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How to deal with my 8yo

MonkeyElliot

Hi. 

I am new to the forum. I am looking for some advice please as to how to deal with our 8 yo. We don't have a diagnosis yet, but it is strongly suspected that she has autism and also possibly PDA. 

In short, it is impossible to parent her. If she is having a good day, everything is fine, but if she is either really anxious about something (at the moment it is moving up a class at school, changing teacher and having to see a 'boy' doctor at our assessment appointment in a couple of weeks) or when she is feeling overwhelmed - this is usually when a situation is too noisy for her - it can be impossible to even speak to her. 

If she does anything wrong, we don't tell her off as such, but if we even use a slightly stern tone she starts to loose control, which can easily and quickly escalate into a full blown meltdown. But even after we have stopped using the stern tone, if she had go herself worked up, she keeps screaming at us to "stop using the mean voice". I'm then stuck between a rock and a hard place as I know the only way to calm her down is to talk to her ans give her a hug, but I can't as she thinks I'm being mean - which I'm not!

What I struggle the most with is how horrible she can be; to me, her Dad and her little brother, who is only 4. She screams at us, and says such awful things. And then when she calms down, it's like it's never happened. She will sometimes apologise to me, but not usually to anyone else, and will often maintain that it is all someone else's fault (usually her brother's for being too noisy). 

I am worried about the affect this is starting to have on him, as he has started copying her behaviors. Sometimes, he only has to talk for her to start screaming at him to be quiet. I don't know how to try to teach her to be more tolerant of others; if I mention anything I'm either being mean, or she considers it for a moment and then dismisses it as being his fault. 

We have got better at dealing with her meltdowns in the last few weeks, and there has been a reduction in them in terms of number, intensity and length, but she does throw things a lot, and slams doors and screams at us. 

I am just looking for some advice as to how to deal with these behaviours, and we as a family are really struggling. 

Many Thanks in Advance. 

Parents

  • I'm no expert on therapeutic parenting, but clearly there is a difference between a melt down, which can't be helped, bad behaviour which emminates from her difficulties in understanding her own or other's behaviours (she maybe needs some help to understand she has a "mean voice" too and it is as upsetting to other people as other people's are to her) and what is just manipulative bad behaviour for which their are consequences. 

    You might need some professional advice to recognise the difference and how to enable her to judge where her own stress is coming from and regulate that before it crashes into meltdown, and how other people can be affected. My guess is some types of outburst are best ignored, others she might need to reflect on once she's calmed down.

  • in reply to Dawn

    Are you suggesting this is just 'bad behaviour' that she can help? As clearly, she can't. I know when she is just 'being naughty' and that is not what I mean. She quite obviously needs help to understand why people do things, and that she too upsets people with her actions... I am asking what kind of help is there for this? 

    I can usually help her to recognise where her feelings of anxiety are coming from, but she simply cannot regulate her feelings. Again, I am asking what kind of help we can get with this. 

    Having used a trial and error approach for 3 years I can definitively say that ignoring her "outbursts" does not work and only results in things escalating. 

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  • in reply to Dawn

    Are you suggesting this is just 'bad behaviour' that she can help? As clearly, she can't. I know when she is just 'being naughty' and that is not what I mean. She quite obviously needs help to understand why people do things, and that she too upsets people with her actions... I am asking what kind of help is there for this? 

    I can usually help her to recognise where her feelings of anxiety are coming from, but she simply cannot regulate her feelings. Again, I am asking what kind of help we can get with this. 

    Having used a trial and error approach for 3 years I can definitively say that ignoring her "outbursts" does not work and only results in things escalating. 

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