Life as a SEN mum

It’s been a while since I’ve given any sort of update on how Charlotte’s behaviour has been, so here is a little update.

In short it’s been a particularly tough few weeks. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect her to be perfect all the time. What even is perfect? And I am fully aware there are going to be times where she goes into sensory overload and her behaviour is going to reflect how she’s feeling. That doesn’t make it any less testing, but at least you know there’s not really much you can do other than learn from the situation and try to avoid/pre-empt any triggers.

The biggest issue we’ve had recently is lying. I know this is often triggered by life events. Almost like a coping mechanism, or in the hope they can get something they want. While this is definitely true for some of the things we’ve been told. When you speak to Charlotte, often she is so invested in the lies she has actually created a whole world around that lie. This does make it difficult as it’s difficult to distinguish which bits are real. This also bridges across to school, meaning never ending calls from school checking in on everything that happens so that they can try to figure out what actually is the truth as some of the lies could land people in trouble.

This then leads to other issues. When pulled up on any lies, sometimes she really does appear to be totally invested in that lie. But other times, she will outright say “but I can’t tell you the truth” or you can see it all over her face. In these instances she seems to have also developed a rather nasty attitude. We had an instance over the summer where they had been out with their dad and I was simply asking what they’d done etc, the looks on both their faces said they were keeping something from me, and their accounts of the day were so far apart it was obvious something wasn’t right. They both claim that they are still being told not to let me know if they spend time around certain individuals. But that aside it was being called some rather derogatory names by a 6 year old, really was the icing on the cake.

But this pretty much reflects her overall attitude recently. To say she’s pushing buttons is an understatement. For a while we have been having issues, and there has been instances where she has ended up missing out on days out and such. This has been tricky to enforce at certain times (not so much on my side I will say). And, at the time it seems like it does the trick, until we end up back in the same cycle. Which has happened again in recent weeks. After a good few weeks (we actually thought she had been abducted by aliens) she took a turn again. The screaming, deliberately breaking things, general attitude, lying. Basically making me feel totally useless and putting a real strain on the entire house. As she had been invited to a party I kept using that to try to encourage her to maybe behave a little bit. Without any real effect. A few days before the party, it really came to a head. Her attitude had been particularly awful and when I asked if she wasn’t bothered about the party then she replied “I don’t care if I’m naughty, I should get to do what I want”. Needless to say she didn’t end up going, and also spent the day with my parents while we took James pumpkin picking, Thankfully for the time being, it seems to have done the trick. Knowing that we have Disney on Ice coming up it really does seem that she wants to ensure that she is in that arena watching her favourite characters.

Another, rather lovely, trait that seems to be creeping in is a very high pitched scream. If you know Charlotte, at this point, you’re probably thinking “but she screams a lot anyway”, and yes she does, but this recent one is something else. Now, for those that don’t know her, it’s safe to say that she can be very loud, it’s safe to say a volume switch would be nice because whatever mood she is in, everything has to be shouted at you, and the way my ears have been recently I am actually starting to wonder whether I may be loosing my hearing. Anyway, back to the scream, the only way to describe it is piercing. That sort of scream that really does leave your ears ringing for hours, sometimes days, even when she’s not next to you at the time. This isn’t from a build up of frustration or anything like that, but simply every time she is told no, or that she may have to wait a little bit. For example if I’m preparing tea and she asks for a drink, say I’m handling raw meat and say that I’ll just wash my hands and then get her drink, then she will literally shriek, and it really is a shriek.

The good news is, that at the time of finishing and posting this, it does seem like she’s turned a bit of a corner. The screaming is still there, and the violence. But the violence has always been a bit of a concern, and she is a child who very much likes play fighting, she’s definitely not a meek or timid girl. But on the whole she has actually been a dream, the sleeping is getting better, she seems to be getting more patient and generally a lot happier in herself. Of course we’ve not had a perfect run, she’s a child at the end of the day and let’s face it, as humans, none of us are perfect. But when life runs smoothly it makes those moments so much easier to deal with.