How do you deal with school time meltdowns?

[imagine.more]

DD14 is usually very sweet and helpful and compliant. But, when asked to do anything remotely difficult or challenging or whenever she gets in trouble for breaking a rule she shuts down, glares at us, and then cries, yells, says hurtful things, and slams her door and pouts in her room for several hours, usually falling asleep. It wastes the entire day. 

 

Some triggers include:

- asking her to try a math problem by herself before asking me for help.

- telling her she needs to apologize to her brother for bossing him around.

- telling her she made a bad choice and needs to do better.

 

She reacts badly even when I am calm and matter-of-fact, she reacts badly if I'm stern and bad-cop-ish, she reacts badly if I'm very gentle and compassionate. Anything short of completely retracting my request (whether it's to do something she doesn't want to or to apologize for something she did that she shouldn't have) can result in a teen-tantrum if she's in a certain mood. Some days she's fine and it doesn't happen. Other times it happens daily for weeks. You just never know. At public school crying and throwing a fit got her out of work and tests. Going silent and refusing to say anything got people to leave her alone and not ask her to do things because they assumed she was too dumb to do it. 

 

I know many of you have kids with similar or more challenging behavior problems and are trying to educate them through those. How do you deal with these kinds of meltdowns when it happens during school time? With my neurotypical kids (who wouldn't do this anyway but if they did...) I would give a logical consequence of making them finish the same amount of work later once the tantrum was over and it would just cut into their playtime, inconveniencing them and me for a day but they'd learn and no big deal. Ana does not work like that. For example we'll start school stuff at 9am. At 10am we start a history lesson where she has to copy down 3 interesting facts about a state from a  textbook during/after me reading aloud the textbook to her. Some days she'll do the assignment. But maybe this day she freaks and doesn't know what fact to do right away so she starts complaining, whining, arguing. Then if I hold my ground on making her do the assignment (and often I will give her hints or something like, "why don't you try looking in the second paragraph") then she starts crying and saying I am mean or how could she possibly know this or whatever. Sometimes she'll insert some blame for her public school not teaching her this or her birth mom being at fault or me being at fault for her being unable to do it. Then she yells something hurtful, stomps off, throws things, slams her door, and cries in her room. After an hour or two she falls asleep. If I go in during this time her tantrum re-starts at the beginning. At 2pm she'll come out of her room and give a puppy dog face and say sorry but be unable to say what she did wrong. She'll sit at her desk again to re-start the history assignment and stare at the wall for a long time and pout. If I insist she do it on her own she'll throw another fit 9/10 of the time. 1/10 of the time she'll actually do the assignment. Maybe at 3pm she finishes. But now we still have math, science, and language arts to cover that she missed earlier when I was doing school with the others. I have to help her with every subject. If I make her do it alone the tantrums re-start and will continue until bedtime whereupon she falls asleep and sleeps until the next morning. I've tried removing privileges like her iPod but that doesn't seem to change her tantrum behavior, just gives her more mean things to yell at me about.

 

So yeah, you can see how this really eats into our educational time. I don't know how to fix it. She truly was allowed to learn nothing in school. If she cried or said she didn't know the teachers (according to her IEP) gave her a new and easier assignment or helped her with it. So there was a lot of learned helplessness. But how do I properly structure our day and help her learn to work independently? Right now she even gets overwhelmed when coloring a postcard for her friend because the outlined picture had a seahorse and she didn't know what color a seahorse was. I told her she could be creative and use any color. She still wouldn't. Finally I made her so she purposely colored all sloppy, ignoring the lines even though she's an excellent colorer and often enjoys doing adult coloring pages. :/ 

 

(btw, sorry this became so long! I'm just so overwhelmed with it right now and have nobody locally to talk to who can relate or give good advice)

[kbutton]

We have a behavior plan (ABA) for stuff that would be in this category (though we don't have so much to undo--it's more like skill-building here). We stumbled into ABA with someone who is a good fit, but others on the forum would have recommendations for how to find a good ABA therapist. It's often used for kids with autism, but it can sometimes be used for other profiles. A behaviorist would look at functions of a behavior and what happens before, during, after, to create a plan that would take her from one skill level to another. The nice thing is that a behaviorist can look at a situation like that and see all the parts and pieces of what needs to change for her to learn to be successful in this kind of a situation (sometimes we parents try to fix too many things at once that would be better fixed in stages).

 

We've found it to be helpful.

 

 

[OneStepAtATime]

:grouphug:  :grouphug:  :grouphug: 

 

Agree with kbutton, you might look at finding a behaviorist to help you come up with a consistent plan that takes into account all the various pieces and can help you implement it systematically.  Right now you are shooting in the dark as to what exactly the issues are and how to address them.  There could be many issues and many ways to address them.  Maybe she is dealing with hormone fluctuations and maybe some neurological planning issues and any number of other things, some more within the realm of something she can learn to control on her own and some maybe needing outside assistance.

[imagine.more]

ABA does sound like it might be a good fit. How does one go about finding one and is there any chance medicaid would cover all or part? 

 

And yes to the several issues and shooting in the dark. We're still waiting for an FASD evaluation. Her last pediatrician sent her to a geneticist who could not even assess her for FASD, they just did a blood test for chromosome disorders, ugh. So we've moved now and are back to square one with needing to make a ped. appointment, explain the symptoms we see and why we'd like her assessed for it, and then hope they send us to the right specialist this time. She's already been sent to a Neuropsychologist and a Geneticist, both of whom told us in our appointment that they did not and could not diagnose FASD. Oy vey! Anyway, we're just trying to figure out what's going on and why she's so all over the place with abilities. In the meantime I still have to parent and teach her. 

 

 

[OneStepAtATime]

ABA does sound like it might be a good fit. How does one go about finding one and is there any chance medicaid would cover all or part? 

 

And yes to the several issues and shooting in the dark. We're still waiting for an FASD evaluation. Her last pediatrician sent her to a geneticist who could not even assess her for FASD, they just did a blood test for chromosome disorders, ugh. So we've moved now and are back to square one with needing to make a ped. appointment, explain the symptoms we see and why we'd like her assessed for it, and then hope they send us to the right specialist this time. She's already been sent to a Neuropsychologist and a Geneticist, both of whom told us in our appointment that they did not and could not diagnose FASD. Oy vey! Anyway, we're just trying to figure out what's going on and why she's so all over the place with abilities. In the meantime I still have to parent and teach her. 

Yeah, those tiny little wasted medical circles are just...I don't even have words.  BTDT.  Hugs.  And hoping you find answers.

[Joyful Journeys]

I have zero experience to help with his but had a idea to perhaps switch her day around? Evening school perhaps? I know I've heard that teens perform batter later in the day especially when you say she often falls asleep. So maybe try to start after a nap? Maybe she could be involved in helping the others, and doing some creative personal work in the morning, and then get down to business when they are done around 2 or 3?

[imagine.more]

I have zero experience to help with his but had a idea to perhaps switch her day around? Evening school perhaps? I know I've heard that teens perform batter later in the day especially when you say she often falls asleep. So maybe try to start after a nap? Maybe she could be involved in helping the others, and doing some creative personal work in the morning, and then get down to business when they are done around 2 or 3?

 

Unfortunately she is worse in the evenings. She gets tired easily and so morning or early afternoon is her best time. She does not do creative personal work at all. She is "bored" by everything except television and since we limit television to a reasonable 1 hour per day or so she spends the rest of the day sulking and complaining of boredom. I think it's a combo of her personality, disabilities, and time in the public school system where she was entertained all day by teachers and her entire day was planned out for her. I expected her to be a night owl by now but she's still asleep by 10pm or earlier most nights and up at 7-8am. Not like myself as a teen, haha! 

[Joyful Journeys]

Unfortunately she is worse in the evenings. She gets tired easily and so morning or early afternoon is her best time. She does not do creative personal work at all. She is "bored" by everything except television and since we limit television to a reasonable 1 hour per day or so she spends the rest of the day sulking and complaining of boredom. I think it's a combo of her personality, disabilities, and time in the public school system where she was entertained all day by teachers and her entire day was planned out for her. I expected her to be a night owl by now but she's still asleep by 10pm or earlier most nights and up at 7-8am. Not like myself as a teen, haha!

Oh goodness! Bless you, what a struggle. My kids are little but the sulking over no screens drives me bonkers. All the best figuring it out with specialist!

[geodob]

From what you described, I wonder if she is suffering a type of 'Perfectionism'?

Where she is unable to attempt anything, unless she knows that she can do it.

Which presents an obstacle to learning?  As learning involves recognizing that we don't know something, and be prepared to learn it.

Also importantly, be prepared to make mistakes as we learn.

 

So that by avoiding/ refusing to do things, it can't be said that she can't do it.

That learning is to admit that she doesn't already know something?

 

Though a factor here, is the way that she views; 'making mistakes'?

Which can be viewed as a major part of the learning process.

As we learn from our mistakes, and understand what is correct.

 

As opposed to viewing mistakes, as indicating that she is 'dumb'?

[Cymbol]

My DS 8 suffers from this fear of failure anxiety. He starts to panic when he sees a problem he doesn't understand. It makes schooling really hard because When he gets something wrong, he'll be in a mood and school is done for the rest of the day. I try really hard to make sure learning is just right for him but it is hard some times to judge. I haven't found a solution yet but I am trying to teach him about having a growth mindset and that challenges help you learn and grow. He has some language issues so teaching this has been a little difficult.

[kbutton]

Do you have a local (likely county) board of developmental disabilities where you can apply for services? I know that here you have to have certain disabilities to get services, but if things are kind of unclear, sometimes an overall profile (especially if self-care tasks are involved) will qualify as well even if things are a bit unclear. Our local office does some testing for daily living activities/adaptive functioning. It is my understanding that the parent provides feedback as well, so if your child answers that they can shower independently, for example, but you still have to remind them to shower, tell them to use soap, and so on, those things are factored in as well.

 

Basically need is determined by a mesh of different factors, and even without a diagnosis, maybe your daughter will have enough factors to qualify. 

 

If you already have a waiver (I think that's what it's called when you meet the requirements for help), I think the person managing your daughter's case could help you navigate whether it will be paid by medicaid or not. Coverage may be based on diagnosis, or it may be based on symptoms (her particular mix of challenges), or it might be a combination of the two.

 

In the meantime, I was wondering what happens if you talk to her at a neutral time about things like the seahorse--maybe ask her what's the "worst" thing that would happen if she colors the seahorse the "wrong" color? 

I also think it could be helpful to tell her what to do for now--tell her what color to use for the seahorse. You can still say something like, "next time, you can color it any color you want to, but if we're doing a science project, we'll have to color it the colors a real one will be." It might be too much for her to learn to work hard and learn to make decisions at the same time, and she might have picked up mixed messages about things she "should" and "should not" do that seemingly conflict with what you tell her--if her thinking is either really black and white, or she has cognitive delays, it's easy to create or exacerbate misunderstandings, and it can take some effort to figure out where the train jumped the tracks. She might need things broken down smaller and more concretely while you still expect her to handle novelty and a challenge. In fact, she might have the skill down pat for something easy, but a change in difficulty or adding something novel will totally throw the whole thing off. Some kids really need things spelled out in black and white, and if you give them gray, they have no idea what to do. Some kids have deficits that make it hard to simply fill out a worksheet with reading comprehension questions--they really can't find the answer (without help and a lot of practice) if the words don't match the source text exactly. We have a couple of kids at our SN/quirky kids co-op for whom this skill is a real challenge, and the questions on the worksheet don't have a lot of context. If they don't know the word in the question, then they definitely can't find a synonym for that word or a parallel thought in the text where the answer is supposed to be. It's actually a lot harder for them than it sounds like it will be. It can be challenging to figure out where an assignment has gone awry--which skills didn't connect. Lots of skills might work in isolation, but when you start to combine them, things misfire. There might also sometimes be a lack of skill that limits the ability to see that they are not getting something or don't know how or what to ask--in this case, it sounds like she's aware something is off, and it just reinforces that behavior to avoid the task. 

 

I may be totally off-track (my experience is a bit limited), but if you think this is headed in the right direction, I am happy to try to talk it out more.

[caedmyn]

The book The Everyday Parenting Toolkit might be helpful. It's a bit hard to explain, but basically it says to identify the positive opposite of whatever behavior you don't like, and then start by praising/rewarding even the slightest amount of the positive behavior. It tells you how to break things down into intermediate steps and what to do if they don't ever do even the slightest positive related behavior. Quite a different approach from any other parenting book I've read (and I've read tons).

[Black-eyed Suzan]

The book The Everyday Parenting Toolkit might be helpful. It's a bit hard to explain, but basically it says to identify the positive opposite of whatever behavior you don't like, and then start by praising/rewarding even the slightest amount of the positive behavior. It tells you how to break things down into intermediate steps and what to do if they don't ever do even the slightest positive related behavior. Quite a different approach from any other parenting book I've read (and I've read tons).

 

:iagree: This book is a good start, even while you are waiting for ABA therapy or something else.