Published on 12, July, 2020
Our 9 year old daughter is pre diagnosis for ASD. She is bright and can be incredibly caring but she is having regular moments of complete defiance. She becomes spiteful, cruel and ignores every request for her to follow even basic instructions. We try speaking calmly to her, explaining the reasons we need her to do as she is told, becoming firm and giving clear boundaries and consequences but she ignores it all and refuses to do as she is asked. This can go on for hours and it results in me and husband getting distressed with each other, neglecting our other child and it spirals out of control. I have PTSD and GAD and I find myself wanting to run away rather than face her. She says she doesn't like the person she becomes in those occasions but she can't get out. I sympathize but in those moments she shows no empathy or care for her actions and seems lost. I'm terrified this will tear us all apart. She seems so angry all the time and despite all our efforts to find her support and a way to vent it just comes back as this nasty defiant child who seems to hate us and will do the opposite of everything we ask. She is also starting puberty so that's added a new dimension to. I don't know what to do. Thank you for reading.
Thank you to those who responded and asked for examples. A typical example is bedtime. We have a routine that has been adapted as the children grew and always was very successful until three years ago it is including calming activities etc but she regularly seems to begin to resist the routine (specifically shower and teeth brushing which she hates) she refuses to do something she is calm initially just saying no I won't be doing that. Sometimes we say that's ok if she has washed recently or if she becomes angry and aggressive we calmly tell her it's ok we can do it in the morning instead. This escalates to where we have given privacy to get ready with clear time to complete getting changed. However she is will get distracted and if we leave she will go to to her brother's room and start taking things from his room and causing him to get upset with her asking her to leave and give things back. We return and ask her to leave his room she tells us she isn't in his room whilst in his room. She begins to get angry shouting at us that I'm not going to bed you can't make me. We continue to calmly encourage her to get changed using distraction to help which sometimes does IE discussing what's happened today. If it doesn't work she starts throwing things around her room and at us. We ask if she would like space to be on her own she screams yes then tells us we always just leave her. We sit outside her room whilst we hear her removing things from under her bed and under she goes. When it's quiet I go in and lay next to her bed asking her is she is ok and what she would find helpful. We convince her to come out then just as she seems to calm she jumps up and runs under her desk with a notepad to say she is writing a story or a book to read. We tell her she can do this for a couple of minutes then she needs to go to bed. She nods and becomes mute choosing to write instead. We sit outside or go downstairs. Returning as promised she seems a different person chatting happily like nothing happened about her story. We think success and get her into bed. Song and story back into routine. We go downstairs. She appears a few minutes later laying on the floor at our feet. We ask her to return to bed as it's now Very late. She ignores us and refuses to speak writing things instead whilst screeching like an animal at us. At this point we either calmly return to the same type of calmly trying to encourage her or we get cross and say that's enough and carry her to bed whilst she screeches. Sometimes our change into getting cross pulls her out and she breaks down sobbing that she hates herself and wants to run away other times she rises up to match us. Eventually she tires herself out one way or the other.
She’s hit puberty right? So she’s adapting to a more typical teenage sleep cycle. Awake and alert in the evenings tired in the mornings. Part of the combat around bathing etc might be that it’s a precursor to bed. You can’t expect her to lay in bed her mind going a million miles a minute and not feel frustrated. Or drag her out of bed in the morning when her mind is still sluggish and not expect her to feel grumpy. Maybe it’s time for a new bedtime.
We have tried to change bedtime but unfortunately she is a very early riser waking at 6am ready for action every day and occasionally waking at 3am wide awake to. On days she gets less sleep there is a very obvious deterioration in her ability to manage emotions and more so with school. She is very early into puberty and her sleep habits may change and we will adapt with it. Thank you
She's 9. Autistic children 'mature' at a slower pace than their peers. Females also tend to be more relational.
I get this, but if the Fundamental Problem were a need for a later bedtime, she wouldn't be going downstairs! She'd be reading quietly and contentedly in her bed happy to finally be alone avoiding everyone.