit for tat exchange that was developing. But I agree with consistency needed.

I'm not sure a marble removal is a tough enough punishment for kicking someone , I would have sent her to bed .....she become unmanageable unless you get bit tougher ....

DH took a marble for kicking the furniture but took DD's teddy when she kicked him. It was bedtime anyway so she got more upset about the teddy than she usually would.

Not sure it's tough enough punishment for a physical attack ....

The fact that both you and your husband are not on the same page regarding the child's behaviour will cause confusion, anxiety and poor behaviour. You both need to support each other fully, stop nit picking and present a united front.
Taking away the teddy smacks of an impulsive, poorly thought out reaction. You need to work out a sliding scale of consequences for poor behaviour.

Absolutely - I find it difficult sometimes to think straight when DD is misbehaving & I reckon that's why DH went for the teddy. We are going to make a list ( out of DD's sight of course!) of possible things to be taken away & for what. DD loves her tablet & that has been confiscated before. DH has had a tendency to say a week but that's too long so now we say 2 days at the most. Playing out with her friends is another one

If he misbehaving is completely down to what you were doing as parents before you started getting help then being consistent, clear, firm and together will help resolve it.

It might be more effective though if the rewards are at least equal to the consequences and the consequences are materially linked to the transgressions. Also if she is involved at least a bit with the whole issue, she is 8 after all.

However if the reasons for the challenging behaviour are in part down to additional needs these general techniques won't help.

What is behind the challenging behaviour?

IMO it is a myth that parents can 'control' the behaviour of a child this age TBH if a child this age is displaying challenging behaviour on a regular basis then it is usually because they haven't learned the skills necessary to control their own behaviour adequately because they have additional needs which have not been identified or because their parents haven't taught them effectively or because they have MH issues that prevent them using skills they have learned.

These techniques will be effective only if it's that they have not learned due to ineffective parenting.

If it's MH issues the child will need that plus appropriate support with MH.

If it is SEN then you will need to adjust the methods after identifying the areas of deficits in order to teach skills she needs to learn in a way she is capable of learning.

Thanks everyone. We have been suspecting that DD may be on the autistic spectrum & are going to start with the school ( our family support worker said that was where to go, although I would guess a trip to her GP would be good too). She is extremely clever so I am thinking high functioning if she is autistic at all

Go to the GP AND school. Ask school to speak to SENCO, refer to SALT, OT and ed psych and ask GP to refer to paediatrician (and potentially CAMHS).

If it is ASD punishments when she is having a meltdown (IME of high functioning DD) won't help. She won't necessarily learn from experiencing 'I do x thing and y thing happens so I need to stop doing x thing'.

IME what massively helped with my DD was changing what happens before and after a meltdown and during a meltdown making her safe but otherwise ignoring the bad behaviour.

Punishing her for things she did in a meltdown just made her feel even worse (which increased the numbers of meltdowns) and she didn't understand that the punishment was a consequence. It just made her feel like she was hated and she learned nothing from it.

Reducing sensory overloads, giving outlets for behaviours, diverting behaviours, explaining feelings using systems and rules all helped most.

Everyone's solution was 'she needs to know she can't hit' but that is no use with high functioning ASD where the issue is not that they don't know but that they can't control themselves.

Oh and praise when she achieved things.

My DD needs to chew and be hugged tight, much changed when I realised she wasn't doing this stuff to be annoying but because she had neglected needs and a different way of functioning.

She was 8 when it all got worse for her too. It is common for high functioning ASD (particularly girls) to become worse around this age because it is when the differences between her and her peers' social functioning start becoming even more apparent to her, pressure in school starts ramping up and puberty hormones start affecting mood.

So basically read about ASD, try to get on an ASD specific parenting course (like HALO), try and see if you can work out if she has sensory issues and what they are and reduce or direct sensory overload/sensory seeking behaviour. Teach her tools (using rules and tokens like the marbles) to apply to situations she finds hard. Keep everyone safe when she melts down and talk it through when she is calm again.

(Use social stories appropriate to her age and intelligence when you talk it through)

If her go to thing is stamping on feet or kicking you can redirect rather than punish her for kicking/stamping by having rules (the reasons why explained using social stories when she is calm) that if she feels like kicking or stamping she can't kick furniture or people but she can kick eg cardboard boxes or stamp on bubble wrap.

And then you praise her every time she kicks the cardboard and stamps on the bubble wrap and remind using the social stories why it is so good that she, herself, chose to do that rather than hit people or furniture.

Offred thank you - the more I read your posts, the more I think there might be something in what we are suspecting. I had also started to consider hormones in the mix, as we get sudden mood changes & quite a bit of attitude. I go through all kinds of emotions, including guilt, but both DH & I really want to get to the bottom of this & it is way bigger than us.
Sensory wise, she is quite sensitive with her hearing & is quite particular about food (texture more than taste generally). Oh & she is always putting things in her mouth.

The explosive child book is very good. I read it years ago before I clicked she needed investigation for ASD and it did help.

My DD is very intelligent, also very creative and so it was able to go unseen for many years, also because to me she was DD and just had always been like that.

When I gave her a chewy toy the change in her general behaviour was amazing.

I feel very sad for her that she went so long with no-one realising she had all these unmet needs and things got really quite bad for her between 9 and nearly 11 (now) but we just got the diagnosis about a week ago and it feels like such a weight off my mind.

DD is very creative too - she could make something out of anything!
I've just thought of something else - she tends to get into peoples' personal space a bit too much ( they were helping her with that at school actually) & she oversteps the mark with DH particularly, getting very physical & very silly when he tries to get her to stop. She seems younger than she is at these times.
So glad you have a diagnosis. I will google that book 🙂

I've put blackout curtains in her room, hue light bulbs, led strip lighting with a remote control underneath her bed as she's got a high sleeper with a sofa bed, she has an echo dot so she can completely control the entire environment in her room, lights, music, sounds the works.

I got a very cheap exercise ball to bounce on, a boxing ball to punch, she stabs cardboard boxes when she needs to. She has noise cancelling headphones to use sometimes.

She's always done art to help express her feelings and her special interest is computer stuff so I got the xp pen artist and an old version of Corel painter for her birthday, we made an art wall to display her best work (she asks that I'm honest!) and this week she has been writing loads and loads of poems about her feelings!

I'm so proud of her at the moment!

In the past we've done token systems to help teach about appropriate roles and other people having needs so I get 7 tokens, she gets 7 and her stepdad gets 7. She can use her tokens to 'buy' something from us such as getting her a drink or helping her with her shoes (things she could do herself), when she ran out she had to do something kind for us to earn tokens back. It only took a month of doing that before she stopped being really demanding.

We have also had secret signals, she hooks my little finger in hers if she's getting overloaded and I agreed when she does that then we have to stop what we are doing and give her space and she became prepared to deal with waiting then for us to say goodbye and finish what we were doing because she knew we would accommodate her need to withdraw...

She's a lot beyond that now but one of the main things was realising that she was trying to be so controlling because she felt overwhelmed by things we just thought were normal and what we were actually doing was expecting way too much of her.

She still has meltdowns, she's got significant MH issues as a result of the years of having unmet needs but actually how she is at the moment is the most content within herself that she has seemed in years.

Oh other things that work too - meditation and there is an app called SAM which you can use to help with anxiety and track things that make you anxious.