OK, I've finally managed to catch DD2 on video

[lougle]

Showing how she reacts to unplanned differences.

Can you take a look and see if I'm justified in calling her 'inflexible'?

(I'll take the link down in a day or two).

TIA.

P.S. Excuse the mess - DD3 displayed her anger earlier by throwing things around

Lougle - that is a fairly 'normal' reaction very occasionally for a tired NT child, if she is often like that, then I guess 'inflexible' is a reasonably accurate way to describe her behaviour and I would see it as 'out of the ordinary'.

Are you always so calm & patient? Well done you if you manage it the majority of the time! x

Ouch! Watching that was definitely a familiar experience.

Mess?

The other thing that strikes me is the speed at which she goes from 'calm & singing' to 'upset, stressed & shouting' - you can see it in her eyes immediately... it's like she is scared.

Thanks Chipping. That's her default reaction to most things, most of the time. For example, if I try to draw her a number line and it doesn't look exactly the same as school's number line. If she's expecting to go somewhere and we can't (even somewhere mundane).

People often say that I'm calm, but it seems odd to me! I feel that I'm impatient with the children. But that is how I am much of the time, yes. I've learned that the more I engage, the more volatile she gets.

Yes, exactly! I said to DH, that you can track her eyes. She looks at the picture, which has frozen. She looks down to the progress bar and sees it's at the end. She looks back up to the screen and then she's in complete panic.

She wants to be good, so she's trying to speak calmly, but you can hear the panic and despair in her voice.

ouryve that's too kind. I almost edited some of the mess out, but strangely there was no video left then

I thought the dog's reaction was telling as to how usual this is

Lougle I'm not sure where you are at with her & I don't want to wade in, inappropriately - but it isn't 'normal' (for want of a better word - sorry) behaviour all the time, so I would definitely get her assessed.

How is she at school?

You are very calm, just hearing her on the video sent my blood pressure up. As a 'one off' they can be quite funny when they explode for no real reason, but I would very much struggle to be calm with a child who was like that most of the time - you are doing really, really well x

Yes - you can immediately see the panic in her eyes and her trying to deal with it calmly - but failing quite quickly. To be perfectly honest with you, that upset me - you just want to hold her don't you :(

We're at the banging our heads against a brick wall stage, Chipping. She's very passive by nature, so out of the home she is more likely to clam up than explode.

She's not coping in class and her teacher has noticed that she can't seem to follow basic tasks (such as 'copy this title from the interactive white board). Yet, at home, she's asking me why there isn't gravity in space if there is gravity on Earth. She's not coping socially and is saying that she has no friends.

She finds it very hard when she brings home work, because we don't know what the teacher has said and she can't explain it (issues with retention of information, attention and language, I think).

Yes, I just want to wrap her up and curl up in a ball with her.

She told me last night that she just wanted to be a home learner. That the first thing she would want to learn about is Space. When I said 'well if we did do that, we'd have to make sure you went to groups so you could see other children, wouldn't we?', she said 'No! '

:(

How long have you been worried about her?

Have you spoken to the school about getting her assessed?

In the short term, can you ask the teacher to put a note in her homework book so you know what is expected of her?

Oh bless :(

Have you checked with the teacher (and DD) that she isn't being teased/bullied?

Does she play well with other children in non learning situations?

As much as I would want to do what made her happiest (ie home learning) I think you have to be very careful not to compound issues and to do what you need to do to expand her ability to cope - rather than let her retreat into easier/safer things.

You need to know what you are dealing with though, so you know how to best help her - and I'm guessing that's going to take a little while. In the meantime, I think all you can do is keep being the lovely calm safe Mummy you are x

:( for your DD, she was so confused

My DS would have reacted to the unexpected in the same way at that age, he has Aspergers but is a lot older now so has learned to cope much better

You were so calm which I think is exactly what she needs

Oh that video made me go all tense.

Not 'normal' for a NT child to do constantly, however highly typical in my house, from both DC

I've 'noticed things' about her since she was around 18 months. She would have a piece of moon-mat and want my Mum to roll it up a certain way. If it wasn't exactly as she thought it would be she'd get really distressed. She'd have a dolly but she'd never play with it as a dolly. She would instead try and put a blanket on it so that it was perfectly straight and had square edges. Of course, dollies have lumps, so it never was. She'd rip it off in temper, then start again.

At preschool she had a meltdown so unstoppable that her teachers had to call me to collect her, but they decided it was copying behaviour because DD1 has SN. Her Preschool leader actually said 'I looked at DD2 and saw DD1'.

She really tries with other children, but she just doesn't have the skills to 'blend'. We went to fireworks evening and she called out to a (very nice) girl 'Hey, X, I'm wearing my hat and glove and scarf!'. The girl looked quite bemused and said 'I'm wearing mine, too...'. She walked up to a group of girls and said 'look at my lunch box', literally shoving it in their faces.

When she plays with children here, they gravitate towards DD3 and DD1. DD2 seems to get exhausted by social interaction, however much she seems to want it, and drifts off to do something on her own.

I have parents evening on Tuesday, with an appointment with the SENCO following. I wonder if I should show them that video?

I too think her eyes showed a lot of anxiety. Ds hasn't got the same level of language as your daughter but when something's not right his eyes say a lot .

Tbh, I found it even more distressing that she was trying so hard to contain herself. When she just lets rip, I can think 'she's being stroppy', but she was trying so very hard to be grown up then.

I am surprised that they haven't asked you if you wanted her be assessed sooner tbh.

Is DD1 at the same school? How good are they with children who have SN?

You just want to make life boringly normal for them don't you :( x

Yes - she was trying so hard to cope and sort it out without losing it. Credit it to her for knowing and trying so hard.

Ahh bless her so much. My Ds is the same. I think you have to be calm as otherwise the situation gets worse, that's what I find anyway. Her little eyes, quite sad to watch. It is all in the eyes. We frequently have these outbursts whether it be having to stop doing something, me talking when Ds is watching spongebob or playing his Ds, me asking Ds to change activity, etc. good luck with your dd,

I have no idea of 'normal' any more but guess its extreme behaviour if its her normal behaviour. You are very calm. Must be so hard for your dd to feel like that most of the time. My son rarely explodes ( actually thinking about he does about 50 times a day but at his brother. Hitting punching screaming but to me that's normal). He rarely explodes at me. God help me when he does as he has to explode and fall apart to deal with it. Ie lets it consume him and then exhaust him. He can not stop himself.

Well to be fair to them, Chipping, she moved to that school in January, after a disasterous collapse at her first infant school. She had already seen a paed by then (DD1's paed), but she was silent in his office. He said he wasn't overly concerned but noted her passive nature and said he'd like to 'keep an eye on her'. We haven't seen him since because she was referred to OT and he said he'd see her after that, but the OT list is moving so slowly we still haven't seen them (no. 20 on the list).

New school teacher couldn't see any issues at first. SENCO suggested Aspergers as a possibility from my description, but as 'fine' in class, nothing further. Suggested possible ELSA. Then, near the end of the year, the teacher started to notice 'quirky' things. At the end of the year, a SALT did an assessment. She noticed a few things (literal language, no response to tone, no response to non-verbal encouragement, didn't initiate conversation until half-way through the assessment, etc.) but as the teacher was saying she was fine in class, decided these issues 'weren't impacting on her function' and discharged her.

This year's teacher has already noticed that DD2 'doesn't listen' and 'doesn't follow instructions', but hadn't received the SALT report until 4 weeks into term. Since then, DD2 has spiraled downwards and last week the teacher wasn't even able to get her to copy a title from the white board (she did something completely different. Twice )

Do you think it would be worth making another apt with the paed and taking your video?

It's tough if they aren't seeing the behaviour, or at least enough of it.

Hopefully now if her new teacher is seeing it and you have the senco involved things will happen x