Nine year old daughters behaviour breaking me and the family apart?

[Alotofpink]

I don’t know how to start really but I’m really struggling at the moment and don’t know how to make it better.

Basically daughter is at the beginning of a SEND referral. She can’t take being told to do anything, from turning the light off to getting ready for school, reading etc etc. Complains every time we go out of the house because she wants to be in control of where we go, if it’s not somewhere she wants to go then she will play up. She gives me terrible looks and tells me I’m a terrible mum, Im nothing like all the other mums. Her dad literally can’t take it anymore as she has placed him into an enemy position so literally snarls and eye rolls him. I’m also an enemy and she looks at me with such hate at times but I have to get her ready.

If I’m honest I’m starting to dread our days, dread having to ask her to do anything and often find ways of letting her get her way. I try so hard to feel love and understand that she doesn’t do this on purpose but I’m really struggling with this now. My little girl just has such hate towards me most of the time. The school are trying to work with her around feelings of others etc etc. She just simply says she doesn’t care, I want my way, I don’t see why I can’t have my way when I want.

Anyone have any advice please?

Oh op. 💐
I'm sorry not to be able to offer advice not having the experience you need to understand successful strategies.

But I couldn't read and run, and thought I'd check you've heard of pathological demand avoidance?
I know an acquaintance whose daughter had this personality and the family are doing ok, so must have found some strategies that help. Worth researching that topic?

I hope you get some good help, there is a board on here for special needs children so you might get better targeted advice from the parents there.

What sort of reading and research have you done to try and understand what’s going on for your dd?

you mention ‘start of Send’ what are you thinking?

have you sought medical or therapeutic support? For dd and for you/couple?
what’s school like? Any clubs? Any issues with friends or family?

obs, finding ways that work for you as a family is ideal, focus on that and don’t worry what others say/do.

It will be hard to hear and hard to implement but what you need is “consequences” and not to feel so enmeshed in it. I don’t mean consequences as a rebranding of “punishment”. I mean genuinely think about things in terms of the consequence of each action. It removes the emotion and upset from your interactions.

The school are going down the line of ADHD/ASD with demand avoidance, also asked for a school psychologist assessment. I’ve done quite a bit of reading and I try and implement it but it’s really hard at times. I also have another little daughter who needs attention which she absolutely hates. I’ve placed her into clubs to help with friends and the leaders are made aware. But she struggles with friends, she is often (as the head of the school explained to me) very mean to them so they don’t want to remain friends. She has to sit on her own often in lesson as she won’t share.

Consequences are really hard as she will not do them. She will stand and won’t budge. She won’t discuss anything afterwards, it is always the other persons fault. The consequences are that people stay clear of her and it’s just so sad. Like you say not to get enmeshed, it’s so hard to see people not wanting to know her, friends, family etc. It’s not so much the not understanding it’s that she is incredibly mean with what she says to people.

Although you DD doesn’t have a diagnosis as such, have a read of this For some strategies that may help.

And be kind to yourself. You are a good Mum 💐

Thanks @AIBot Thanks I will have a read. I think I’m/we as a family are struggling with having no support, from family of anyone really. It’s not the idea I suppose we had of how are family would be. We are all arguing with each other.

Have you looked at the PDA website and tried the strategies they suggest? Have you tried lower demand.

A lot of people mistake low demand for having no boundaries and the child never doing anything they don't want to do and get in a pickle with it so thier child gets more and more isolated and does less and less. But we actually had success with it. We stripped out unnecessary demands and then used pda strategies to get the demands that were necessary through.

It wasn't quick or easy, but it did improve. We also had masses of OT support on sensory integration and emotional regulation, and got setraline prescribed by cahms.

What does she do that makes her happy?
What does she do that makes her proud of herself?
What does she have to look forward to? A good way of helping might be to think of breaking it down in your mind into what can she look forward to today, this week, this month, and this year. This means you can drop into conversation hopeful happy things she is moving towards. They don’t have to be huge, just positive. Eg it’s pizza tonight and I’ve bought icecream too shall we put squirty cream on, There’s XXXX on Friday after school, or whatever.
Model good behaviour and recognise it when it happens.

What would a consequence of telling you to shut up, you are a rubbish mum, I hate living here etc be as an idea? I end up not really knowing what to do or say? I still tell her she needs to do some reading for school but we all feeling rubbish by this point.

I honestly think if the asd/adhd with demand avoidance is a likely diagnosis, you might need to not focus on consequences in the same way as a NT child or even a chikd with asd who wasn't demand avoiding.

It's not very pleasant and is upsetting to be talked to like that but you sort of have to view it as distressed behaviour, a bit like a panic attack and react more how you would if your child was panicking.

I hope your not standing there listening to her say this?

I found this book about PDA useful, and also an easy length to read.

www.amazon.co.uk/Family-Experience-PDA-Illustrated-Pathological/dp/1787756777/ref=asc_df_1787756777?mcid=2ba4031a959533ecac86fa3894879ab7&th=1&psc=1&tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=697216353069&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13791462270437135770&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=t&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045873&hvtargid=pla-1330963301971&psc=1&gad_source=1

I would forget the reading/homework for school. Many ASD children can not cope with school encroaching on home.
We tried for years, never actually managed homework successfully and only damaged our relationship with child and made ourselves ill.

Remove the demand for homework.

What other things are like homework so entrenched in society we believe they have to be done but actually don't?

It's hard I have been there (not exactly the same but similar). I actually don't think our marriage would have survived and tbh I only just did myself. We sorted sleep via medication. Sleep was our worst bit as no one was sleeping so that saved us. But other things were still difficult and we are still struggling but not on the edge like we were.

In relation to the things like 'shut up I hate you' do not engage (I know this is hard, I know how awful it is to hear, I know how much you feel society judgement - it's shit and moan/cry to support people who get it)
We all think that phrase during our lives but we rarely mean it we feel it do to frustration / anger / emotions. Your child can not contain their thoughts and they can not filter them. Maybe they will one day but they are not there yet.

It’s not the unpleasantness it’s the frequency. It’s over things like not climbing up and taking money or medicine. She will also pick people who she is nice to and she will be able to do the things that I can’t get her to do and look and laugh at me or make the point of telling me I will do it for so and so but no you. I probably take it wrong but it genuinely feels like she hates me as a mum because I suppose I’m the one who frequently has to get her ready and dressed and out etc.

I have just read can't not won't book. It's about school anxiety/avoidance.

So much was our experience I cried so much reading it.
To know that I was not alone and not to blame

But also because for families in crisis their is not enough support, there is too much external judgement. It is not right and it is not fair

But know you are not alone x

Yes homework is just painful, she does not want to do it. But then In assembly when they bring out stickers and certificates and she doesn’t gain one because she refuses to read she comes to me or point to me and says that’s your fault, why didn’t I get a sticker, why didn’t you let me read etc.

Look into masking
Children that do thinks for others like this are often masking but they can not mask indefinitely and masking costs them in energy and wellbeing.
So while it looks like they are doing it deliberately they are prob in survival mode and doing it via masking because they are cornered.
You are the safe space where they remove the mask and can no longer act.

It is absolutely shit for parents but the child needs a place where the do not have to mask

And this is a system flaw where children are being punished for not having their needs met.

Bloody stickers and rewards for being able to cope is like attendance awards for be fortunate of having good health and punishing children with poor health

It makes me so upset. We as a family are not achieving. The child doesn’t ever obtain certificates so what is the family doing wrong. My own family have this mindset and I feel like we are all drowning.

I think she probably feels safe with you so the opposite of hating you.

One pda thing is trying to control things to reduce anxiety. So picking a favoured adult would be in line with that.

It is really tough. My son used to be awful to me and it's hard not to take it personally. He probably did view me as the person that made him do things he was anxious about.

When you get a bit more time read the things people have suggested. You might not get there with homework! But there are low demand ways to present reading or getting dressed..

I know all this. I’m just so tired at the moment. I don’t want to be all me me me but I’ve got no one pouring into my cup and I’m exhausted. My other siblings kids are all fine and they get all the attention and we get nothing. Post after post on social media about all the achievements and the days out and the happy holidays and how they are the perfect family…it’s getting me down.

My son was very similar (and was eventually diagnosed with autism, but not until early adulthood as he refused to participate at all with any referral).

I can't say that we ever found a solution, but you mentioned 'consequences' and I just wanted to say something about my experience of that approach. It never worked for us. DS just shifted all of his intransigence and anxiety and need for control onto the consequences itself. Even 'positive consequences' (rewards for good behaviour) became a battleground.

If I had the chance to do it all again I would just be razor focused on the anxiety that underlies the behaviour. I wish I could go back and just drop all attempts to modify his behaviour and simply hug him (or make whatever gesture of calm love would have been tolerable to him at the time. I don't think a consequences approach could have worked even if I was the most skilful parent in the whole world.

I know that the 'calm love' strategy would obviously fail to resolve the million practical problems that your daughter's demand avoidance causes. But it might, just sometimes, take some of the tension out of the situation. For her and for you. As the parent, you feel like you should be able to create some boundary, some behavioural shaping to put an end to each of the crises. If you accept that you can't, you yourself may become slightly less anxious which may feed over to your daughter.

An additional solution is to go further than you would with a different child in the direction of just letting her opt out. For example, we ended up allowing my son to stay home alone at a younger age than we would otherwise have done. Obv your daughter is still too young for that but there may be other ways in which you can remove the requirement on all of you to share experiences and space when she isn't able to cope.

If it is any reassurance, my son did move past his very controlling and challenging behviour. It got to the point in his adolescence that I started to see it as a form of domestic abuse, and feared for how he would be in his adult relationships. But his difficulties changed. They didn't go away but they changed. And an underlying very gentle personality began to show itself.

Well what have you tried so far?

I mean, I grew up in a culture where you'd get a smack in the mouth for that. I'm not suggesting you do that but she clearly has no fear of repercussions.

You need to follow through with your punishments, instead of just finding ways for her to get her own way for an easier life. I appreciate that's easier said than done but you are being your own worst enemy.