Struggling with my daughter's hurtful behaviour and its effect on us.

[Daughteradhd]

Hi, I really need some advice about the relationship with my 10 year old daughter. She was diagnosed ADHD last year but I suspect like myself she is AuDHD.

Ever since she was about 5 she has told me in outbursts that she doesn’t like me as a mum. She now usually says something along the lines of, what kind of mother are you, I wouldn’t expect a mother like you to care about me etc etc. She has no friends in school because she is verbally unkind in situations and now no one wants to be her friend. She hates her sister. I am really really struggling and I hate this but it is effecting the way I feel about her. She always ruins any family day out because something will happen and she will then become very dark and unkind. I have fought so hard for her, to get her the diagnosis, to explain to everyone so they understand and make allowances. But at the end of the day people don’t want her around because she becomes verbally very scathing.

The words she says to me are now starting to affect our relationship. I’ve tried so hard to just accept it’s part of the ADHD. I myself have the same thing but I’ve never been unkind to people. She keeps making comments about me being a rubbish mum because I don’t make her feel the way she wants. But I literally can’t, I have another child. She wants me to love her more than her sister but I can’t as I love them equal. She looks me in the eye and just tells I am not like a proper mum, like everyone else has. But then everyone else’s children aren’t doing this. There isn’t a single person who she likes because eventually they do something to upset her and she burns the bridge.

I don’t know what is happening. Does anyone have any advice?

Your dd can't hear your explanations; she's not rational in that moment; she's driven by emotions.

If you regulate your emotions better, and in a way that calms you down, this will model this for her as well as break some of the cycles.

I think finding other parents who have parented PDA children may also work.

I did lots of very silly things in hindsight- for example, going into her room uninvited, interrupting her space, trying to reason with her, pleading or explaining too much, crying.

I was stuck in my way of coping, and she was stuck in hers.

I hope you find a way through this, it does sound like you are spiralling about it, and I do get that because I do that too, it isn't going to help your dd get more centred or learn to control her own emotions though. Her words at the moment have too much power and she's controlling the whole household with her moods- how scary for her. I think you have to remember this is her dysfunction and not her personality, she's not a 'bad' child, she is an overwhelmed, lashing out and vocal one. You have to find some way to transmit the message that you do care about her all the time, that her behaviour sometimes isn't ok and upsets you, and that she has places and spaces to offload but being nasty isn't going to be allowed as a mechanism for coping.

This is hard stuff, I don't have an immediate solution for you, I think you have to just talk, read, get support for you all and see what works over time for your family. It sounds at the moment that what you are doing isn't working and it's driving you towards your own MH issues, which is understandable. I even took AD to cope at one stage, I don't now. I wish you luck with it all.

You also don't mention a partner, I was on my own and one of the best things that happened was finding other people to share the whole burden with, such as a therapist for them so they had somewhere to rant and offload, not on me. The more people you can draw in the better, although it is hard when they are 'difficult'. I found having one constant therapist (paid for, not on the NHS, that's not an option past 6 weeks) for my dd helped a lot as she had an outside relationship with someone else that was supportive and nurturing. It's a lot for one mum to take on.

If she behaves better at her dad's, could she not go to him for a while?

Yes I am on the verge of asking the doc for medication for myself because it’s too much. No one can breathe around her, we can’t live like this. Yes she rules the house with her behaviour.

None of it is about you, it is about her. She’s 10. She doesn’t understand her feelings. She feels uncomfortable in her own skin in so many ways and doesn’t know how to process it or react to it.

When my daughter got like this, I just re-iterated that I loved her and would do anything she needed me to do to feel better, then we would explore what it was that was actually bothering her.

I have suggested this and she does not want to. I don’t fully understand what’s happening here as she says that she behaves better there but in her words this is because she is too afraid. After her time with him she comes in running telling me she misses me so much then after an hour or so we are back to the arguments .

I have tried this. For example she doesn’t want her sister anyway near her ever and often hits and pushes her or tells her to go away as she is disgusting and ugly. I physically can’t accommodate this, we live in the same house with shared places, apart from her room. A lot of her requests I simply can’t accommodate. Now she can get up and move but she will not and so it’s a fighting match.

My NT kids regularly told me I wasn’t much good as a mum. Their mates has much better mums. They lsugh at themselves now. 🤷‍♀️

Ok, you are overwhelmed atm therefore you're purely firefighting and trying to keep your head above water.

You will have developed strategies to deal with your overwhelm, until you engage those, you cannot move forward @Daughteradhd, this you know.

It is all a step, by tiny step, to resolve difficulties, which are more than most have to contend with.

Your first step then is to unscramble and reach the best possible mindset for you to even approach supporting your daughter.

Do you feel that medication is the solution, for yourself ?

I feel for you all, but as I've been reading this thread, I've been worrying a lot about your younger child. If it's tough for you, it's got to be even worse for her, and at such a formative age. And there's no other adult around to take her away from the situation or reassure her while this behaviour is going on.

If it wasn't for you saying that your DH was abusive, I'd be considering your eldest living with him. I never thought I'd suggest such a thing, and I know it's radical, but I get the feeling that both girls would have a much more stable life if they were separated.

I was interrupted half way through my post, so hadn't seen this when I completed it and sent.

Given that you considered her going to him (for a while at least) I'm disappointed that you accepted her saying that she didn't want to. Because your other daughter desperately needs you, your time, and a less traumatic environment. Yet you don't seem to have considered her at all, in accepting your eldests 'i don't want to'. Your youngest is afraid, too. Probably more afraid of her sister and her environment, then the eldest is of her dad. And more reasonably so.

My youngest is most definitely not afraid, she is a little bulldozer. We have all the school time together. Why on earth would I want my daughter to stay with a father who she is afraid of who abused me for our whole relationship. I know how terrifying he can be. I’m not a monster. My youngest is showing signs of autism who the nursery are also aware of. I can just give them all
away because they are hard. (Even if it’s crossed my mind)

But in an earlier post you responded to this:

If she behaves better at her dad's, could she not go to him for a while?

With this:

I have suggested this and she does not want to.

So if he's so abusive, why did you suggest it to her?

Is this contact between your DD and her father court ordered?. Do you think this every other weekend contact is at all beneficial given he was abusive toward you (and in turn your DC) when you were together?.

‘He would simply not accept it.’

So her DF is improving DDs behaviour & doing her a favour. Which is what good parents do.

OP, are you sure you’re not overcompensating for grumpy DF?

Maybe by allowing advantages to creep in from DDs outbursts? The school think she’s milking it.

I’d do the same, by the way, so I’m sympathising with you both. Newsflash: being scared to misbehave is not traumatic or damaging unless it’s followed by abuse - sometimes it’s sensible.

if I were DD on balance I’d prefer to behave better after transient anxiety than meltdown and lose friends. She’s 10 not 2.

He wouldn’t allow it because he’d likely hurt her. He is very aggressive when he looses his temper. He only ever hurt me but he is still scary when he shouts. There is no way I’d parent this way.

It's ok to shout at your kids. Lord knows I have to shout at mine sometimes.

^^ This! Easy to say but don’t take it personally op. She is projecting all of her inner angst on to you, the person she feels safest with. She is probably getting a dopamine hit from attacking you too as it rids her of her frustrations temporarily.

You have to be very clear that you will not be her punch bag. Encourage her calmly to get rid of her frustration in other ways. Literally get her a punch bag if it helps! Every time she attacks you say “I understand you feel upset but don’t attack me. Your tactics don’t work because I love you” nor “I love you too much to allow you to behave like this” and walk away. Walk out of the house if you have to. Or walk in to the next room and say “I will be available when you are calm”

Get support for yourself, go to a therapist if you can afford it, get as many breaks from her as you can. focus on some hobbies that bring you contentment.

What AUDHD people need most is time to develop, mature and develop more self-regulation.

You are already helping her by sticking in with her and loving her despite everything so don’t go down the path of thinking you are failing as a parent. You just need to survive as best you can and aim to be the steadiest calmest rock you can be in the circumstances and things will improve but it will take a long time so you need to focus on your welfare as a top priority, even though that feels counter-intuitive 🌷

PS She definitely does not hate you! 🌷

Sounds like More than adhd sounds like a personality disorder ... must be hard to deal with scathing comments as they get older.
Hugs .

My son is 11 and is AuDHD with PDA. He can be like this… often. I’ve learnt over the years it’s because it gives a response. He knows it hurts me. So I started to agree with him. He might say ‘I hate you you’re a rubbish mum’ and I’d say ‘oh well never mind’ or he’d say ‘I hate it here’ and I’ll say ‘yeh me too’ and actually having now thought about it he rarely says these things now as it isn’t hurting or upsetting me.
also remember as their safe person they are testing you. A lot is about their own lack of self esteem and feelings about themselves. They are generally cruelest to those they feel the safest with as only then can they let all these things out as they know you aren’t going to go anywhere.

This sounds a bit like borderline personality disorder or emotionally unstable personality disorder. Can you speak with a child psychiatrist and get her assessed?

Wondering if she can learn to differentiate between things it's ok to think and things it's ok to say. Would she have the impulsivity control to write down her rude thoughts rather than say them? If she can write them down and talk them through with a trusted adult she might start to see what feelings / thoughts patterns are leading her to being nasty.

Also wondering if her father is being abusive towards her / she was more aware of his abuse towards you than was apparent at the time. Does she behave like this because being in control is a way for her to feel safer?

A CAMHS referral is worth seeking as is a referral for an autism diagnosis but waiting lists are long and you may be better looking initially into the voluntary sector for a counsellor/ therapist for her and/or you.

I love this post! I don't know if you re right or not but sometimes a bit of old-fashioned plain-speaking and pragmatism is refreshing these days!

Agreed. Some kids do go through a ‘threenager’ kind of phase. Like the terrible threes verbalised and extended. Not sure why everyone is in a rush to get a diagnosis. No, it’s not normal behaviour if it’s frequent but kids do stuff like this from time to time, especially if they’ve been holding in their problems all day at school and being ‘good’.

In terms of being dark/negative, I’ve seen lots of positive toxicity type parents have this issue or those without boundaries, if she’s ruining days out… talk us through a typical day and what that looks like and perhaps someone can advise on how to handle aspects of it.

It may be you are unwittingly giving a lot of attention to the negative behaviour and focusing on it so she is doing it all the more.

OOOH NO! Not on MN!