Daughter has come home for 24 hours and its an absolute nightmare

[lottieandmia]

My daughter (15) has been in residential school for 5 weeks. This weekend we decided to let her come home for 24 hours and it has been a nightmare . To start with her behaviour was fine and she went off to sleep ok. Then today she has been okish until about 12 o clock. The main problem is that I cant occupy her because she gets anxious about going to the park, about doing any kind of drawing activities and spends her time trying to make holes in the wall of our house.

Then this afternoon we were at my mums and my mum (against my advice) started telling her she would be going back to school at 4pm. She then got angry about this and has attacked me quite severely. I'm so upset because I feel as though I should be able to cope with her for 24 hours although I'm also ill today so that doesn't help. She also wont take her meds. She has always been a bit resistant to it but now she flatly refuses it and her school nurse has tried to get changes in how it comes (epilepsy meds) but she spits it all out. I'm also concerned that some of the care staff seem to feel that its her right to spit out her meds if she doesn't want it. This is only one or two people but it does concern me.

I feel completely unsupported because if my daughter attacks me my dad just stands there and does nothing - he doesn't try to get her off me. How am I supposed to have successful home times with her if nobody supports me?

What do I do now? Just accept that she cant come home at the moment because I cant cope? I feel such a failure.

OP I'm sorry your going through this, from your post you sound like a brilliant mother .

Does your DD have a diagnosis ? Does she have very limited language ? Given us as much information of your DD ( without revealing yourself !) will help us or you in the right direction.

I see your parents are living with you ? But are not being very supportive? I assume your dad didn't step into help as he felt like he didn't know what to do. Though ! He most defiantly should of helped when your DD was hitting you ! I think you need to go over some "rules" with your parents. Telling them what things/ words triggers your DD, how they can help etc. If they are not supportive then I would tell them to leave. You need supportive people around you not people who will make it worse. But in your parents situation, it seemed like they were overwhelmed and were trying ( if not in the best way) to help.

Does your DD have a social worker ? Has she had a carers assessment ? I wonder if it's worth hiring someone to help take care of your DD while she's away from school ?

Well she's on a 52 week placement at a residential school for children with autism. She has been doing really well there but apparently the spitting meds & throwing her dinner on the floor is her trying to exercise control.

My parents and I don't have a good relationship. They basically don't like me and everything that goes wrong they say it's my fault.

Since I'm a lone parent I don't have anyone else to help me and my mum says if I can't cope for 24 hours then she shouldn't ever come home.

This is difficult because obviously she wants and asks to come home and I miss her. I don't think SS would pay for any extra support because they would say that she should stay at school and her placement is very expensive anyway.

Oh by the way she has severe autism and epilepsy. But she's also very bright. She's complex.

Oh I don't live with my parents btw

Oh lottie, that sounds so hard

I would imagine that she's still settling at school and if she finds transitions tricky anyway that 24hrs just isn't long enough to settle into new routines. I think it will take time to find what works. When I think of the difficulties my ds has (as do I!) with the change between term time and holidays I can imagine that being magnified for your dd. And of course 14 can be a tricky age anyway with hormones and teen stuff.

I would imagine it's quite tempting to try and do too much in such a short space of time, and there's perhaps a pressure to 'make memories' type things, when what she might need is a very easy low demand day.

Thanks Polter. I am thinking that maybe if she realises that she's coming home every Friday (either to her dads or to me) she might process it better. We did have a quiet day because at the moment she won't tolerate being taken out (she will go out with school staff - they have better compliance from her)

She does know what the time is and that she arrives and goes back at 4pm. Yesterday when 4pm came she put her shoes and coat on and checked her belongings and was waiting by the door. I don't think she liked my mum telling her that she was going back in 2 hours iyswim. The problem for her is probably not knowing if it's going to be another 5 weeks before she comes home again.

Another problem is that she's flatly refusing her meds and lobbing her dinner on the floor every day which staff think is a control thing. She wasn't aggressive at all for the majority of the time at home but went from 1-100 in seconds. This is hard to deal with on my own because she's very strong.

I've PMed you lottie