Hi all. I have three girls, aged 12, 5 and 3. They all have (mostly mild) developmental issues, along the lines of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and ADHD stuff, but an incomplete picture...
Its my tiny 3 year olds future that is concerning me most.
When my eldest was going to a behavioural psychiatric for some of her issues, the psychiatric did a brief assessment of my three year old (who was only 2 at the time). The behavioural psychiatric said that my tiny girl appeared to be Oppositionally Defiant and on a road to Conduct Disorder. At 2!
This took me aback and I was unable to accept it. I felt like, she is 2, she has 2 older sisters who are not oppositionally defiant (they are plenty of other things), who are loving and nurturing (mostly) and my youngest was being raised by the same parents so how could she be?
But truth be told (one year later) I am facing up to this.
She is loving and caring but it doesnt come naturally, its like learned behaviour from me as I have tried to be very gentle with her and she has enjoyed it. But naturally she is defiant and naturally she is wilful, negative and angry. I often find myself shocked, upset and scared at the way she thinks.
She is so tiny and harmless but I have to say if she does the things she is doing now, as a 10 year old or more - it will be dangerous and scary.
She hits me many times a day, even though her other siblings are not like that at all. She says she hates me (or hates whoever has told her no, or told her what to do), again, her siblings dont behave like that. She even hits her grandparents, siblings and aunty (it is the first time I have seem such behaviour within my family at all).
She says very strange things like this morning, when she was getting a cuddle from me because her eldest sister was 'annoying' her. I said 'oh your sister is just being grumpy' and with a straight face my tiny daughter said 'yea, lets kill her' .
Prior to my situation I probably would have thought that kind of thing can only be learned behaviour and reflect the home environment. And maybe it does and I just can not see it??? But my other two kids are exposed to exactly the same environment and would never say and do the things my tiny one does. My older kids have their individual issues but they the have a general respect for authority and a general desire to do well. And generally, they understand socially acceptable speech and behaviour.
Occasionally my youngest isnt oppositional...as I said at the beginning... she can be loving and caring and agreeable, but its like being nice and cuddly is a game to her, not natural.
Her natural state is to say no, to rebel against any direction, to get angry at the drop of a hat, and hit whoever is closest to her when anger comes.
She also swears like a trooper and while she is not 100% protected from swearing, her experience is not abnormal and certainly no different to her siblings who would never swear or want to be caught swearing! But my tiny little girl seems to be a magnet for anything negative. She hears 'I hate you' somewhere and picks up that it is an angry reaction and suddenly she uses it all the time and in context. She hears a swearword and she senses the negative reaction it got, or negative tone it was said in, and she instantly adds it to her repotoire.
I am not sure what to do. The behavioural psychiatric gave me things to do, and I do them, but its not much and I don't think it is making any difference. For eg the psychiatric said that until daughter will follow instructions, catch her as she is doing acceptable things and immediately instruct her to do what she is doing... like this
daughter is about to sit down on a chair
i wait until she is doing it, then say 'sit down'.
If I instructed her to sit down out of the blue, chances are she would attempt to stand for the rest of her life, so I think the idea is to add requests to decisions she has already made, to get her used to 'doing what she is told'
Anyway I guess this is more a vent than anything else. I am going to go for support for her behaviour. I would just love to hear from anyone whose child behaved anything like mine at such a young age or the opinions of anyone here really. xxx
Its my tiny 3 year olds future that is concerning me most.
When my eldest was going to a behavioural psychiatric for some of her issues, the psychiatric did a brief assessment of my three year old (who was only 2 at the time). The behavioural psychiatric said that my tiny girl appeared to be Oppositionally Defiant and on a road to Conduct Disorder. At 2!
This took me aback and I was unable to accept it. I felt like, she is 2, she has 2 older sisters who are not oppositionally defiant (they are plenty of other things), who are loving and nurturing (mostly) and my youngest was being raised by the same parents so how could she be?
But truth be told (one year later) I am facing up to this.
She is loving and caring but it doesnt come naturally, its like learned behaviour from me as I have tried to be very gentle with her and she has enjoyed it. But naturally she is defiant and naturally she is wilful, negative and angry. I often find myself shocked, upset and scared at the way she thinks.
She is so tiny and harmless but I have to say if she does the things she is doing now, as a 10 year old or more - it will be dangerous and scary.
She hits me many times a day, even though her other siblings are not like that at all. She says she hates me (or hates whoever has told her no, or told her what to do), again, her siblings dont behave like that. She even hits her grandparents, siblings and aunty (it is the first time I have seem such behaviour within my family at all).
She says very strange things like this morning, when she was getting a cuddle from me because her eldest sister was 'annoying' her. I said 'oh your sister is just being grumpy' and with a straight face my tiny daughter said 'yea, lets kill her' .
Prior to my situation I probably would have thought that kind of thing can only be learned behaviour and reflect the home environment. And maybe it does and I just can not see it??? But my other two kids are exposed to exactly the same environment and would never say and do the things my tiny one does. My older kids have their individual issues but they the have a general respect for authority and a general desire to do well. And generally, they understand socially acceptable speech and behaviour.
Occasionally my youngest isnt oppositional...as I said at the beginning... she can be loving and caring and agreeable, but its like being nice and cuddly is a game to her, not natural.
Her natural state is to say no, to rebel against any direction, to get angry at the drop of a hat, and hit whoever is closest to her when anger comes.
She also swears like a trooper and while she is not 100% protected from swearing, her experience is not abnormal and certainly no different to her siblings who would never swear or want to be caught swearing! But my tiny little girl seems to be a magnet for anything negative. She hears 'I hate you' somewhere and picks up that it is an angry reaction and suddenly she uses it all the time and in context. She hears a swearword and she senses the negative reaction it got, or negative tone it was said in, and she instantly adds it to her repotoire.
I am not sure what to do. The behavioural psychiatric gave me things to do, and I do them, but its not much and I don't think it is making any difference. For eg the psychiatric said that until daughter will follow instructions, catch her as she is doing acceptable things and immediately instruct her to do what she is doing... like this
daughter is about to sit down on a chair
i wait until she is doing it, then say 'sit down'.
If I instructed her to sit down out of the blue, chances are she would attempt to stand for the rest of her life, so I think the idea is to add requests to decisions she has already made, to get her used to 'doing what she is told'
Anyway I guess this is more a vent than anything else. I am going to go for support for her behaviour. I would just love to hear from anyone whose child behaved anything like mine at such a young age or the opinions of anyone here really. xxx