Just keep trying that all you can do.

by Alisa
(South Australia)

The theory that a child's behaviour's have to be present in more than one environment in order NOT to be parental failure problem is WRONG. I kept trying tell Dr's that she was not demanding I GIVE her things like lollies ect she was just having a very negative reaction to what I now know to be mostly sensory issues. I know she can also be a normal child with normal tantrums about wants and what she does not want ect, but those tantrums are much easy to over come most of the time because I dont give in to her.

I now know that I basically made my 9y daughter sensory worse not better because I used the normal method of dealing with tantrums instead of what I know now to do about helping a child with sensory issues. That does not make her behaviour my fault cause I tried to get help and did what I told to do, it's not my fault that Dr's keeping ignoring me.

When I relized Dr's where not helping and making things worse for me I gave in to my belief that there had to better way to get positive reactions from her. I while I have never been able correct her anger fully I have gotten her to hug me without hurting me words or action. I have significantly decreased the frequency and severity of the out bursts of anger. Best of I'm finally breaking through her to her and she's opening up to me and what she's saying is scaring me, because it's confirming everything i ever suspected about why she gets so angry. I wish I could have found her help sooner, I feel like I failed her but at the same time I KNOW I tried my hardest as mum to get her the help I knew I could not give her.

She's finally seeing a child phycologist that believes, I did not cause her behaviour problems. That in it's self is a huge relief, he also believes my children brains are just always in hyper alert state, and there fore very quick to turn to fright, fight, flight behaviours. He's already diagnosed mild anxiety issues in my 4 year son. In the sessions with him he did not see the sensory behaviours but he went to his kindy and watched him and did see the behaviours, which was so great. The more people around him the more likely and more intense the melt down is. At home alone with me he has a higher tolerance for the sensory issues he has but a kindy he more likely to loose it if expected to engage in one of sensory fears. Even if he does do one of sensory fears he is more likely to become frustrated later in the day like his brain cant calm down after the event in which he was over stimulated.

A tantrum hours after leaving school is often seen as caused by lack of parenting, as my kids teacher have often told me when I asked what happen in class to cause the after school melt downs my kids have. I see the melt down building from the moment they leave the school but nothing seems to calm them completely. I always felt like they had try to hard to seem calm. When the next event triggered the melt down it was worse than the mild agitation they had from the previous event even if that was 5 hour earlier. By trial and error of trying to avoid things that i suspected where helping to trigger the full melt down I saw major changes in my children. Problem was I knew my kids could not avoid life problems just to stay calm I knew I had to get help from someone willing to listen to what I knew about my kids.