OK Liv, I will kiss Yanny for you (when he wakes up).
Hi FL, I was just about to post to you because my DD2 is driving me nutty and I figured I needed an expert opinion.
My writing is going well, thanks, in fact today I got a nice fat cheque which basically pays for our entire Christmas, which is nice. I just need more work as I don't have enough so sometimes I get a lot of money and other times I get pittance and I never know which it is going to be. Kind of hard to budget like that.
Sorry I didn't reply earlier. I lost my thread in a sea of other threads and didn't notice it anymore.
The situation with Andy and I is much better (or maybe my attitude is, I can't work out which). He's got more affectionate since I said there's no romance (don't know if he reads this, LOL). He's hugging me more and being more playful and I feel so much better about everything. We're joking around like we used to - he comes up behind me and grabs me just to make me jump, and all the controlling stuff he used to do with the kids and I is gone (so far). For the last couple of months I have been taking an equal role in the parenting of our 3 older children and he asks my advice about things to do with them.
I also go to most of their home education things with him. I did want DD4 to go to school but because we are now together so much of the time, it became impractical so I am now home educating her since she graduated from the nursery last July, and that is a major adjustment. I sometimes find it hard to meet my deadlines on my articles when I have home ed to do and there's Yanny to see to. I let Andy take over DD4's home ed every now and then so I can catch up on my writing and on housework. He's taking her to visit a castle tomorrow while I catch up on other stuff.
I don't know why we still have separate houses apart from that we are waiting for our owned house to sell, and financial stuff etc. I am hardly ever here as I'm always with him so when I do eventually come home, there is a pile of post in the doorway and stacks of messages on my answer machine.
I am friends with all his friends now (they are 'our' friends rather than his friends) and Yanny is growing up seeing us happy and being with his dad far more than DD4 was as a baby. I am so pleased and just hope I don't get hurt in the future as that's just about the only thing that worries me about the R.
I am still managing to keep all my friends (although they won't see him as they don't like him) and I still see them socially without him there but less often than before.
We do have a major problem with our DD2 which is putting strain on us slightly, and which I wanted to ask FL about.
DD2 was recently diagnosed with 'developmental delay', which her pediatrician and chiropractor said was probably dyspraxia. She was blue at birth from the cord round her neck and I think that is the cause of it, but anyway, other than her co-ordination/concentration difficulties, she also is extemely aggressive and threatens to 'beat up' her sisters, she screams and cries at the slightest things, is constantly argumentative, swearing at me and Andy, hitting herself in the face which upsets us, and just lately she has taken to stealing. First it was £60 which Andy had kept in the bedroom. She took £10 and threw £50 in the recycle bin to cover her tracks and he didn't get the truth out of her until the bin had been taken already. She was grounded at my house for several days and I got her to do lots of chores. Then today we were all in a store and she tried to shoplift (Andy and I caught her doing it and we called security). The security guy said to her it was wrong and he said if he caught her again, he'd call the police. She's 10 years old and should know better.
Andy is so livid that he doesn't even want to be in the same room as her and she's spoiling the atmosphere for the rest of our family. I told him I'd have her at mine for a couple of days and he could go home without her and cool down for a bit, so that's what we're doing.
We've got to the point where we don't know what to do with her and it's causing massive stress on both of us. We are thinking maybe she needs some counselling but we really haven't a clue where to start, and her sisters are always upset, crying or arguing with her because she's hit them or something else.
Jo I empathathise with your sitch with DD2. I don't know much about dspraxia so I can't comment on that but I just wanted to ask whether DD2 has only started doing this since you more or less started acting as a family again? Is it possible that she is jealous of the attention andy is now giving you and in order to try and regain what she thinks is rightfully hers is displaying all these bad behaviours just for attention? My D17 used to to this a lot. She wasn't as extreme as your DD2 currently is and it stopped when H left. Now my S15 has taken over where she left off and he has seen the inside of a police cell twice this year. Just a thought.
Me 43 XH 45 M 2.7.88 Divorce 7.10.09 Kids D20,S17 & D15
I don't think it is because we are a family, as she has always been the most challenging child of all of them, but I do think our break up and R problems have contributed. She took the split hardest and actually threatened to kill herself if we didn't get back together so she saw a child psychologist for a while.
When she was a toddler, she would head butt the floor if she didn't have what she wanted, and that was only at 18 months old. I put cushions on the floor to stop her hurting herself.
She was slightly delayed in her milestones (didn't sit unaided till 10 months, didn't crawl till 11 months). She was difficult to toilet train and even now, at 10 years old, she is still incontinent at night (she can hold it in the day but we never have a dry night ever so she has to wear those pull ups for bigger kids). She can't concentrate or sit still for more than 5 minutes. For instance, we were in a traffic jam today because there was a bad car accident and there were ambulances and police cars everywhere so everyone was stuck on the road and my 5 year old knew why and was perfectly happy sitting in the car, waiting, but DD2 who is 10, was yelling at us 'I'm bored, I'm not sitting here! I want to go!' and she tried to get out on the road which obviously we stopped her doing. I tried to explain about the car accident and the injured person and she just wouldn't accept it even though it was reasonable to my other daughters.
The pediatrician and the chiropractor put this down to her dyspraxia, and she has these exercises to do to improve concentration.
But the swearing and threatening her sisters and stealing are new things and I'd say that the negative behaviour is becoming more frequent. I don't know if this is because I'm with her more often so I notice it more, or whether it really is more frequent.
Jo, Glad to hear that most aspects of your life are going well. I, also, am unfamiliar with the term used to describe D2's condition but I do think she definitely needs counseling to see if it's possible to improve her behavior.
Dyspraxia is a spacial awareness disorder - she basically doesn't see how much space she takes up and she'll walk passed you and step on your toes every time, she walks through things instead of round things and will step in front of a car without thinking, her balance is poor, her concentration is low (typically 5 minutes and she wonders off), she has a phobia about having her hair cut and so has not had it cut since she was 5, and this is another symptom of dyspraxia.
The stealing is not related, though, and just in the last week she has been self-harming and being violent towards me and her siblings. I actually called the police because she attacked me and my neighbour and I had her carted off by the police.
Andy gets a social worker now to help him deal with her. He has given her to me to live at my place temporarily as he can't cope anymore. I am struggling to cope myself as I've had so many outbursts of violence in the last few days, including one time where she hit her sister over the head with a wooden stick when she was holding the baby, and nearly hurt him too.
Today she threatened to hurt herself just because I asked her to wash up the pots (everyone takes it in turns, we have a rota) so I lost it and slapped her. I said don't you dare threaten to hurt yourself. She's in the kitchen, screaming right now.
I have only managed 2 hours of writing time in the last week because of her. It's no wonder Andy is having a breakdown.
We've got her a counsellor sorted out but I think she needs more serious intervention. She was violent yesterday because I forced her to do some writing practice and she was yelling about how no one can force her to do anything. Well, I did - it took me all afternoon but I did it.
The trouble is, Andy is too soft and if she acts up he just gives in. She wonders off when he has a home ed activity organised. They had a dance teacher once and she wouldn't join in. He never forces the issue.
So she's having it like boot camp at the moment and hopefully that will stop this. She says 'if you make me wash up I'll throw something.' So I've told her anything she throws will be thrown right back at her. She's messing with the wrong woman, here.
I am concerned, don't get me wrong, but right now I'm more angry than anything else.
Jo I am so sorry you are going through this right now. My kids don't have diagnosed problems and I too have experienced violence from them so I know how you feel.
Take care
Me 43 XH 45 M 2.7.88 Divorce 7.10.09 Kids D20,S17 & D15
Just followed you over from your post on my thread. Good to hear from you! So you're taking in another D, hey? Good for you. It sounds rough, but there's always a rough period, even for those that start with a honeymoon period first.
So Mr Control Freak aka Andy is actually a soft marshmellow on the inside when it comes to the girls? All children need consistency and an understandable set of rules. Dyspraxia or no, attention probs or no, she will still have to learn to function in the world full of others. So I wouldn't even let those diagnoses enter my mind as her parent who is trying to teach her how to live with others.
First, its a bit much to work on everything in a piecemeal, as it happens manner. What I'd do is sit down with her and lay out a behavioral contract. I'd focus only on 4-5 things at a time. And I'd emphasis a plan that has both reinforcement of desired behavior and negative consequences for undesired behavior.
Weigh them according to severity - "threatening" oneself is serious, so it has serious consequences. She can accrue points that can be cashed in weekly for events or objects (30 min outing with Mom; going to a movie; a small new toy) or privileges (TV, outside time) with points earned for the absence of undesired behavior or the presence/frequency of desired behaviors. Post the behavior plan on the fridge, keeping a copy for yourself in case of sabotage, and let her help keep record, as the goal is for her to eventually internalize this process. Stay consistently with it and it will pay off.
It often helps to set this token economy off right focusing on somewhat routine expected behaviors - brushing one's teeth, bathing, making one's bed, and including a problem or two such as hitting, threatening oneself.
The behind-the-scenes goal is to build self-esteem. Self-esteem comes from seeing the positives about oneself and seeing the positive effects one has on others. That's harder to see when one has had diagnoses slapped on one's forehead. Weigh the opinion of professionals as just that - one set of opinions, not the absolute truth. Only your D will be able to say or discover her full potential. Try not to let a label cap or limit that potential for her.
Finally, Jo - and I say this gently - when a child says that she intends to hurt herself, know that its a cry for help. Hurting her with a slap tends to just validate her likely view of worthlessness. Try hugging and quieting with her instead, asking her "What makes you say that?" Finally, let her know how much she means to you and that you are always there to listen to her if she feels that way inside. My S8 would tell me that his heart felt black whenever he was hurting the worst after the S/D, and then I knew I'd better drop everything else I was doing to spend some quiet time loving him and helping him to heal.
The thing is that we parents are their main world, and we've broken their world apart via this S/D. Add that to the normal struggles of growing up, and its easy to see how challenging their sitches are.
You have the stick-to-it-ness and fieryness to make this work., Jo. And you're a great mom. Be at peace with that, knowing that this will take time, and that her behavior will get worse before it gets better. Thats the sign of a bright child, merely testing the limits of this new arrangement.
I have had many of the same issues with my DD13, during the D (age 11)she would kick me, bite me, scratch me and scream bloody murder at the top of her lungs. She refused to go to sleep, wet the bed every night and couldn't be woke up in the morning. She refused to get out of the car when being dropped off at school, would leave the house or my store and wander off. She would throw a fit in public, throw herself on the floor and scream, which attracted all kinds of attention from strangers. A couple of times even getting the police called! I had to show my ID and then convince the officer I wasn't beating her.
There is hope though, over time we have learned how to deal with her, what limits we can set for her, when to pick our battles and when to give in. I don't know how many times I did the wrong thing, but once I started learning about her disability and realizing she really couldn't help some of her reactions, her behavior started to improve.
I don't know what to tell you that could fix your DD behavior, but there is hope. In my situation, we had to learn how to deal with her "thinking" more than we could change her behavior.
For example, I found out that shopping with her is a potential hazard. Her disability causes her to be overwhelmed when too many options are available. Then overtime I discovered a quick trip with her for a certain purpose could be enjoyable.
With her cognitive skills planning events and making changes to upcoming events must be done with great caution or WWIII will break out. If we planned to go to the park and then someone needs to go to the hospital, she can not handle postponing the visit to the park. The only option we have here is to avoid telling her what we are doing until shortly before the event. One time she was going to stay overnight at a friends house, when we arrived the mother came out and told us she couldn't because of a family emergency. DD11 threw a major fit, she laid on the ground in their lawn, kicking and screaming for 30 minutes, finally I picked her up, put her in the car, buckled her seat belt. Before I turned around she was out again yelling and screaming. It lasted over an hour.
We did have to set limits and stick to them, but by changing how I deal with her she has made great strides.
I pray that you will have quicker success than I did, because I know how stressful it can be.
To this day, no way could I home school my DD, she needs special attention and more patience than I have. Even the specialists had to learn how deal with her. At the beginning of the school I communicated to her new teacher what I had discovered, we have daily written communication with the teacher and she is having her best year in school.
