Tears in my eyes - ds's behaviour this morning....

[Shagmundfreud]

Ds2 (6) has HFA. We think. No diagnosis yet and apparently waiting lists for CAMHS in our area are running from 9 months to a year for 'non urgent' cases. He has been on the list since January.

Anyway, life isn't fun at the moment what with ds's increasingly volatile and odd behaviour and dd1 (12), who is NT, being aggressive, lazy, incredibly confrontational and provocative on top of it all. DS1, who is basically a very easy going child, has responded to the stress in the house caused by dd and ds2 by becoming whiny, over emotional and a hypochondriac. DH and I are exhausted with it all. Family life is just shit right now.

So, yesterday was a 'good' day. No damage done to house or garden (or none worth getting upset about). No major fights, primarily because dd sulking in her room all day after being grounded (response to huge strop on Friday that ended with her throwing food and water all over the kitchen and hurling her clothes out of the window).

DS gets up this morning and eats a chocolate croissant. Could it have been the croissant, the good weather, the fact that he's not had quite enough sleep, or the fact that he had a good day yesterday and is ready for a change? Who knows.

We take boys to garden centre, and when we get there all hell breaks loose. DS2 talking in incredibly loud voice. Lots of inappropriate comments and language (he's obsessed with bums/willies/poo/fat people, you name it).Garden centre filled with retired people cutting their eyes at us because of ds's behaviour. I can see that DH is getting stressed and upset so I take boys off to walk around with me so he can shop in peace. DS2 gets louder and louder. Kicking gravel around and laughing. Running past me and whacking my bum really hard. Screeching. Threatening and insulting me. DS1 reacts by whining and sniggering at DS2's behaviour, which DS2 takes as encouragement. DS2 spitting (blowing really wet raspberries all over my arm), deliberately touching stuff I'd asked him not to, banging on the glass of the fish tanks. We sit down for a drink. He shoves the tray, laughing so that my coffee spills. Then shoves his bag of popcorn in my face so it spills everywhere. He's gurning, yelping, running non-stop.

Eventually we pay and leave. In the car DS2 is 'talking dirty' loudly in the back and I look at DH's face. He looks absolutely distressed. He says 'he's really autistic isn't he?' and I think 'yes, he is'.

I just don't know how his behaviour can be like this and yet we're the only ones who know that there's something wrong. How can it be this bad and yet it's ok for us not to see a specialist for up to a year (or more) after a GP referral? DH and I are strong (ish) and we have other problems with our health or our work. But I can see that caring for a child like DS2 could break a family if other stresses are piled on top. We're only JUST coping. I fear for the future when he's bigger and stronger.

Sorry - not sure what sort of response I'm expecting. I think I just needed to vent.

i hate days like you've had - sorry it's got to you so much today

fwiw, we haven't taken DD to a garden centre for about a year, because of exactly this sort of behaviour. i know this isn't the answer, but the sensory overload is too much for her.

when your DS is more calm, perhaps tomorrow, ask him what he felt like going round, he may be able to help you identify triggers and then help avoid them?

and whilst your waiting for your CAMHS appt, write an account of today and keep it in a diary - it'll help with teasing out what's troubling him

and maybe call the office tomorrow to chase up the appt

Vent away life is bitch all the time sometimes.

Is there any chance that your GP could also refer to you a paediatrician as well? Perhaps you can get in sooner?

Hugs to you though. It can get so stressful and overwhelming. We get "the looks" from people as well (I just posted about it, in fact, on another thread). And our DS2's behaviour does wind up DS3(2yo) often, so things get loud and out of control sometimes.

Not sure how old your DS1 is, but your DD1 at 12yo is certainly old enough to understand (even if she doesn't like it) that her behaviour is not being helpful and she needs to make improvements in this area. Have you ever sat down with DS1 and DD1 and explained to them calmly that you believe that DS2 has some SNs, and that while it can be difficult, they need to pitch in a bit more and be helpful in their attitudes and behaviour.

A year on the waiting list is NOT okay. Surely there is SOMEWHERE they can guide you to that can provide some support and help to cope. DH has had a dreadful time coming to terms with DS2's SNs, and I think he's only just starting to "get it" properly now - he(DH) has gone through clinical depression and is still struggling with it.

Maybe when you split up the boys like that, one boy should go with your DH and one with you, so they can't wind each other up and neither you or your DH are trying to cope with 2 boys alone. That's what we do with our 2 boys (even though they're younger, they wind each other up dreadfully!!). And they both get a stern "that's not appropriate behaviour" comment from us as well once separated, as then they don't have the bravado of the sibling to back them up. Divide and conquer sometimes is the way to go, I think.

oh yes, and please feel free to vent. we all need that to vent at some point!! it's therapeutic!!!

Hi. Sounds as if you have had one of those "reached the end of your tether days". Agree with Triggles can you ask your GP to refer you urgently to see paeditrician / and/or referral for ADOS assessment. If I was you I would personally contact CAHMS and tell them that your case is urgent ask are there any cancellations tell them you will come asap, lay it on thick tell them all the problems you are having ask them how you can be seen sooner.
We too were waiting on an appt with the behavioural unit attached to CAHMS and were told 6 month waiting list we just phoned them and asked for cancellation and got in to see them the following week so it just might be worth a try.

Good luck xx

Thank you everyone.

I emailed my mp after reading a post here last week about the maximum 18 week wait for a referral being legally enforceable since April 2010. Also cc'd CAMHS. When I got back from school run on Friday there was message from CAMHS on answer machine. Some one will phone me Monday apparently.

"your DD1 at 12yo is certainly old enough to understand (even if she doesn't like it) that her behaviour is not being helpful and she needs to make improvements in this area"

Yes she is old enough. And it's making me feel such powerful resentment towards her that she's giving us such a hard time at the moment, when she can see what we've got to deal with with ds. She gets LOADS of time one to one with me because she is home educated, but she's still completely unco-operative about anything she doesn't actually want to do, which is basically everything apart from go out with her friends, go shopping, stay up watching tv all night, surfing the internet and eating junk food. She has no hobbies despite lots of encouragement from us, does no exercise, doesn't help me or keep her room tidy, won't do school work without huge amounts of cajoling and pleading, and even then only the minimum. She's not depressed or friendless or unwell in any way. Just lazy, defiant and entitled. She picks on ds2 and winds him up - makes things massively worse. She screams at him, criticises him and criticises me for treating him differently from her and ds1. I find it hard to smile at her at the moment or give her any affection because of how upset I feel about her behaviour and the impact it's having on the rest of the family.

"one boy should go with your DH and one with you, so they can't wind each other up and neither you or your DH are trying to cope with 2 boys alone"

Yes - this is what we should have done. DS2 is massively easier to cope with when there are no other children around. He is much calmer.

I feel your pain! It is much the same here with ds1 ASD and dd2 ASD but less severe. We do often end up just taking one each but it is quite depressing to be like this. We also now use carers at home so that we can sometimes take dd out together. There is no easy answer but absolutely agree you should push for help for your ds.

Shagmund, I hate to suggest it but considering your DS2's SN, is home educating your DD the best thing for your family at the moment? It may be the best thing for her, I don't know your reasons for home edding, but having her at school for 6 - 7 hours a day would be a break for all of you. She would be able to see some friends while at school and time at home could be more 'chilled.' 12 is a very difficult age for girls, the start of all the teenage angst.

I know people have lots of reasons for choosing to home educate and I don't mean to tread on your toes, but perhaps your life has changed since making the decision to home ed and your DS2's difficulties are becoming more apparent. Feel free to ignore me but sometimes it takes someone else to say it for you to consider it.

"is home educating your DD the best thing for your family at the moment? "

Probably not, but she was sinking like a stone at the school she was at. She was underachieving in EVERY single subject, doing no work at all, getting into fights, being rude to her teachers. The school was very supportive in some ways but couldn't do a thing with her. She'd had 23 detentions in 24 weeks since September and was basically thumbing her nose at everyone. Some of her teachers were letting her get away with murder. Her English teacher considers her 'gifted' and his response to a supposedly gifted and stroppy child - to let her not write anything in class because she didn't want to. [cross] Even being catastrophically lazy at home she's still done more constructive work in a month than she did in the previous term at school.

I felt like the social environment was utterly poisonous and very worrying and that she was bringing a lot of it back into the home. I'm looking for another school for her to start in September, so this is only a short term thing. I had high hopes for home-ed and we've had some lovely moments together in the last month, but she's decided she can't be bothered with doing any work and that she'd rather be at school, though not the school she was at before.

Would this organisation be of any help to her (or even your DS1)?

www.sibs.org.uk/

12 is such a hard age as it is, maybe there is some resentment there over the attention your DS2 gets and she is attempting to get attention however she can? (yes, I know.. armchair psych.. but just throwing ideas out there)

As far as separating the boys when on outings, I only say that because sometimes with our 2 boys, it is the ONLY way DH & I can retain sanity.

Yes, the OP sounds so much like one of those "oh fuck, we've ALL gone into sensory overload, just get me out of here" moments.

I can't even imagine trying to take my family to a garden centre. Weekend expeditions to busy places frequently end in emergency bail out (one reason why HE is really good for us - because we can go to places in the week when they are quiet)

If your daughter has only been home a month, I'd be completely expecting her to be going off the rails. That's completely normal for someone who has been in school for years - sudden requirement to take responsibility for her own activities and learning. I wouldn't bother about expecting anything "educational" of any kind to be occurring, just work with her on living happily together in a dynamic that can last into adulthood - that would be a real achievement of a HE term - for you both to recalibrate that relationship into one which is much more mutually supportive and adult :)

Shagmund - glad you had noticed the 18 week limit in the other thread. I hope you get somewhere with CAMHS on Monday. It makes me so angry that you have to complain to get a response though. Sorry you've had one of those days where you are left feeling there is nothing left to go wrong now. Hope tomorrow is better.