teenage sn problems with me!

[Evasmummy]

this may be a bit of a taboo subject but does anyone ever get really angry with themselves because just now and then you resent you dd/ds with sn? I know i may be putting myself out here and may not make any friends because of this but sometimes i just think 'i cant do this today'. My dd who is nearly 14 has SLD and EBD. She is going through the whole teenager thing (ahhhhhhhhhh!) and this is making her behaviour a lot harder to handle. 99.9% of the time i can cope, and she gets on so well with our dd who is 15mths. but other times i just feel so resentful. i thought maybe that it started when our dd was born in oct2004 but i know it was way b4 that. anyway, i then end up feeling so bad and guilty that i would ever think such a thing and feel like such a loser mum to her. for years i have been going through the diff stages of realising your child has sn, and then accepting it etc but i think i am finding the 'teenage years ' really hard. Do you think it is because now is so close to the time when i would have had my independence at her age and was able to go out with friends etc and she cant do that? silly wee things make me angry like when a friends ds gets his driving license etc and i think dd should be getting hers in a few yrs tho she wont be........ am i going mad?!!! i know she has so many other things that she is brilliant at and we are so proud of her but i do think of what should have been.... i think another bit of it is that she is now realising that she is diff from some other kids who are not at her sn school and it upsets her. i dont know how to word this so please dont be offended by this, but becuase she looks like any other girl in the street she thinks she she be able to do the things they are doing. this also creates more expectations from other peeps when we are out as they dont realise she has sn. please accept my apologies i i have offended any1 with this post it was not my intention, honest.

Dont worry about offending anyone! HAve you any respite care/weekend clubs etc? Lots of kids in my sen school are going away with their club for the half term.

Not offended at all! I often think "I can't do this any more, its killing me" etc. I think there are points where you have to adjust a lot, transitions from being at home to school, from m/s school to special (or accepting that), from being a sweet child to a growing hulk etc etc. For a lot of last year I really felt like a carer and not a parent and this was really the first time that had happened over a long period iyswim. I found that really disheartening.

thanks everyone for your support it means a lot to me DD does not get any respite, which i think is my own fault. A few years ago when she was 10 she was appointed a SW who came to the house for a wee chat. he talked about the kids at respite, a lot of whom are at her school in her class etc. But because dd can be so great at times i felt bad about taking a place on the respite waiting list when i thought of all the parents whose kids couldnt do anything and here i was with a sn child yes, but maybe not as stressed as some other parents. But i know now that stress is stress and i think that yes you do need a break sometimes to recharge your batteries. she attends the school summer scheme which she just loves for 2 weeks in the summer from 9-2pm mon--fri. Every other weekend she goes to Gateway for 2 hrs on a sat afternoon. she really enjoys this even tho there are only about 7/8 kids there. i have been thinking about when she moves into senior school. where she is at the mo she can stay until she is 19 which is great. i think they may go to college one day a week and there are opportunities like duke of edinburgh. I used to think the future was so far away but here i am now right in the middle of it!

As she is 14 this is exactly when you should start Transition plans with Soc Svs. I attended a talk by a social worker a while ago about provision for the future and she said that planning for leaving education MUST start at age 14. Obv it doesn't a lot of the time.....

evasmummy not offended at all
Davros, I could of posted that about sometimes it feels like you are more a carer than a parent and it is so hard feeling like that as they are your children and love them to bits.

TBH I have always felt the ds should be doing this by now (re riding a bike etc)xmas time tbh is the most depressing as am limited as what he will enjoy but we try so hard iykwim.

EM I think you should be asking for your dd to be re-assessed by ss, if they offer respite, jump on it.
xxx