Challenging 6yo, could it be something official and is it worth bothering to try to label

[Indecisivelurcher]

So a couple of times now I've asked a question on here and had autism and adhd mentioned. I'm really not sure, no experience to draw upon. My gut is saying maybe slightly. My question is what do I do now, if anything?

Dd age 6 has always been a challenge. I will describe her as best I can. She's very bright, top of class maths, top group phonics. Gets really into a topic for example she's like a dinosaur encyclopedia at the mo, photosynthesis, space. Her room is like a horder with rocks and nature finds all arranged that I'm not allowed near! But she's very rude. Her teachers say she answers back, insolent. They say she's confident. Cocky. For example if they ask her to pick up a pencil she'll say 'but I didn't drop it' 'but X is here, ask them'. She's also just not very nice. She's spiteful to another girl in class and the ringleader of the other girls. We've had big issues with her relationships with family, she's awful to her dh and wouldn't interact with him for years, she's been very unkind to mil & fil leading to big family falling out. She's better with both now but it's had to be a real campaign. Her favourite people are me and her mum, I find her very clingy and like she wants more of me than I can give. She can't deal with any perceived criticism, such as family laughing interpretated as laughing at her. If she makes a mistake she will internalise it. We have had a lot of issues with her sleep, we worked with a sleep consultant and the doctor. In the end meditations worked best. She loves yoga and visualisations. If anything happens she'll not be able to sleep, such as she went to school club on the wrong day and got really worked up, couldn't sleep for hours, up half the night, for about 4 days. She can't deal with change, such as painting a room a different colour. Throwing out a knackered jumper. She'll be talking about it weeks and months later. She's got good friends, she's really great with little ones and animals, she can be helpful when she wants, she's interested in things.

Her teacher was very surprised to learn about the anxiety, sleep issues and confidence issues we see at home.

Bump in hope

The only way you'll find out if your DD has any condition(s) is to have medical professionals' input.

Take a list of how she is different to her peers, like your description above, but more detailed. Take a note of her developmental milestones, was she early or late with any in particular? Ask school's SENCO to make one too. Take that information to your GP and request a referral for assessment.

No neurodiverse conditions need a "label" they need a medical diagnosis and as much helpful intervention as possible.

If your DD has autism or ADHD or both or other co-morbids, she will have been born with them and they are lifelong. Having a diagnosis will not change that, but it can open the doors to support.

Thanks. This hasn't been on schools radar at all until now, so I guess that's the first step taken through discussing at parents evening. I've got no idea whether she's 'just' a rather complicated person or if it's more than that. Hopefully school will be more clued up.

Unfortunately in general, schools aren't very clued-up at all, most "don't see" any issues and say your child is "fine"
Some are amazing, some are abysmal and most fall somewhere between the two.

Schools, SENCOs TAs GPs, relatives, other parents and everyone else who you could assume would notice what you do mostly don't and even if they do they often tend to downplay it. None are qualified to diagnose the conditions you've mentioned or any co-morbids.

There's a good thread here with lots of information and advice about not delaying seeking an assessment, mainly because the waiting lists are so long and the children concerned noticing they are different to their peers and being left to wonder why.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4089929-To-think-DC-has-autism?pg=1

Some of these do sound like possible autistic traits and even if she's not autistic, it may be worth doing some reading on autism just to help you to understand the drivers, as IME that helps your parenting a huge amount and helps avoid stress and blow ups (though of course there is limited control over what happens at school, depending on how helpful they are).

Some thoughts prompted by your original e-mail:

• Autistic people can be unusually sensitive or insensitive in relation to various senses (and not necessarily under- or over-sensitive across the board: more normally a mixture). So a very sensory seeking kid might be rocking, racing around, flapping, etc. while a sensory avoiding kid might be melting down after a day at school with bright lights, noises, etc. This could look like a tantrum related to something else: but the clue is they are unable to stop even if you were to give way on the thing the "tantrum" is supposedly about).

• Autistic people often struggle to understand neurotypical social norms, and often will be more direct than their peers, for example (stating obvious facts that others might step around in order not to get into trouble), or failing to recognise that teachers expect to be spoken to differently to peers, for example. For children who try to "mask" (i.e. hide their differences) it can also lead to some problems: e.g. at times at primary school I was at different times both a doormat (desperately seeking to be included and forgiving any bad behaviour by "friends", which of course just created an incentive to see what it would take to make me finally object), but also went through a phase of swearing a lot as I thought it made my peers like me (because they laughed when I did it: it was unexpected as I'd been such a "goody two shoes" before).

• When you put those things together, you can see that the world is quite an overwhelming place. That can result in a strong need to need to control your environment. That could involve controlling friendships (which could look like or may actually turn into bullying), trying to pre-empt problems and avoid them (sometimes by creating that problem with certainty, rather than living with the anxiety of wondering whether it is going to go wrong or not), engaging in self-soothing/stimming behaviour (which is generally not a problem itself but may be a sign she is struggling), or being unable to connect well with family and friends (because she is overwhelmed and shutting down to some extent).

• There is a presentation of autism called "Pathological Demand Avoidance" which would be worth you looking up. I'm not sure it is actually the best name for it, but it's generally to do with being overwhelmed and looking to control situations as a way to manage that stress/anxiety. A lot of things can be experienced as "demands" which others might not see that way. For example, a lot of autistic people don't like to be praised because it is almost a signal of an expectation of a certain standard of behaviour or performance that they would then be expected to meet next time. That creates stress. Almost better to blow the situation up now and make sure the expectation isn't created.

Obviously nobody here can diagnose: but I do think it's always worth reading up and trying to understand what is driving different behaviours: it can be quite different to what you might naturally assume.

Good resources could include:

• Books by Dr Ross Greene: not explicity about autism but I think his parenting methods do often work well for autistic kids. There is also a "Plan B" parenting group on Facebook following his methods (but it doesn't make much sense if you haven't read the book).
• PDA society parenting methods:

www.pdasociety.org.uk/life-with-pda-menu/family-life-intro/helpful-approaches-children/

• PDA society booklet on positive methods for managing school: www.pdasociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Positive-PDA-booklet.pdf
• Philippa Perry's "The Book you Wish your Parents Had Read" - again not specifically for parenting autistic kids but useful insights into what can go wrong in relationships with kids.

@LightTripper I really appreciate your post! I actually have the last book you mention on my eBay list so I'll get that straight away and check out the other suggestions. Thank you.

You're welcome! Sorry it was a bit long.

Definitely worth having a look at the PDA Society pages too. It's free and there's a lot of stuff there on sensory and anxiety that Philippa Perry probably doesn't cover so much as it's more of a general parenting book (still good though!)

If you want to learn more about Ross Greene's approach before you buy the book (I think most people start with "The Explosive Child" but I've just started one called "Raising Human Beings" which I think covers some of the same ground) his website is here (with an overview of the approach):
drrossgreene.com/about-cps.htm
And there's a nice review of Raising Human Beings here:
healthyadhd.com/book-review-raising-human-beings/