Issues with school

ParentingAutism said:

My daughter will hurt someone if she wants to. 

She sounds as though she feels like a caged animal. Against her will. Enslaved in a circus. 

How old is she, again? 

She does not know her own limits. She sounds like she needs a month or a year at a retreat to meditate and learn about her self - what hurts and what helps. And then to learn practical measures to re-engage in society. 

Many humans stay in relationships or environments that are harmful out of familiarity. The devil you know. However, if the new environment is stressful how does that help her learn? I am surprised she's in a social envrionment without practial step-by-step psychological and physical rules of engagement. In order to thrive we need to feel protected. She sounds like she is merely struggling to survive. 

JuniperFromGallifrey said:

How old is she, again?

She is 15 years. 

There's another problem I didn't include which is she is very anxious about the summer holidays because she has to see her dad a few times and this time last year she was struggling with her mental health and it just keeps coming back to her and she struggled so much last summer. She is just very anxious and I believe she takes it out in school. She's always done this so I think she's doing it again. 

She needs a break. From literally everything it sounds like? 

Can you buy a notebook to leave on a table for her to write down every last thing she feels anxious about? Not a digital one, but paper. And a collection of writing utensils. Allow her to fill it up and with a little deductive reasoning you should be able to find the patterns of prominent issues. Again, we all need to feel safe to thrive. Without health and without safety, we end up in survival mode and will not be capable of learning, growing or maturing. For someone autistic, safety could entail clean walls and surfaces.

It's difficult for young humans to work out the underlying complexities causing stress and anxiety, let alone ones with language issues. 

As for her father, if he's hurting rather than helping, do you need to go to court? Do you need the police involved? Does he have such an ego he cannot realise when he's hurtful rather than helpful? Or is also autistic. There's just too little here and family struggles might be better served with a moderator and a qualified therapist. There's not much to go on here. 

As a parent, I can tell you that every time I learned a new perspective shifting concept or I learned a new technique to better equip myself as a more grounded healthy 'human', my son effortlessly became the ideal I was embracing. 

She needs a break. From literally everything it sounds like? 

Can you buy a notebook to leave on a table for her to write down every last thing she feels anxious about? Not a digital one, but paper. And a collection of writing utensils. Allow her to fill it up and with a little deductive reasoning you should be able to find the patterns of prominent issues. Again, we all need to feel safe to thrive. Without health and without safety, we end up in survival mode and will not be capable of learning, growing or maturing. For someone autistic, safety could entail clean walls and surfaces.

It's difficult for young humans to work out the underlying complexities causing stress and anxiety, let alone ones with language issues. 

As for her father, if he's hurting rather than helping, do you need to go to court? Do you need the police involved? Does he have such an ego he cannot realise when he's hurtful rather than helpful? Or is also autistic. There's just too little here and family struggles might be better served with a moderator and a qualified therapist. There's not much to go on here. 

As a parent, I can tell you that every time I learned a new perspective shifting concept or I learned a new technique to better equip myself as a more grounded healthy 'human', my son effortlessly became the ideal I was embracing. 

i feel like he likely doesn’t properly understand autism, which is common and easily fixable. there’s a brilliant book called ‘can you see me?’ that’s written by an autistic girl and though the mc is younger than your daughter, is a brilliant resource x

Wish I could help more (need to get back to work). 

As for her father, it sounds like he needs education. I might spend more time than necessary hunting down videos and articles he might want to engage with. 

Yes, all children need wisdom and to feel safe. Surely he must be able to afford her that much? There is nothing wrong with affording dignity. Just as there is little wrong  with affording another their beliefs. His problem may be that he is not educated enough to know that  -when communicated correctly with, Autists are quite capable of ethics and disciplines, rules of engagement and methods of bettering their lives and livelihoods, but not if he's going to be immature and close-minded and dismissive. 

Thank you so much. Sorry it doesn't make much sense, you kind of need to get the full story to fully understand. I will take your ideas and use them and see if they work. It will definitely take some stress of her shoulders writing things down. Thank you so much.. 

Some of this doesn't make logical sense to me... I'm so sorry! 

Wonderful father doesn't quite equate with Dismissive. Will his ego collapse if his offspring turns up Autistic? Or does he just not have the correct information. Perhpas the step-mum can take a step back. I wouldn't enjoy being around a parent who's always dismissive, who refuses to see me or acknowlege or understand me. At the present, I don't have a relationship with my mother because of this. 

My first thought as someone who can easily see patterns is you may need to hunt down with absolute rigor - an Autistic Psychologist. Someone who can pop over, make some assessments and help with tools and disciplines for her become beautiful self. We all need them NDs and NTs alike.

It can take some time (years in fact) for children to undertake a discipline. That means curating the ability for them to take it on when they finally do. As example, making art supplies available. OR writing supplies on hand. Encouraging them to write down one frustrating thing and one fun thing during dinner.  Reinforcing lovely wise messages by having one inspriational quote per month on the fridge "luck favours the prepared" - maybe occasionally something from a fourtune cookie ;)

It took my son years to take notes of stressful things in life. Writing issues down as best as possible is a step towards mindfulness, which leads to better awareness, which then leads to understanding our limits and taking responsibility for creating an environment which is less frustrating. It's a slow process. 

There's always a reason for her responses. She's not conjouring things out of thin air to escape from. So there's a pattern to the things she feels oppressed by. 

On a daily basis things which are really frustrating for me involve AI (phone, computer) doing things I'm not intending to do. Cables getting in the way. Things invading my flow - breaking up fluidness. Not being able to find words for things or identify an item. My immediate response is so intense but I'm old enough to catch myself and sometimes reflect on how rediculous I am! 

Can you make a list of things around the house and at school that are causing stress? The smallest to the largest. She cannot be constantly battered about like a footballer in daily life. It sounds as though she's not only subject to fouls and misconduct by the world around her, but then SHES getting penalised. - To use a football analogy since we're just on the other side of big match. Hopefully this imagery helps make sense.

Her father is actually amazing, relaxed and chilled and always there for the children but for some reason they don't enjoy going. She said they her dad told her that she isn't autistic and that she should go to a a mainstream school and that professionals got a piece of information about her and that's why she got the diagnosis. They say autism is just a label for anyone. But he doesn't see what we see at home on a daily basis. She has also told me that her step-mum and dad told her that she doesn't need all the sensory/fidget toys. He is a lovely father but that's the only reason I know why she doesn't want to see him because she masks everything at his. 

She has many diaries but doesn't really use them. School are helping her make PECS to help as well as emotion cards to show teachers. Her key worker is also helping make a calendar with the events of last year so they know what days she may struggle more with. School have only found out the reason because they have been keeping track of everything and they said there isn't a pattern with her behavior. That also includes at home as well. There is just no pattern so we don't know how to help but tomorrow school will help her do certain things and find out what things work to help calm her down since she can't self-regulate.