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.

[Periwinkle007]

I have always been terribly overanxious. I hate it. I overanalyse everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) and I can see that in DD1. DD2 is different so far so I am hoping she doesn't have this trait. We have big issues about whether things are fair. not for herself necessarily but for others in her class, even those who aren't her friends, she worries about whether they are being treated fairly in a situation and so on. Things need to be explainable to her or she will spend months (literally) trying to fathom the logic behind something. I think her brain is really just far too overactive and needs channeling. Some people are just very bright and life is good but if you are very bright and something is overworking or something isn't working as well as you need it to be (like dyslexia or a processing problem) then your little world isn't adding up properly and things aren't meeting your high standards, YOU aren't meeting your high standards and so on.

I am 99.9% certain my daughter will never be diagnosed with anything at all but I am determined to get school to recognise her oversensitivities and her problems with reading even though she can read and I will do everything I can to help her learn to cope with her little oddities (for want of a better word) so that she can hopefully enjoy life.

[mrsbaffled]

As an adult I now realise I have SPD and OCD tendencies. A friend with AS reckons I am on the spectrum too, but I am not sure about that. I think I read people too well, but perhaps I have learnt to do that? It only occured to me when I started work that people expected me to look them in the eye when talking to them.

However, I am really happy with my life and get by just fine (even though my anxiety is high) :) i think there is lots of hope for children like DS1.

[lougle]

This is all so helpful!

I'm not sure if it's a chicken/egg thing with the anxiety.

Gifted? I don't know . She sometimes has some very wacky 'how on earth did you think of that?' ideas. DD3 (4.6) asked me tonight 'Mummy, when we grown, do our hearts grow too?' I thought that was quite an insightful question for a 4 year old, but totally 'normal' in the sense that I could see where it came from. DD2 is far more 'out there' than that.

Reading between the lines, I know that DD2's teacher doesn't think she's gifted! She was put up a reading group last week after I spoke to the teacher about DD2's anxiety with making sure she'd done her reading. In general, a TA hinted that perhaps she was being placed with low ability children. I have no issue with that if that's what she needs, and certainly a child who can't copy a basic instruction can't be deemed 'high performing' regardless of their cognitive profile. However, the impression I got was that DD2 may not be 'spurred forward' in her current group.

[Flappingandflying]

Hi

Watching this rang lots of bells with me. There is much here that would concord with ASD. She isn't trying to manipulate anything she is reacting to something which she can't control which she can't get her head round the abstract concept that things can be slightly different. This is not a NT reaction (possibly when very tired and grumpy but generally they would inately see the reason why there were fewer words and accept it).

You are vey patient. Slopes off to feel inadequate about early parenting!

[schoolquestions]

Oof, that is so typical in our house, from both DSes! Not always triggered but the same thing but the escalation and the inability to wind down from it is so so familiar. I think we have an anxiety/ high IQ issue with DS1 who also has a slow processing speed. He's the one with SN, but it was scary how much this is like DS2, supposedly NT...

[schoolquestions]

Oops, still on name change.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Lougle, a couple of things struck me about that video, but the strongest thing was I recognised myself at her age . Who knows what that means?

The second thing was that whatever her difficulties, it is anxiety that you need to watch right now. Her emotions are out of kilter with context.

One of the things we do with Ds is agree entirely with the issue and that it matters, but we put it on a scale. So I'll say, 'yes, you're right Ds. That is really stupid. It's about a 3 for being so annoying (when 10 is the world exploding). I'm not telling him how to experience a number 3 or undermining the importance of the issue, but simply saying it is about 7 points off a 10.

I have also found 'doing a Ds' sometimes snaps him out of it. When a train was late and he was getting stressed and verbal I went into a pretend meltdown and started raising my voice 'I want the train to get here RIGHT now, and I'm gonna throw they driver out and drive it myself really fast all the way home and never stop at a red light, so it better get here this instant', which usually tickles him and forces him to start discussing why going through a red light wouldn't be sensible and the various barriers to my throwing off the driver and taking over.

[lougle]

That's very helpful. I think the anxiety is key right now. I love the idea of catastrophising with her. I do it a lot with DD3, because she laughs and then she can't be cross any more. DD2 tends to get angrier, but perhaps I haven't been pushing it hard enough?

One thing DD2's stuck on at the moment is saying 'and don't you dare even think about laughing about it!' - our fault, I suspect, because she can be very funny in a rage, especially if it is such a minor issue which she is raging about.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Though it was a bit disconcerting seeing my name on her top.....

[Kleinzeit]

The catastrophising may not work for all children. It would raise my DS’s anxiety because he was very literal minded, he would believe that the worst really might happen! For my DS what worked best was knowing what could happen a bit in advance. I could tell him "well the train is due now, it will be here in between 5 and 10 minutes, trains are often a few minutes later than the timetable says". And I use the word “approximately” a lot My DS absolutely hates to be laughed at, if I ever wanted to escalate a tantrum to the point of violence then laughing at him would be the quickest way! So kids do vary and if things don’t seem to work you may need to try other things instead.

[Handywoman]

we also do the catastrophising, and the making it funny but only in the bathroom where I can be sure to pull a daft face in the mirror with her -HA!!! (safe ground and all that).

And the mirror talk, when she is anxious and verbalising I will echo back what she's said, seems to help stop the escalation.

I nearly always ask dd2 on the way in to school about her anxiety - I can normally tell where she's at - we give it a number 1, 2 or 3 (out of 5 we use the Incredible Five Point Scale)

[lougle]

Her Cousin has a rare cancer, Star - she was too poorly to go to a special Starlight charity event, so DD2 went in her place

DD2 hates being laughed at.

[Kleinzeit]

I'm probably not that good at picking my moment though DS's music teacher is very good at it - when my DS complains about something his music teacher will say "they did that on purpose just to annoy YoungKleinzeit" and he accepts that as a joke.

Another thing that works for my DS - and I know this is going to sound a bit mad! – is that I give him words for things. Preferably long words. So in something like the “Let it Snow” scenario (if I had the presence of mind!) I’d put on a wise-owl voice and say “Ah yes, he’s singing an extended version – that's where the singer repeats a bar that isn’t written down” (or “he’s singing an abbreviated version” depending which way round ) For whatever reason my DS finds this comforting!

And by the way lougle, if that video is typical then I’d also agree your DD is rather rigid (and a real sweetie too!)

[lougle]

Ah you see, that would send DD2 absolutely round the bend. But it would work with dd3.

[lougle]

We had parents evening today for DD2. I showed the video to both class teacher and SENCO.

They don't see anything like that at all at school. Both were quite shocked; the class teacher visibly so. Class teacher has said that we should forget 'targets' and just try to get DD2 happy in school - she'll liaise further with SENCO.

SENCO has been really helpful. She has said DD2 is top of the list for ELSA and they will start with anxiety, then friendships/organisation/etc etc.

She is going to phone CAMHS and check whether a parental referral or school referral will get most attention. She's asked me to start pushing the Paed again.

We've agreed that this will not go away and that one way or another she's likely to end up with a diagnosis at some point.

Videos are like gold dust, aren't they? They both realised tonight that they don't see 'DD2' they see 'shut-down, passive, compliant, 'coping' DD2'.

[NewBlueCoat]

oh, that is a really big step forward, lougle. well done. fingers crossed they will start trying to see beyond the coping front your dd2 has been putting up, and then they can begin the real work of getting ehr settled and happy.

[Handywoman]

Ooh that is a real step forward, Lougle, I hope school are soon able to start addressing her needs. Well done with the video, you must feel relieved.

[Jacksterbear]

Hello, I'm late to join in this discussion but have been following it. I'm really glad the video has helped start the ball rolling for getting support for your DD, lougle.

Just wanted to add to the discussion that this sort of reaction is very typical for my 6yo DS who has a dx of SPD & anxiety (and has been assessed as not meeting the diagnostic criteria for ASD or PDA, since his social and communication skills are very good). His anxiety leads to a need to control (coping mechanism), which leads to rigid, obsessive behaviour, and the slightest unexpected event or change of routine can send him into complete meltdown.