wvdislover
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 31, 2006
My DD9 has ADHD, SID, auditory processing difficulties, anxiety issues, mild Asperger's, and some autistic tendencies. Anytime something gets too difficult for her to cope with, she runs away from the problem (literally). For instance, one night we were shopping at her favorite store and I was trying to get her to try on an outfit, but she didn't want to do it. Eventually, she ran away from me and hid under a rack of clothes (I thought I'd never find her!). Anyways, last night, when she was working on her math homework (her least favorite subject!), she got mad at me when I was trying to point out a mistake she'd made on her paper and tried to run away to her room. I told my husband to stop her b/c I felt like we need to try to break her of this "escape" mechanism. I don't want her to think she can run away from everything in life that is difficult. When he stopped her, she freaked out on us and started screaming and trying to get away from him. She kept kicking him, hitting him, biting him, and screaming at both of us that we were "idiot jerk buttheads." Everytime we tried to talk to her to try to rationalize with her about her actions and the 2 math problems she had to do, she kept telling us to shut-up. (You must understand that normally all of these are things she isn't allowed to say and usually gets punished for). It then escalated into "I wish I wasn't in this family. I wish I was dead, that I would fall on a knife and die. I wish you and Daddy were dead. I want to kill you..." After a 20 minute battle, we gave up and let her run to her room. After about 5 or 10 minutes, I was able to go in and talk to her calmly and comfort her. After a few more minutes, you would have never known the meltdown of the century had just occurred! My DH, who doesn't usually experience her meltdowns, thought she was schizophrenic. I told him it was more like Bi-polar. Usually when she does this, she doesn't even remember a lot of what happened. Most of the time she's a sweet girl who would do anything for anyone, but has a lot of social problems at school, which doesn't help things.
Anyways, does anyone experience this with their kids? What do you do? How do you handle this? Should we let her "escape" or should we try to stop her? I'm afraid that she, her sister, or someone (or something) else is going to get hurt. Please help us! We hate to see her like this. Thanks!
Anyways, does anyone experience this with their kids? What do you do? How do you handle this? Should we let her "escape" or should we try to stop her? I'm afraid that she, her sister, or someone (or something) else is going to get hurt. Please help us! We hate to see her like this. Thanks!