Could There Be Something Wrong With Her?

[Malibugirl]

My 10 year old DSD has always had what DH classed as "some issues" but lately they are getting worse and we are worried that there might be something wrong with her, that she may have a mild form of autism or something similar.

She invariably starts crying for no reason at all, ignores people when they speak to her (family and at school to the extent that teachers have written to her mother asking if she is deaf, but her hearing is apparently normal!), goes very quiet and "in herself" for no reason, has never ever held DHs hand, kissed him or cuddled him (does kiss and cuddle her mum and her nan (her mums mum) but no-one else), doesn't bond with other children of her own age at school or home (apart from DSS) but will spend hours and hours with a baby, seems fascinated by babies and will follow them around constantly. She will stop dead in the street and go into a kind of trance and stare at other children / babies, totally oblivious to everything else going on around her. Her two only friends she has are 3 and 5, she doesn't have any friends of her own age.

She is very nervy at times and is still absolutely petrified of fireworks, thunder and lightning etc. yet can happily sleep in the dark and will pick up spiders etc. She is very rude at times, will never say please or thank you (typical kid I know), but if you try and say "what do you say", she just starts crying and would rather not say please and not have what she wanted than say please and get what she wanted.

She is, apparently, bottom of all her classes at school and her report is never bad as such, but not exactly glowing, always saying that she has no concentration, does not participate often in class and only has a "very small circle of friends". Her writing is not good for a 10 year old and nor is her spelling, yet she will sit and do jigsaw puzzles all day and is very good and quick at them.

We have her and DSS once a month (we live over 200 miles away) and recently she has got much worse, crying the whole time we have her, wanting to go home. She will sit and not talk to anyone for the whole weekend and will just cry if you try and talk to her. If we take her out somewhere, she will start playing with DSS and seem to be enjoying herself, smiling, laughing etc. then all of a sudden, for no reason at all, she will just stop and start crying and saying she wants to go home.

We have been told by her mother each month we have her that we are NOT to take her home, however much she cries to go home and Im not sure if that is making her worse. She has even threatened to kill herself if we dont take her home which is very upsetting for everyone concerned.

DH has tried talking to their mother about this but she wont talk about it, saying "she is just a typical child" and "now you know what it is like to deal with a child when it has a tantrum" "welcome to my world" etc. He doesn't want to get into an argument with her (she's irrational at the best of times), but in the same breath, we are really worried that something is wrong with DSD. We have tried asking her what is wrong, but she wont talk to us and just starts crying.

Im not sure if it has anything to do with DH and her mother splitting up, but DSD was only about 11 months old when they split.

What I would like to know is, does anyone think there could be something wrong with DSD? Does this sound like normal 10 year old behaviour, bearing in mind that she has always acted like this to some degree. What could DH and I do to help her? We dont see how she acts on a day to day basis, but her brothers say she is naughty and cries at home a lot too. Could this be some form of autism? We just dont know what to do, we hate seeing her so unhappy, but we can't seem to do anything to help her.

top tip - lose the 'something wrong with her' tag line. is it possible for dh to actually sit and have a sensible discussion with his xp? if this is impossible, then he should ring the school and ask to meet up with class teacher to discuss concerns. she will have a lot on her plate at the moment - moving up to secondary/ looming hormones - the difficult relationship between her parents, etc etc, as well as perhaps having a few personal idiosyncracies of her own to deal with. important to find out the true picture from school and home if poss - which means your dh forming a good working relationship with his xp and school.
then if school have worries you can ask if ed psych/camhs or other agency could be approached for a professional opinion. very difficult to do at arm's length... whether she does/ doesn't have autistic traits, she is obviously an unhappy little girl who needs some form of support at the moment.

Romy, thank you for your comments. I thought long and hard about the "something wrong with her" title, but I didn't know how else to say it. I was going to say "is this normal" but then thought I might be implying she is abnormal which wouldn't be right either. I apologise if this upsets anyone, it wasn't meant in a nasty way at all.

DH cannot have a sensible discussion with his XP, she is totally irrational, hence why I am at my wits end and asking for advice on here. DH has tried to talk to her both on the phone and via email but she refuses to accept that there could be anything wrong with DSD or even to discuss it and will change the subject and start slagging off DSS instead saying what a pain he is and then slagging DH off saying that he wouldn't know as he only sees them once a month!

He doesn't know if he will be able to contact the school direct as he has no parental responsibility. XP wont sign over parental responsibility to him and they were never married. He has tried to get this done through a solicitor but she refused and we cannot afford to go through the courts at the moment, but is something we are prepared to do if it will help the children. We get to see XP's copy of their school reports, are never asked to go to parents evenings (DH has asked to, but XP says she is going and doesn't want him there). XP wont even let us go to their school plays which is obviously very upsetting for DH. Can someone advise what DH's rights are regarding these kind of things?

it's always really tricky if xp is deliberately difficult. does he not pay maintenance via csa or anything? and the solicitor tried to set up proper access and she refused? i had no idea she could even do that without proper grounds (ie previous abuse etc and even then supervised access could be arranged?!) i'm very naive about this stuff. in his shoes i'd ring the school - even if only to explain the very difficult relationship with dsd's mum and to raise his concerns about dsd - he could even say he doesn't want them to discuss dsd with him behind xp's back, but was worried about her and so wanted the school to be aware of his concerns... i have no idea how sensible that would be (or how p'd off xp would be) but i'd be wanting to know that someone was looking out for dsd esp if xp didn't want to discuss. school could then 'listen' to his concerns - assess their own view of dsd, and approach xp. he could even say that he would prefer his name was kept out of conversation with xp if possible - no idea if school would be prepared to do that, but potentially if they thought it would cause dsd more difficulty they might...
sure there will be someone along with a far better idea, but short of trying solicitor again i'm fresh out of ideas...

I think with a situation like this you have to weigh up the not pissing her mum off with what is in your dsd's best interests - and I think the balance is tipped in your dsd's favour here.

He doesn't need a solicitor to go to Court, he can self-represent. From what I can gather from other advice on here he would almost certainly be granted PR by the courts. It's not like he isn't involved in her life. He needs it apart from anything else - if something were to happen to your dsd while she was with you he wouldn't be able to sign for any medical treatment. She would have to wait for her mum to come to do it, and that's a long time to wait in pain if she has to wait for her mum to drive over 200 miles.

Once he has PR he will be able to get his own copies of school correspondence, invites to plays and parents' evenings. He won't need his x's permission. Similarly with her GP and other professionals, he'd be able to speak to them directly about them.

• he's always gives really good advice about self-representing.

I think the suggestion about ringing the school is a good one, and worth a try. The worst they can say is that they won't listen to him or speak to him but at least he will have tried.

Your poor dsd . And I feel for you both too - how awful to have to sit and watch her quite clearly being very unhappy, and be obstructed in your attempts to help her .

Thanks Romy.

DH does and always has paid maintenance via CSA and actually pays more than he should, because he chose not to reduce his payments when he was re-assessed. We went through a Solicitor to get regular agreed access to allow DH to phone the children (she would always put the phone down when he phoned). We can currently only manage once a month to visit as we live so far away. She didn't refuse the proper access, she refused to sign the form to allow DH to have parental responsibility. Married fathers have this automatically, but if they are not / were not married then the parental responsibility does not pass to the father, even if his name is on the birth certificate. This apparently (solicitor told us) does not give DH any say in schooling, medical assistance, whether XP takes the kids out of the country etc.

I think I will get him to ring the school and see if they will talk to him and deal with him directly. If the school tell XP though, she will no doubt cause a fuss, although I really dont understand why. He is their father and surely is entitled to be kept informed about their schooling and such like?

Thank you Jammi and Surfermum.

I will get DH to apply for PR although not sure how they would read our situation with regards to:- "degree of commitment" - as we can only see them once a month because of distance and "degree of attachment" - there is and never has been any real attachment between DH and DSD, dont get me wrong DH has and does try his hardest, but you cant make a child be nice to you, show you affection, love you can you? If you saw DH with DSS and DSD, you wouldn't believe that DSS was related to them with the way she acts, she is like a stranger!

It is breaking our hearts seeing DSD so unhappy, but we just dont know what to do. It doesn't help that XP refuses to have DSS back when she cries each month and I think that makes us out to be horrible because we wont give her what will make her happy. If we take her home, she is fine, but XP wants her weekend off (I understand that all parents need a break) and will not have her back for anything and just says to ignore her.

Thank you Jammi.

I probably should have made things more clear. We live over 200 miles away but travel down once a month to have them. We dont bring them back to ours, we stay at DH's parents house (not ideal as its small). We take them back to ours when we have them for a week at Easter, Summer and Christmas, but we dont do the 800 mile round trip every month, because of fuel costs and also DSS gets car sick.

If we could afford it, we would go down more than once a month, but the fuel costs, with the maintenance costs already make us overdrawn each month. DH moved away because he was offered a good job here otherwise he couldn't afford to pay for his children. He has tried to get a transfer nearer, but has been unsuccessful so far! XP wont let him forget that he moved away, even though we know if we moved closer she would only let DH have minimal contact so that she didn't lose her full benefits she claims. (she knows exactly how to work the system)

DH's parents collect DSC from school because we go straight from work but still dont get there until around 6pm due to the rush hour traffic.