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Mudlark July 21, 2022 12:04

Hi there wise people,

I am the mum to two . Son age 12 and Daughter is now 13, been with us for 9 years.

This is about Daughter - No diagnosis. No EHCP. She has always been troubled and has had years of therapy. Unlike her younger brother she does not feel like she 'fits' in with our family. (We have a social worker, we have life story work planned ( if she will agree to go))

Recently she has started to escalate her already **** you attitude, ignoring curfews, running off, hanging out with chaotic kids , breaking in to abandoned buildings, being involved in stealing bikes etc.....

I have tried setting reasonable boundaries, eg, must come home when we eat at 6pm - if I do let her out, then she must stay in our local park and not go wandering off around the city, she must only be with the person/s I have agreed.

Anyway she has stuck two fingers up to all that, and we had to call the police last night as we didn't know where she was. She did come home . She was 'sorry' ish this morning. I have now taken away her smart phone and replaced it with a cheap pay as you go and intend to say she can 'earn' her iphone back with better choices.

I mean in reality she could do this every night, stay out all night, tell us to F off, and see who she wants and there is diddly squat we can do about it.

Any experience of this? Any words of wisdom? I feel utterly desperate as she is putting such strain on us all.

windfalls July 21, 2022 21:31

Hi mudlark,

If she has had years of therapy and it hasn't made any difference then it suggests to me that there may be other stuff going on. Has she ever been assessed for ADHD and ODD? Her behaviour sounds to me very much like ADHD - impulsiveness, lack of cause and effect thinking, failure to understand consequences of behaviour - living very much in the here and now. The ODD gives rise to very severe defiance and opposition, failure to take responsibility for actions, failure to do anything that is asked, deliberately annoying behaviour etc. The good news is that if she does have these conditions then medication helps enormously with them. So please do have her assessed for these conditions. Indeed you may find that she responds better to therapy. Also reapply for an EHCP - it's ridiculous that she doesn't have one and your social worker should be able to help with this. You can apply for an EHCP yourself, which is what I did.

Take care of yourself - having to deal with stuff like this is really hard. Xxx

windfalls July 21, 2022 21:36

I would also consider looking at sehm schools and possibly residential as she is very vulnerable and putting herself at risk. But you will probably need an EHCP for this so really push your social worker and get them to push through EHCP. Sending hugs - dealing with this type of behaviour puts a huge amount of stress on the rest of the family. Xxx

chestnuttree July 22, 2022 15:20

I agree with windfalls, it sounds like it could be ADHD. Medication often makes a huge difference. In the meantime, this might be helpful: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Your-Defiant-Teen-Second-Relationship-ebook/dp/B00FW49JP6/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1658498918&sr=8-1 Barkley is an internationally renowned expert on ADHD.

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