Dd 13 has shut down and won’t talk to us

[Justonecat]

Dd is so unhappy. She has no friends, she is at a school which is (mostly) demographically different from us, and she hasn’t made any real friendships.

Her academic performance has really deteriorated to the point where she is below average in every single subject (used to be in top sets in primary and had CATs of 133 just as a reference).

Up until recently she was involved in a sport which took up nearly all her spare time since about seven years, she was successful but we couldn’t really tell if she enjoyed it or if she resented spending so much time on it.

We have had something like 12 discussions with her, trying to understand why she is having these academic/social/motivational struggles, but she can’t really explain. She doesn’t say anything. We offered her to change schools, even home school, to keep her sport, to do more of the sport, or to quit, but she did not express a preference one way or another, so we were at a loss.

Something was clearly making her feel pressured and it was clear that her situation wasn’t working for her. She swears she isn’t being bullied, or harassed online or in person, or anything like that. There is some low level unfriendly behaviour towards her in school such as people not wanting to sit next to her in class and such, but nothing more than that.

We recently made the difficult decision to take her out of her sport. We hope this will give her more time to catch up on her studies without the time pressure, and to hopefully connect more with people at school. We have encouraged her to join a few after school clubs so she has something to do, and we are also hoping she will make friends this way. It’s hard, as this sport was a huge part of her life for so long, but school has to come first, so we didn’t feel we had any other options.

Did we make the right decision? What can we do to make her talk to us?

sorry, this probably doesn’t make much sense, but it just felt good to write it all down.

Also "mild" ADHD that requires medication and school support? That's a significant level of intervention for a child who had it diagnosed as mild.

There's no such thing as mild ADHD - the effects pervade the whole of your life. What people mean when they describe a neurodiversity as 'mild' is that it doesn't inconvenience other people too much. There's a lot of learning that you could do around this - even through social media. Look for actually autistic or actually ADHD people describing their lives. Not what neurotypical professionals tell you what they think it's like for your daughter...

Does she have friends in the sport she does?

It sounds like she might be depressed? I was really miserable at that age, didn’t feel I fitted anywhere, couldn’t express myself to anyone.

As a priority I would find her a counsellor, so she has a space once a week where she can talk or not talk. It’s pretty impossible to talk to parents when you’re in that place.

I would also get her back to doing her sport. She needs something in her life that works. Talk to the school about how to get her academic performance up and If things aren’t better by the end of the year I would move her unless she flat refuses. A fresh start might be good.

But the reason I am writing here is that I am really worried we made a mistake. But I just couldn’t bring myself to take her out of school unless she would have clearly expressed that she was amenable to giving it a go. And she never did

Your Dh is thinking along the lines of what boys do when they bully someone.

Girls don’t do physical violence their type of bullying is to chip away at someone with words that is far more nasty

I would have binned the school and upped the sports.

The fact is she isn’t going to make friends with these bullies (not letting her sit with them is bullying) Just because she hangs around with them after school
It just gives them more time to bully her.

Friendship groups have already been formed and just as she would have started to find friends in her activities as a teen and being given more freedom you have taken her away from them and stuck her in the worse place she could be.

Why would you give your Dh any thoughts on the subject as he has no idea about being a girl in this situation

I think it sounds like you offered her loads of options but deep down she knew it would be no good getting her hopes up that she could do any of them because her father just wouldn’t agree so it would have been pointless to say otherwise.

Now she probably feels she can’t go back to her sport and she has low level bullying in school and is probably depressed at being so powerless.

She didn't engage and didn't convince you to keep sport going?

You seem to be treating her like a child and expecting her to respond like an adult

Please reconsider
Chill out a little ( a lot )
Give her space
Give her sport back
Keep trying
Listening and trying to understand her world

It can take a while to work stuff out at this age - hopefully by the time she's 18 or 20

@Kennykenkencat you put into words exactly what I am thinking. It is so sad! I would have fought dh if only dd had been United with me in this. I actually had him agree to give homeschooling a try, it was definitely an option we were open to, but it would just have felt like such a huge risk without dd’s express approval

I am worried about her future. I just have to hope that she will make friends and enjoy her new after school free time and whatever it brings, and that she will be happy without all the pressure from
sports

I don't know that homeschool is the answer- she wants friends and will probably find a friendship group over the next couple of years if she's allowed to socialise sometimes at Starbucks

You seem to be jumping to actions in a rather scattergun way that will be spreading worry and panic to her which won't be helping

I’m definitely chilling out now that we no longer have her practises to get to…

Her sport is sort of all or nothing: in order to stay in the program she has to commit fully, so unfortunately there was no option to cut back a little in the current environment. We have to find her a recreational way to do it, if she wants to return.

OP - it sounds similar to our DS in year 7.

In terms of being left out at school/low level bullying - school didn't notice this, but it was still definitely going on. It took ages for Ds to tell us exactly what was happening. We had to contact school directly with specific examples before they tried to do anything to help.

Some kids are bullied because they're academic/clever or enthusiastic in class - do you think this might be the case, which is why she's stopped putting in the effort?

It hard because they want to be grown up but don't always have the skills to cope with it, make new friends etc. It sounds like your DC is experiencing something similar.

In terms of school work, we had a talk about the importance of effort (more than attainment) & dedicated some time each day to looking through homework with him before submission, not to do it for him, but to encourage. He didn't like it much at first, but is used to it now and we're slowly pulling back as he's putting the effort in.

As for sports - because of the problems with friendships etc at school, we are encouraging this even more. He might be reluctant before going but definitely benefits from him. I can't agree with your decision to take that away I'm afraid.

When DS has wanted to hang out with people etc we've identified times he can do this, to fit in with other activities (sports etc), so he doesn't feel like he's completely missing out.

Sympathies OP - it's so hard to know what to do for the best.

ADHD is ADHD. There is nothing mild about it.

Is her medication at the right level as she is entering puberty and her hormones will be all over the place and her meds might need upping or changing

You have made the decision of what she should do and of course she wouldn’t say she wanted to leave school as she knew her parents wouldn’t agree to it and it would cause huge arguments and if things didn’t work out being home schooled there would be hell to pay from her father so she is agreeing to it all for a quiet life.

As someone with adhd I wouldn’t give her the options as she knows if she says the wrong thing then it is going to be all her fault.

It us up to you as a parent to know your child and do the right thing for them.

Also what you deem as low level unfriendliness has a huge effect on someone with adhd

My genuine advice would be to give her her sport back and try ADHD meds. They've changed my DDs life. She has 'mild' ADD and we were determined to not pop pills into her and gave her omega 3 and 6 supplements and a tutor. Worked fine until it really didn't. By the time she was in Y10 she had a complete breakdown. She was becoming impulsive, started self medicating with various things and she was a shell of herself. She thought she was crazy and was secretly cutting and pushing everyone away. Got herself into an awful group too. I thought at times I'd never get her back. We are 3 months into medication and she is a completely different child. She's doing so much better at school, recently scoring a 5 on a mock test from previous 1s and 2s. She recently told me she was really really depressed during this period and thought about ending it all. The psychiatrist said that would've been due to her not having dopamine from anywhere and I fear your daughter may end up in a similar position now that she has no sport.
I genuinely would've never ever have guessed it. So many people told me she's just behaving like any other teen and I'm being paranoid. Please trust your instinct and get her help. This article really helped my daughter.
www.additudemag.com/adhd-in-girls-women/

OP you say ‘we’ decided but then you say but ‘I’ am really worried.
I think you recognise that the quick dramatic ‘fix’ that is supposed to sort everything out might not be the best option. I also think you disagree with your husbands tough it out mentality. These are very male solutions to emotional distress that are unlikely to be helpful for a teenage girl.
13 is tough enough.
I think that your daughter has become uncommunicative because of the 12 deep chats with you and you DH plus two formal meetings with the school. It all sounds really intense most adults would retreat into a shell.
I think you are also apprehensive that the out of school socializing that your DD would like to do might end up with her mixing with the wrong crowd.
I don’t think you agree with your husband about the way this is being handled. I think your instincts and sense of unease are telling you that.

@Dodgeitornot I’m glad to hear meds helped your daughter. Our dd is actually on meds but doesn’t seem to think they help much? We’ve tried both short acting and long acting, and it’s pretty much the same with both.

@Kennykenkencat

I would have binned the school and upped the sports.

The fact is she isn’t going to make friends with these bullies (not letting her sit with them is bullying) Just because she hangs around with them after schoolIt just gives them more time to bully her.

Yes, that was my take.

Some kids hit the ground running with secondary. And some need to try more than one school to find the right fit.

She obviously doesn’t want to be homeschooled which I think is a good decision - so I’d be looking around at different schools for her - particularly ones with a more similar demographic.

@Justonecat Meds was a battle for us, we tried a few. Methylphenidate didn't help at all, probably made things worse as DD was taking them at the thick of it and she was royally pissed off that a pill didn't fix her. However we changed to Elvanse and it's been night and day. I was petrified at one point as even Elvanse wasn't doing anything until suddenly when she got to 40mg something clicked and she texted me from school saying they're working.
Have you tried Elvanse? I know methylphenidate is the first port of call.

I have a 13 year old dd who is sometimes unhappy with school. Most of year 7 seemed really tough. I also asked if she'd like to change school but it was a clear 'no' despite not seeming to like it at all. I also wondered whether her problems (shyness, low self esteem ) would follow her.
If I were you I'd give Tic + a call to talk it through.

I would give her a few days or a week off school and focus on doing some nice things with her. Watch some TV, friends or the like and discuss the characters issues and try to bring in her difficulties if you can. Go for hot chocolates and take or borrow a dog for a long walk. Talk about your own high school and make sure she knows it's not plain sailing for lots of children. Give her some space to think a bit.

My dd is similar in that she doesn't do after school clubs but different in that she refuses. They also don't seem to meet up after school at all which is different from my own school days but maybe entirely typical for their generation.

Could you talk to the club and give her a few weeks off training and get her to make the decision herself? (If they'll take her back?)

My dd did gymnastics at squad level and just could not make her mind about keeping it or packing it in. I made the decision to take a month off and by the end of the month she found it easy to say she was happy with leaving.

Two other things- I got a lovely, responsible teenage maths tutor (and made it clear I was happy for her to deviate from tutoring onto talking about school if they wanted to).

I backed off trying to do something. I tried to just let the situation be a bit and it's definitely got lots better over time. That said I couldn't see evidence of bulling in my dd's case - lots of just general unkindness to everyone though it seemed

I would also look up what ADHD actually looks like in girls.

No good hoping she puts in more effort for school works as the effort she is probably putting in atm is more than anyone else but she just isn’t getting the results

I used to sit staring at books. Reading the same page over and over and nothing would go in.

DD and Ds had the same issue so if anything I binned off the academic part and concentrated on the activities.

Dd had so many qualifications in her activities at a top level that they count as A levels and if she wished, despite only coming out with a few GCSEs she has enough UCAS points to go to university if she chose to

Exactly @Lotus717 I just don’t know what to do anymore. I agree that all these discussions with her have had the opposite effect. But in fairness I’ve also talked a lot with her on our many drives, when it’s just the two of us, and we’ve had some nice chats. Just not anything which would help guide us with this decision.

Dd is just like me at that age. I really feel I can relate, I went through some similar things at that age. That doesn’t mean I can figure out what she would like in this situation though…

Why does DD have to be “United” with you in order to justify advocating for her? Can you not stand up to your DH?

I think his tough love approach to school is super unhelpful for a teenage girl.

It’s important that she’s with a demographic she feels similar to and accept her.

I agree with your DD homeschooling is not the answer. She wants to have friends, she just needs a different school.

Problem is we can’t afford private school and this is the best comprehensive by a mile… the rest of the schools in our area are definitely best avoided sadly

Thanks! I will ask at her next appointment

@Mirabai Because I can’t justify taking her out of school unless I have her support in that decision, and she hasn’t expressed that she would like to leave school

I disagree with changing schools or home-ed. Your DD sounds so much like my DD, I could've written this 6 months ago. I think you need to try different meds out, it's very very common for ADD in girls to cause problems in adolescents. That's often when girls get misdiagnosed with anxiety and depression. We were extremely lucky to find a psychiatrist that knows ADHD in girls and has helped us.