Disruptive in class, but not a bad kid.

FranticFrummie

Mon, Nov 10 2014, 6:06 am

11yo DD is always "the victim" at school. She comes home every day with something or other that happened "for no reason" where someone picked on her, ate her lunch, stole her pencil, ripped her homework, hid her binder, moved her chair, whatever. It's a never ending stream of annoyance, and she feels like the world is out to get her.

She's been this way since kindergarten, and nothing I say can make her think about it differently. I do try to keep her as positive as possible, and I'm a very positive person myself. I always try to look for the good in things, and model emunah and responsibility.

When I talk to her teachers about it, it turns out that around 50% of the time, she actually started it by annoying other kids first. She will sometimes seek out the kids with the most explosive tempers and anger management issues in order to get the biggest bang for her buck. She never picks on kids who are weaker than her, only on kids who will be perceived as bullies - move victim behavior.

I have drilled into her head "personal responsibility" until I'm blue in the face, and she does. not. get. it.

Personally, I think she's looking for sympathy and attention, but she's an only child and gets an enormous amount of my time already. I love her to pieces and tell her so every day. I take her concerns seriously, without being overly emotional. I never brush her off. I try to brainstorm strategies with her to make school go more smoothly, but she's so invested in this victim role that she can't seem to break out of the pattern.

Her teachers and I have noticed that she's at her worst when she doesn't understand the assignment, and is most likely avoiding doing the work by creating a disturbance. She's been tested for ADD and doesn't have it, so I really think it's anxiety. Fragile X kids have a real problem with that.

I worry about her, because if she takes these habits into adulthood she is going to be extremely miserable. I guess I'm worried about her future because most Fragile X kids tend to plateau at grade 5 or 6, and then after that they progress very slowly, falling further and further behind their peers. Anything I can do to give her an advantage now is very important. She's in 6th grade this year, and not doing well in school at all. She's very smart, but her behavior is severely impacting her grades.

She's already been through therapy for anxiety, and it's not helping one bit. I am very close to asking her doctor for anti anxiety medication to calm her down.

Any ideas?

animeme

Mon, Nov 10 2014, 8:04 am

Medication. I don't know much about fragile x, but I know that with aspergers/autism, when high functioning kids get to preadolescence (particularly girls), the anxiety/depression can start to overtake them because they become overwhelmed by the complexity of the preteen world.

Meds can hold her up enough to let her better access her therapies. Its a process finding the right ones, though. I would also stress that you might want to change the type of therapy she's getting for anxiety. Have you tried CBT? Emdr? Something that gets in the back door if she can't/ won't address it head on, like hypnosis or yoga.

Lastly, see if you can work with her teacher to develop/stress a strength she has so she can begin to transfer her identity to that. She is stuck in that role and it is what she knows. She will need to be taught how to be/ identify with something else. She could be the artist, the one who can always figure out mechanical stuff, the creator of stories, etc. Something she likes that you can help her to slowly progress in or continue to enjoy as she gets older, regardless of how she progresses.

greenfire

Mon, Nov 10 2014, 9:06 am

she certainly sounds like she basks in the negative attention ... doesn't she have an IEP - it's the smart/bored kids with other 'issues' that need the most direct expectations ... eventually maybe only 50% of what you require will be fulfilled - but it's still a learning process

repeat how she should be behaving - have feelings charts to coincide with her moods & a plan of whom she should reach out to in school when these feelings start to build up

everyone should be on the same page/behavior contract

good luck !!!

FranticFrummie

Mon, Nov 10 2014, 12:18 pm

greenfire wrote:

Yes, she does have an IEP. She's at a new school this year, and I think it's time to call a meeting now that I'm getting a feel for what her issues are this year. This is her first time having multiple classrooms and teachers, and she's also going into puberty. Oh joy. Confused

Because she's very high functioning, her teachers insist on treating her as if she were a neurotypical child, which is both good and bad. It's good because it pushes her to try harder and to be more age appropriate, but it's also bad because I think that sometimes she's just not capable of meeting their expectations, so she gets punished for being her silly self. It's like punishing an Autistic child for flapping his hands in class, KWIM?

amother

Mon, Nov 10 2014, 12:45 pm

I'm sure she's a lovely girl. As she heads into her teens, please learn my mantra -- good kids sometimes do bad things. Trust me, it will save you heartache.

You always speak so lovingly of your DD. Even when you don't approve of something she does (as here), it really just shines through.

Is there any chance that she's afraid of disappointing you? Not that I think you would be disappointed, but I'm thinking that she adores you as much as you adore her, and maybe she's afraid of letting you down. So particularly when things are difficult, she finds a way to make it someone else's fault. Not consciously. It just happens.

I have a child with learning differences. One year, we went in to parent teacher conferences, and were told he couldn't pass unless he turned in his Native American story. What Native American story? Then I remembered cut out pictures and snippets of a story all over his desk, but he said it was "nothing." Eventually, I came to learn that the story was done, had been done on time, but not turned in because he was afraid of drawing, and would rather pretend he didn't care than turn it in and get a bad grade. Maybe that's what your DD is doing.

Remind her that you love her just because, no matter what she does, no matter what her grades are. I know she knows, but everyone likes hearing it again.