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I have four kids. All my other kids so far are perfectly normal and well-behaved. We are not permissive parents. We are not an "everything goes" family.
I physically pick up my daughter and carry her to the car. We leave when she starts freaking out and she misses out on a lot of stuff. We left the fourth of July party early and she missed fireworks. She misses a lot. We don't go places usually because I just have to pick her up and leave. Leave the library before we check out books. Leave the grocery store with a shopping cart half full. Leave the park. Leave leave leave. That has been my life. Babysitters have quit. I can't go anywhere with her and I can't go anywhere without her and I can't go anywhere.
And she's getting heavier and heavier. And when I pick her up she fights with everything she has. She is STRONG, crazy strong, frightened animal strong, and it's getting more and more difficult. If I don't figure this out soon, I will NO LONGER be able to carry her safely to her closet to calm down. And then if she's attacking her siblings, I have to attack her? If I can't carry her safely, it's just getting rougher and rougher to her.
And yes, I take away her toys. Yes, she is consigned to her closet often. We are stricter than most people we know. Our kids know they need to say please and thank you or they aren't getting fed. You really have the wrong idea if you think we just don't try to change her behavior at all through normal parenting means.
We even tried spanking for a few months when she was four. She kept doing this one behavior where she would get water out of the bathroom sink, fill containers, and then leave them places. The water would spill and make a mess and we were worried about rot. So we had a rule - when we saw her do this, she would be spanked immediately. The consequence would be immediate, and it was only for this one specific behavior. Well... nothing changed. Nothing at all. Except we felt like jerks, because it really seemed like, if she could stop herself, she would have. She didn't like getting spanked.
The word "Pathological" means that it prevents you from living normal life. I think our experience with her qualifies.
That's why it's so weird that I can actually go places with her taking L-Theanine.
She ran straight into a moving car. This isn't something a normal seven year old does. She is going to die if I just treat her like my other three kids.
Are you sure that when someone demands too much of you, you have an adrenaline rush? Start attacking people? Run away like a lion's after you? Freeze like a gun is pointed at your heart? Several times a day? That is what PDA is supposedly. And my kid acts like it.
And the fact that I can give her a supplement that completely changes her behavior, so she becomes perfectly behaved, when if I give the same supplement to another kid it doesn't change anything at all... doesn't that hint at something?
My apologies, I didn't know how much you had already tried! The whole "therapists and soft safe closets" thing made you sound like the permissive type, but if you're not, then fair enough.
The design space of possible minds is very large. I suppose there are some people who would just die without drugs; and perhaps they did, for most of history. That's a bit sad though.
Do what you have to do to live a normal (and physically safe) life obviously. Although I do think you should listen to your intuition that "it doesn't sit right with you". At the very least, don't let anyone talk you into thinking that it should sit right with you. You can at least have that much.
Honestly, therapist is a last resort for us, we fear it as much as drugs. But it was what the Neuropsychologist prescribed for her when she was diagnosed with ADHD, and we are really at a loss. We are giving it six months just so we can say we tried it and see what else the Neuropsychologist tells us to do.
Stuffy closet is also just the only way to keep her and her siblings safe when she's like this. She will thrash and yell in there for 10+ minutes until she calms down.
Sorry if I was snippy, it's a hazard about talking about parenting on the Internet. But yeah, I get the feeling that kids like her were part of the 50% childhood mortality rate a thousand years ago.
If you’re willing to experiment with your 7yo girl’s mind before handing them over to the therapist’s tender mercies, you can try something I wish someone had tried on me.
Philosophy as medicine.
Specifically ontology, the philosophy of categories of things that exist and how they interact. Here’s the top four that helped me:
The realization that led to Triessentialism changed my life. It formed the basis of an explicit Theory of Mind which suddenly made me able to understand others’ motives, at least at a surface level. I believe it would also inform good pedagogy to ensure a balance of Physical, Logical, and Emotional learning.
The Elements of Harmony (from My Little Pony 2010-2019) taught me how good and bad relationships work. Each is a relationship virtue that increases openness and trust if given freely, and in a way that isn’t unbalanced by one person providing all of an Element in the relationship:
Boundaries should be set and Elements of Harmony should be given in proportion to which of the three qualitative levels of friendship that relationship is:
The Fourth Step of the twelve steps is a way to resolve cognitive dissonance regarding the right and wrong things that happen to you, or her. The easy way is the PAINS method for resolving moral dissonance to avoid negative behaviors:
Let me know if you use any of this in homeschooling her.
I do talk with her about philosophical things, but her mind is pretty limited from being 7 years old. I emphasize quite a bit that she doesn't have to do something just because she wants to do something and she doesn't believe me yet.
She has watched My Little Pony and also a show called Philo and Sophie which is a lot more... explicit on the philosophical underpinnings of a happy life.
I've always been pretty self aware and consious of the good people are trying to seek when they do things. I spent hours as a young kid asking talking to my mom:
"Why did so and so do that?"
"Because she thought it made her look cool."
"Did it?"
"Maybe to someone she wanted to impress."
"Why does she want to look cool?"
"Because she thinks people like her more when she's cool?"
"Why do people want to be liked?"
And so on for ever. My 7 year old isn't that curious right now.
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Oh I didn’t think you were snippy at all! And even if you were, that’s nothing to apologize for, goodness gracious. Your daughter is the most important thing in your world, of course any time you talk about her it’s going to be emotionally charged. Plus I appreciated hearing the extra context.
I do hope everything works out for you.
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