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I know this makes me an abhorrent mother but....

18 replies

c737 · 05/12/2018 11:20

I just had the dawning realisation that, after three years of unsuccessfully trying to move house, we are finally moving and I’m not excited about it because DS (3) will ruin it. I feel awful saying this, and don’t even know if I’m posting in the right place, but it’s the truth. I love him to his bones but I often think about what things would be like if we hadn’t had him.

OH and I also have dd (4).

He’s probably always been difficult but things have ramped up each year really and now I dread picking him up from nursery (he goes 3 days a week) and I dread the weekends at home with him.

From the moment he gets up he’s tantrumming, screaming and whinging about anything nd everything like wanting a toy his sister has, his cuddly animal now being where it’s supposed to be, me being upstairs instead of downstairs etc. It goes on from the moment he wakes to the moment he goes to bed at night.

Nursery say he’s an angel there (although they have referred him to be observed by an early years officer as he seems to get muddled about things, takes longer to process and copies what his friends are doing most of the time rather than initiating games). He loves nursery and has a tight knit group of boys that he loves playing with.

I can’t get him in the car, he point blank refuses nd then melts down when I put him in. Won’t get dressed, cannot be in the same room as his sister without starting a fight within 30 seconds, refuses to eat dinner even if it’s something he likes, goes mad if his sister chooses a film instead of him etc etc

OH and I try really hard - we are trying to be consistent with a two warning and then he goes in his room approach, but he’s often too wound up to back down and then he gets put in his room nd screams himself to oblivion which I then feel bad about and the cycle of this continues. I don’t want to have to be constantly punishing him like this and him always crying but otherwise I feel like he just terrorises the household with his demands and tantrums when people aren’t doing what he wants them to be doing.

I have tried reward charts, now and next visual displays and he gets a lots of one to one time with me focussing entirely on him on his days off nursery but I sometimes need to get things done around the house and this can send him in to meltdown.

I have no clue where to go with this but I’m a constant ball of anxiety at home due to his demands and tantrums and I know dd is starting to be affected by it.

He has an appointment with the paediatrician in Jan to check hearing
And possible glue ear. Meanwhile I wondered if anyone had any advice with handling this or coping strategies or if anyone has been through the same thing/similar.

Thanks for reading.

OP posts:
DeltaDelta · 05/12/2018 11:35

Flowers. Sorry to hear what you’re going through. I don’t have any great behavioural advice to but hope you get help soon. You’re doing what you should which is starting the process of elimination. Sort out hearing etc if nothing turns up there, go back to GP, maybe a referral to CAMHS. Somethings dc just grow out of. Try Not to beat yourself up about it. If you’re this worried you’re certainly a good mum.

livpotter · 05/12/2018 11:45

I'm sorry things are so difficult at the moment. 3 was a very difficult age for my ds

To me it sounds like your ds is a ball of anxiety and constantly on edge.

Have you done ABC charts for him. It can help to work out what is triggering the behaviour and help you to avoid things that are stressing him out.

I would keep going with visuals and things like sand timers can help with transitions. Definitely have a look at Ross Greene 'the explosive child' and I would also have a look at 'the out of synch child' to see if sensory differences could be part of the problem. For us Makaton has also been a big help. Putting visuals to emotions like happy and sad has helped ds to process.

Time outs and removing ds from the situation never worked for us and just made him more stressed out. Once ds has reached tantrum stage you cannot communicate with him at all and you have to wait for him to calm down. It's really important when he does that you help explain how he was behaving and help him put a name to the emotion. Also if he is ok with being touched give him a hug and tell him you love him. It's really important to remember that he not able to control this and probably feels awful afterwards.

I know it's really hard to deal with and a lot of this advice comes from hindsight! I found holding onto the fact that it was anxiety causing the issues made me more sympathetic to ds when he was being challenging.

Viewoffriday · 05/12/2018 12:09

Absolutely echo the advice on abc charts and the Explosive Child. Reward charts and time out etc all do the exact opposite here to what they are supposed to! Make everything loads worse.

Completely understand about the ball of anxiety thing. It's a horrible feeling. But 3 is often hard with lots of kids so hopefully the more rational sunny uplands of 4 will start looming into view!

c737 · 05/12/2018 12:37

Delta, Liv and View thank you so much for taking the time to reply and for the great advice. I thought I would get flamed for having these resentful thoughts towards him so thanks for your understanding. Just a question - what are ABC charts?

OP posts:
livpotter · 05/12/2018 12:44

I think everyone on these boards understands how difficult it is to parent a child with behavioural issues. At 3 I was almost unable to handle my ds's behaviour and it was unbelievably frustrating for both of us.

I hope the link works:

www.autism.org.uk/~/media/nas/documents/helpline/abc%20chart.ashx?la=en-gb

Basically you write what happened before the behaviour (antecedent), what happened during (behaviour) and what happened after (consequence). If you keep a record it can help you see patterns of behaviour.

SpringerLink · 05/12/2018 13:43

I think that here we all recognise that "standard" parenting approaches like reward charts and time-outs tend not to work with our non-standard children. Have you contcted the National Autistic Society? Even though you don't have a diagnosis and may not be on the pathway for ASD, it sounds as though the parenting advice for autistic children could work for you.

I also like the book Happier, Calmer, Easier Parenting as well as the Ross Green books. It re-adjusted by view of how to parent, and I feel much more confident and capable than I used to. Not so controlled by my DS's behaviour and more able to keep it and him in control.

Try to be kind to yourself. I quite often feel that my relationship with my DS isn't that dissimilar from an abusive partnership, except that I'm his mother so I can't walk away from him in the way you'd leave an abusive adult partner. If you can find the time for some self-care, then you should absolutely do that. I used to book an extra half-session at nursey so I could have some time on my own when I wasn't working.

c737 · 05/12/2018 17:32

Thanks for the link Liv, I think that will be helpful for me to spot any patterns or triggers.

Springer thank you for the book recommendations, I will look at both of them. I have lurked around here for a while and read about these books before so may be helpful for me.

So funny about your analogy re being in an abusive relationship - thats exactly how I describe the situation to friends. I am constantly second guessing his reactions so I don’t set him off, constantly trying to please him and constantly feeling guilty that it’s something I’m doing/have done.

I’m so scared that this won’t get any easier, that his behaviour will only get worse. I’m not sure how much longer I can manage this for and whether OH and my relationship could survive another god knows how many years of it.

OP posts:
BenjiB · 05/12/2018 23:46

My son is almost 20. The early years were easy, he was a dream child. These days I love and dislike him equal measure. He’s extremely difficult and he finished school in July with no plan in place for him as yet. 2 days he’s with carers. He ruins everything so we don’t go out at all. My other children have never been on holiday, extra curricular activities and very limited for them. Today I’d had enough andctold my youngest son not to have children as they ruin your life!

BlackeyedGruesome · 06/12/2018 00:52

one of mine needed to be fed before the dc were allowed in a room together unsupervised.

strategies were : feed them, give them drinks, ensure they were warm not hot or cold, and not too noisy.

give him choices. do you want to get in teh car seat or do you want me to put you in? (both achieve my desired outcome)

leave extra time for travelling: keeps you calmer if you have time to wait it out.

if they do the rigid not bending into car seat. one hand over hips, one hand ready with car seat straps to put together. (how I can't remember)tickle childs waist with the hand that is over their hips, when they collapse in the middle, fasten car seat straps, while holding hips firmly into car seat. I think there was a knee placed strategically so they could not slide down either. this I do remember from the pushchair. otherwise you would get them in and the next thing you knew you were starting all over again as they had slithered out onto the floor.

other strategies, firm hugs, rocking on one plane, tickling to reduce the tension of all parties, keeping them separate at flash points. (still applies nnow they are big, our flash point is the hall, too small and too stressful for all involved,so one child at a time. )

remember they are not ruining it to spite you, they are communicating their distress through behaviour. change the stimulus/environment (and possibly throw in several years of time) and things might improve.

fuck neurotypical expectations. "they ain't going to work" and they will make you more stressed.

find his currency. what does he want most in the world to persuade him to behave? earning rewards for good behaviour is much more productive than punishments for bad behaviour.

make behaviour targets achievable. they should be getting sucess fairly regularly to start the positive feedback loop. seems you are understandably stuck in negative.

one of mine responds to being told they are really good at something. and he is seriously good at saying thankyou, really really good, even when he is in near meltdown he can say a grumpy thankyou which is amazing. he spontaneously thanks me for stuff sometimes, in a way he really means.

when they get a skill, like letting dd watch tv without beating her up and attacking the tv, keep praising it, otherwise he might lose the positive feedback and regress.

if they do something good, even little, praise them, make a fuss, it might work. (for some kids they do not give a damn what you think so this may of course not work with yours)

disclaimer: this has what has worked for us. you will have to pick and mix from suggestions and ideas to find what works for you as it is guaranteed that yours is not the same as mine or any of the other kids on here. adapt them to suit your kid, fuck 'em if they make it worse,

often our attitude needs work. if we try and see past the behaviour, and comfort them in their distress, it helps us feel a lot less stressed and shit. this is one of the hardest things we have to do as they bloody well know how to push buttons sometimes.

also do not forget that the nursery can be winding him up with expectations, and sensory over load which you reap the whirlwind of when he gets home. they can come out of school like some unexploded bomb with a hair trigger. probably still got the scars to prove it

sometimes you can only ride it out til it is over.

I have it on good authority from the neuroteam that at some point their ability to control themselves will surpass the propensity to melt down. (I can see the graph now. ) we are still waiting for this to happen... a lot of work on it is being done to help them too.

tag team with your partner.

deep massage

blowing bubbles is calming. (breath control)

sorry a lot of waffle. just back froma funeral and it is late.

LightTripper · 06/12/2018 14:26

I agree with all the above. On the "behaviour = communication" thing I also like this site by Shanker. They have these iceberg diagrams which are a way to think about what might be underlying a behaviour. The idea is to remove the stressors to get rid of the behaviour. Of course, figuring out what the stressors are is often far from easy, but it has helped us get into the mind set of "why" and trying to take away the triggers to the meltdown/tantrum rather than waiting until we get there.

DD likes to have a lot of control, especially when she is anxious, so we try to give her lots of choices as Blackeyed said above and that does seem to help. Other than that just leaving unbelieveably large amounts of time to do everything, so we're not in a rush, and just restricting our expectations - not trying to fit a billion things in a day at weekends and in evenings. Because she's our first we probably always had quite low expectations of self-care (e.g. I suspect she was pretty late to get herself dressed and I often still do most of it for her, even though she can do it all herself. I still sometimes feed her if she's having a bad day and she's 4.5! But it's just not on my list of priority things that I'm willing to expend her or my energy on. Usually she does feeds herself - if she doesn't on a particular day I assume it's for a reason and give her a hand). So I would say lower expectations, focus on one or two things at a time and not trying to hit lots of different targets for behaviours or skills.

My Mum tells me I was also incredibly late to learn all these self care skills (and e.g. fell off the big swing the first time I tried it as she hadn't explicitly told me I had to hold on). Some kids just need more help with this stuff.

Positive rewards can be good and worked for a while for DD (we did sticker charts and she loved the stickers) but she got bored of it quite quickly. We'd give her a sticker for something and she wouldn't even bother to put it on. So we've quietly ditched it. I think all you can do is try different things and see what works for your DS.

LightTripper · 06/12/2018 14:27

This is the link to the website I mentioned. This is the iceberg diagram but there are other resources there without having to buy the book (which I haven't, so I don't know if it's good or not!)

self-reg.ca/infographics/behaviouriscommunication/

c737 · 07/12/2018 13:47

Thanks everyone for the excellent advice and links, I will follow them up and also I will be hoping for better times ahead!

OP posts:
sickofsocalledexperts · 07/12/2018 17:18

ABA was the only thing that worked for us. At age 3 my son had very challenging behaviour - self injury and hitting/kicking others - plus zero speech. Now, at 15, he can speak in little sentences and he no longer expresses stress with his fists - an important one as he is now 6 ft and 15 stone. This website has lots of info, www.abaa4all.com

Tryingtothinkofaclevername · 07/12/2018 22:06

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BlackeyedGruesome · 08/12/2018 17:40

you can., it is called a pack of chocolate buttons! or buy those ones you have to fill up yourself and put a sweetie in each one.

openupmyeagereyes · 08/12/2018 19:59

Just buy 12 from the supermarket Smile. It probably won’t work for that long though.

c737 · 08/12/2018 22:33

I agree the novelty would wear off pretty quickly! Unfortunately he’s not in to chocolates really, I don’t think a button would make any difference unlike dd who was always easily motivated by things like that. It’s like he knows when I’m trying to bargain with him/bribe him and it makes him resist even more Hmm

OP posts:
sofasleeps · 20/12/2018 19:56

OP.
I could have wrote parts of your message myself. 1 have 2 children youngest is 5 and there is a 3 and a half year age gap between my children.

They don't have a very positive relationship and the youngest can, and does deliberately target the oldest without warning and impunity. It's spilled into school as well but the school are very much in the ball with it.
Oldest one has a gate on their room to keep the youngest out. That's the kind of relationship they have.

Youngest doesn't have a dx yet but there's something going on with them. They are developmentally delayed for starters and also have quirks like really not doing change very well.

And doesn't do bribery/rewards/reward charts/stickers either. The reward has to be something youngest is interested in and immediately supplied.

And yes the constant whinging in this house wears me out.

Things that we do that work:

YouTube videos of youngest's niche subject (nothing dubious, just very outing) as a reward.

X or Y. I.e. instead of telling youngest to put shoes on to go out (massive flashpoint) they get a choice of shoes or wellies to wear.

Chewies in the car. Youngest has a blue rubber man that seems to do the trick (and is firmly attached to the seat so isn't a projectile).

Avoiding the word no and anything that involves it.

Visual telly programme chooser. One piece of card, 2 boxes. A today and a tomorrow box. Picture of each child velcroed so youngest can see when it is their time to choose.

First X then Y(YouTube!). Using YouTube videos as a motivator to get them to do a less desired task.

Selecting clothes deliberately. Youngest's fine motor isn't all that great so a lot of his clothes are easy to pull on stuff that they don't have to struggle with. Labels are also removed as these are very much loathed.

Life can be hard work at times, Yes I love them to their bones but sometimes all I want is a break. I wouldn't want to say I know exactly how you feel however there are some similarities between our two. I'm definitely not going to flame you

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