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?

Definitely don’t do ‘consequences’, they don’t work effectively for ASD or pda. They just imbed shame and do not improve behaviour. (ASD/pda adult here).
Look at low demand parenting and swim above her nasty words. ‘You’re a horrible mum!’ ‘Oh I am sweetie, evil. However I’m the only one you’ve got so we’ll have to work with it. What shall we have for tea?’

Just spotted this part of one of your replies, OP:

We as a family are not achieving. The child doesn’t ever obtain certificates so what is the family doing wrong.

I truly undersand your anxieties in this respect, really I do. But I think that for now you need to let go of the concern for achievement in relation to your daughter. You and she are not doing anyhting wrong, but she probably does have a difficulty that, for now, means that any focus on achievement in relation to her is just likely to aggregate anxiety and get you nowhere. Focus on love, and calm, and just being. Ditch as many targets as you can.

I'm sure she has a million wonderful talents that will flourish as and when she is able to feel calmer.

I have to agree that consequences don’t work as they cause so much more anxiety and an escalation of the behaviour. The issue is as the school has said that some of the behaviour is unacceptable. For example when someone doesn’t do what she says she will punch them in the face. Or she will deliberately say extremely hurtful and horrible things. How do you let that go?

I know it is so hard to deal with. We do so little as a family because of needs and it is depressing, it does upset me.
I can never understand why others can do so much and have so much fun
I do think it's my fault (it isn't but I think it so much everyday)
You are not alone

I don’t have this attitude personally but I know that this is the attitude of many sat in the assembly room. She has many great talents like singing and I’ve emailed and requested that they issue some certificates for other things other than meeting targets.

The consequence would be nothing. Just ignore these outbursts.
As for being made to sit on her own in school because she can’t share, that’s the worst thing possible. She needs support in learning how to share- a good TA would be able to model sharing by setting up situations where she is actually practising the skill.

We do try and do a lot as a family as we have another child but it is often to be brutally honest ruined and stressful. We have an idea like feed the ducks but because the little one had 1gram of bread extra that causes such conflict, she will hit our other child. Or a child won’t play with her in the park, or she can’t have the sweets or she can’t be in charge of all the money. I know it seems small but it’s every moment of every day.

They are waiting on more support. No one will now sit with her because she is really mean with words and will hit them. If they need to share paper then she won’t for example let it be in the middle it has to be on her side and the other person must ask her for it.

We found the age of 8-11 the hardest for our DD with ASD and PDA. It nearly broke us as a family.
School was a major trigger so we removed that and home educated. I know that's quite extreme and not everyone is in the position to be able to do so.
When she was younger we did a lot of "when...and then..." which worked mostly! "When you have brushed your teeth, then we can do xyz"
She didn't respond to brides and appeared not to care about anything...except she actually did, it was just hidden behind the PDA anxiety.
She "hated" us, except she didn't- we were her constant, we were her place to let rip. I wished sometimes we weren't always getting the brunt of it all but it was better than her melting down in school/public.
I can't say what changed as she got older, maybe she just matured and started realising more about what she wanted/needed. She still has her moments, but nothing like the ages of 8-11.
Hang in there.

I don’t have any advice regarding the behaviour etc as I have no knowledge in this area but I did note that you are struggling with others posting their DCs achievements etc. can you snooze them for a bit on FB or wherever you are seeing these posts? They won’t know you have snoozed them but it will give you a break from seeing it all.

A small thing but if she loves singing, can you incorporate that into the reading? (This is a few years ago obviously!) but my nephew would not do any reading practice ever. We started giving him the inserts from CD’s so he could sing along to the songs he liked and get the words right, meant we were practising sounding out words, a bit of comprehension. We did the same with instructions for things as he liked being in charge.

He still won’t read for enjoyment or if he feels pushed to but he will read things that have a purpose / function like manuals etc.

Sounds like my 12yo dd who is diagnosed ASC and also has (though not official diagnosed as in the UK as it's not recognised as a separate condition), PDA). I I

I am sorry that I can't offer any advice as I've been living with this for 12 years and still struggle to manage and cope!

All I will say is there is lots of information on the PDA society website, also Steoh's two girls, pda profile is extremely challenging, people say "be firmer", more rules etc but it just doesn't work. In fact most strategies used for ASC kids do not work with those that have PDA.

My dd has not spoken to her dad who lives with us since May last year! No reason given and it's incredibly hard and has such an impact on the family, especially her younger sister. She also hates me mostly but we can have a laugh and I try to connect with her several times a day, often I'm told to get out her room, if I offer advice she'll say I'm useless, it is really upsetting.

Please feel free to PM me if you want to chat further, it's a lonely place at times and people really don't understand the psychological distress it causes.

Until she has been taught how to share this will continue. Her teacher needs to stop putting her in situations where she is forced to share!
Im a Senco and have come across children like your DD many times.
I think your school is letting her down here.

You don't let it go as a consequence of punching someone in the face is also partly about supporting the victim to feel heard and to prevent other children thinking it is ok behaviour. I'd expect the school to do that in school.

Off the top of my head, one idea would be to calmly talk about what she thinks the consequence should be if someone did that to her?

But longer term, it is unlikely a consequence will prevent your daughter doing that again. If you want to stop the behaviour happening again, I would think specialist help on emotional regulation and communication would be more effective.

Op it all sounds very hard - but very gently, you don’t seem to be taking on board what so many posters are saying.

your DD likely has Pathological Demand Avoidance. Consequences will never work.

Normal parenting won’t work. Both you and DH need to do some reading - see the links to PDA society above.

The school do take her own of lessons to help support her with emotional regulation. When asked about the punch her response was he made me do it, he should have moved when I told him to. In reality we know that she is supposed to go to an adult in this situation for them to resolve but she doesn’t get this currently. It’s the same response to everything. Why did you take someone’s money, “they made me do it because they said I couldn’t have it” etc.

I will have a read when I’ve a quiet moment. Of course I am taking it on board. I am out of my depth as it is.

That was so much like my son at that age. He couldn't see the other person's perspective at all. If it gives hope, we did get there eventually.

Absolutely this. "Normal" parenting techniques just don't work as they place more demands on the child, which puts them into fight or flight mode.

Have a read of the PDA Society website. It has excellent information.

Join support groups on Facebook to talk with other parents who understand what you're going through and have good advice that really works. (Newbold Hope and Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) Support Group are both good resources.)

The approach that works best for a PDA child is collaborative. It takes a long time to work out the best way to implement this for your own particular circumstances (IME) but once you find out the route that works life is much calmer. Not all the time, but most.

I agree with PP who said that 8-11 was the hardest stage. We found that too. My DD is now 12 - nearly 13 - and she's a lot calmer. We have less violence and fewer meltdowns.

We also home ed and always have done so I don't have any school advice.

Hang in there. It's a hard road, but you can have a more peaceful family in time.

I don’t think that my understanding of “consequences” is the same as some posters. It’s not “doing nothing” nor is it a code for “punishment” it’s literally cause and effect. If you are calm and non confrontational you can look a situation and think about what has caused this and what effect has that resulted in. For some children consequences of their actions are harder to see or they lack the ability to see consequences that are too far in the future. This leaves them feeling hard done by when the result of their actions is negatives. I would imagine she feels unliked, poorly treated and miserable. Being horrible to your mum, and trying to dominate everyone around you to get the best/most of everything because you feel no one else will give it to you because you aren’t “nice” is I think often why people behave like that.
You must be very tired and overwhelmed with it too @Alotofpink . Mothering can really sear your soul sometimes.
You say she loves singing, does she get to sing regularly?

The response when I ask her why she takes things is that “I know they won’t give it so I just take it”. I have explained that it isn’t anything to do with you. If someone wants to not share their lipbalm then we have to respect that choice. I assume that she understands that the person will be upset if you just take it but she is only happy that she has the thing she wanted.

What would be another way of getting the things she desires, and what would be the result of taking without asking?

NRFT but want to reply. Assuming you are seeking an ASD and/or ADHD assessment I would recommend looking at the NAS.org.uk website for local parent and social groups for support but also to look up PDA and ODD on google and the NAS website as it sounds as though this may be what she has/is displaying

Essentially if you tell a child with PDA/ODD to do something they will immediately take up an oppositional and defiant stance. Ie say no. Even if it’s something they want [todo]. So, in stead of telling them to turn the light off, you say ‘shall we turn the light off now or would you like it on for another ten minutes?’; or ‘would you prefer carrots or peas with your dinner - there icecream for afters’ and the old favourite, ‘would you prefer to put your coat on first or your shoes?’ 🤣

It’s exhausting at first but you become very adept at asking questions that give the guise of enlisting their engagement and empowering them… but getting the result you want (ie, the light off in a timely manner, shoes and coat on, all without any drama).

There are books and on-line forums to offer support if you think this might be where your DD is coming from.

Sorry of it’s been suggested above a million times but I feel for you. It does get better with the right interventions (there are others that you can try too) - but don’t wait for the diagnoses, start some of the methods now.

Do other children ever hit back? If so, what is your DD's take on this? How does she view it if other children retaliate due to her behaviour?

Usually you’d reward with good behaviour. So with the lip balm I’d say we can get our own but I’m met with you’re a rubbish mum, you don’t let me have what I want, I don’t want to earn it I just want it. Then I’ll find her climbing up cupboards to take my money. I try and explain that people are given things when they have earned it really. She’ll go into friend’s houses and often take things. She does have many things but I don’t buy her things all the time because we can’t afford stuff all the time. Often she will take this personally as you have said. I’m not getting something because I am bad is what she thinks but the reason is not related. She is very concerned about not having things that other people do.