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.

Just nipping back on to throw a spanner in the works re changing school and private school and if she is currently at an elite level at her sport, she may get into private school on a sport scholarship. Have you looked into that at all?

scholarships tend to be of nominal value, 5-10% off or so… at least where we are

Sorry to disagree but loads of things point to autism... I say this as a hcp with 15 years experience of working with and diagnosing girls with autism and adhd (as well as differential diagnoses with mental health problems).

Note also that the OP says the adhd meds don't seem to make much difference to her symptoms.

@atthebottomofthehill Fair enough, although my DD was very similar and she definitely doesn't have autism. Once we found medication that worked it was like night and day. It sounds like OP has only ever had methylphenidate, so saying medication hasn't worked isn't really fair. Methylphenidate doesn't work on a lot of people.

Fair points 👍🏼

My teen has found school very challenging.

The great thing about her sport is that there is NO ONE in her team that is in her year at school. That separateness is really important, as are the physical benefits of sport.

I would ask her if she wants to go back to training

It’s true that ADHD and autism co-occur a great deal but often girls only get diagnosed with one, if anything (I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that ADHD gets diagnosed over autism - it’s a far more socially acceptable and less stigmatising diagnosis). But I digress…

Secondary school is frequently the time that the wheels fall off for high masking, academically able girls. This is at the forefront of my mind right now for my autistic daughter as she starts secondary this year.

The social isolation you describe is heartbreaking and is my worst nightmare as a mum. Your husband is totally wrong to say she needs to toughen up.

You might find it helpful to look into autism and girls just to see if any of it chimes with you.

This document: nasen.org.uk/resources/girls-and-autism-flying-under-radar

This YouTube talk is brilliant:

Thanks everyone. I’m not sure about the autism theory, as she has been assessed by both a psychologist and a paediatric psychiatrist with a three year interval, and I feel it would probably have been picked up. Second she has never displayed any behaviour which would have led us to think she could be autistic. She has found it difficult to focus, that’s what led is to have her assessed, but there has never been anything else in her life which has caused her any difficulties. She had lots of friends and never struggled socially or anything like that.

It’s the last two years or so which have been difficult. I personally connect this with moving tk secondary school which was very difficult for her. Add a few setbacks in her sport to that. And also us, her parents, who promised to listen to her and to take her concerns seriously, but failed to do so (at least dh) when she complained of feeling lonely and treated unkindly at school.

So here we are. She is looking at another five years at a school she doesn’t like, and where she doesn’t have any friends, and which isn’t suited to her personality or learning style. She has nothing else in her life now other than possibly after school clubs. She needs daily exercise to help manage her condition and to feel better and I don’t see where she will get it regularly now. Dh is not seeing the situation the way I am and is not too worried, and dd has stopped communicating about what she wants and doesn’t want in life.

She's 13 on on medication for depression and anxiety? And you've stopped the sport? What was it? Swimming? If so then there are other things she might enjoy like water polo/lifesaving.

I would put money on her having tried to talk to you but you aren't listening. The moans about school is probably because she's not keeping up her top set performance and is worried about what you'll say.

She needs to start having some fun!

Year 8 is a bloody awful year. She might start to feel better in year 9 when things start having more of a focus. What is she good at?

So have you started her back on her sport, OP?

Sadly I think not. The poor girl would probably benefit greatly from counselling seeing as she’s so unable to communicate. A child psychologist perhaps.

No she is not being treated for depression or anxiety, she has adhd meds which she takes during school days

So say its swimming
Others have developed quicker and she's not getting the Times and rankings she once was. Your dh has decided that makes it not worth carrying on with. Can't you see how miserable that would make her feel? She probably feels like a failure. Fwiw, lots of girls have a dip between 13/16, but the ones who genuinely enjoy it and keep at it usually regain their success in their late teens.

Well they are probably affecting her mentally tbh. Moodiness can be a side effect together with hormones and no exercise and...boom.

Sports scholarships can be a lot more than 10%, and many private schools offer significant burseries. Is it worth ringing some to discuss?

I know from experience that some kids being diagnosed with ADHD are really just anxious. Addressing the cause of the anxiety can sort the issue- in my child's case school was the issue and a change of school the solution.

The other thing is can you take your child to see a therapist privately? It took a mere 4 sessions for my child to tell me what was wrong once we found a very gentle and sweet therapist. Best £280 I ever spent.

And I only mentioned the school
report at the beginning of this thread because it told us something wasn’t right, it’s not very common to slip across the board in every single subject. Our conclusion was that she was under too much pressure from
combining all her practise with school and homework

I’m not sure about stopping the sport, it’s something she’s good at.

But low level stuff like not wanting to sit with her can be pretty cruel and impact mh

I’m going to go against the grain and say if the sport is swimming, I get it and giving up may be a positive thing.

My DD had a terrible time at 14. Low grade school refusal, drop in grades, moody, tearful, horrible to siblings. We saw a psychologist and at the crux of it was a whole number of small things contributing to a loss of identity. She was always a very pretty girl and developed acne through puberty, her maths grades dropped from As to Bs and she wasn’t being invited to sit the external maths competitions, her friendships groups were moving around and she was coming to terms with her sexuality (likely same sex attracted).

At that time she was still competitive swimming and it becomes brutal at that age. Everyone left is good and committed and her training expectations were about 15 hours/week. A “bad” swim at a meet is swimming less than a second slower than expected. It’s a lot of pressure and the pressure increases with age.

Anyway, this year (a year on) everything is much better. She’s had more choice over her subjects and is back to excelling in maths, chemistry and physics and actually studying before exams, which she didn’t do before. Roaccutane cured her acne, she has a part time job and settled friends.

Giving up competitive swimming has been great, we insisted that she replace it with something else which she is doing a few times week as well as running a bit. She’s still doing some morning sessions for fun/fitness in the pool which her club allows.

Higher level sport in teenagers can sometimes not be healthy with its intensity and huge training requirements and results-focused outcomes. Physical activity is essential but if your DD wasn’t enjoying herself and wasn’t making the progress she was expected to make giving up isn’t unreasonable

Sounds like my daughter, loved Primary school, excelled academically enjoyed lots of sport after school.

Started Secondary school and found it incredibly difficult from a social point of view, the work she finds easy but some grade slippage due to the stress of the school environment. She started to socially retreat, and enjoyed her sport but actually getting her to go after a busy school day was difficult.

Paid for a private assessment and she is autistic and highly gifted in various academic areas but has an average working memory and processing speed, making learning in a busy school environment difficult for her. That diagnosis explained everything and made perfect sense. Her exceptional ability has always masked her disability and her struggles. We are now able to put things in place to support her at home, school and at her after school clubs.

@NameOchangeO1 yes I am trying to find someone for her to see. Someone suggested a place which does life coaching for teen girls, it looked pretty good to me so might try that?

@Salverus I know development in sports is not linear and that you occasionally regress etc but the only reason we made this decision is that it looks like she can’t handle both school and her sport at the same time, we felt it was making her stressed. But like I said I’m really not sure at all.

it’s not always possible to keep an activity you did at an elite level, and scale it down to a hobby. It’s mentally painful to dabble in something you used to excel at, if that makes sense. Dd says she never wants to go back to it, and that she doesn’t even want to follow her sport as a spectator anymore. I understand, I’ve mentioned previously on here that I went through something similar myself (although I quit when I was 17-18)

@nolongersurprised this really resonates with me. Dd going through something similar with her looks at the moment which certainly isn’t helping…

High level sport can indeed be brutal. It’s not for everyone, that’s for sure. It’s not swimming for us but we know a few young swimmers who compete at a regional level and it’s so tough.

Getting at 13 year old on meds is a gargantuan task to convince GPs to do so. It takes such a long time to do this usually.

I think you’ve gone in thinking-

something is wrong- we must fix it” but to actions and pushing pushing and medicalising her. Adding medicines, withdrawing activities until she bucks up.

Im really worried that you and your husband are not united on this.

I think you’ve got your approach wrong.

restart the sport.

her ambivalence is really worrying and is an expression of her feeling. The “don’t knows” are telling you that she is intact deeply unhappy.

does she have a phone? Does she have similar clothing/stuff that her peers have?

“Keeping at it” for swimming as a 16 year old is at least 8 sessions a week though, isn’t it? For my daughter’s old squad that would be 18 hours plus a week. That’s a lot of 5am starts

Swimming has a brutal attrition rate as well, there’s a good summary I read showing that a 16 year old in the top 100 nationally only has a 50% chance of staying in the top 100 at 18 years.

If it’s swimming, I second the suggestion of water polo - fun, team sport that will utilise swimming skills

can she do a sideways move on sports so from gymnastics slides across to trampoline quite nicely.