Anonymous
Post 09/09/2024 14:35     Subject: Re:This isn't normal is it?
I am a little surprised at the responses here. It seems everyone, including you OP, is trying to find some diagnosis. She is fine usually but has random outbursts, so what? you are freaking out because she gets up at 6:45 and can't get out of the shower by 7:10?? i'm sorry but that is an aggressive schedule. No way wants to wake up and be go go go from the minute they open their eyes. Some people might be ok with this but many are not and clearly your daughter has the kind of temperament where she needs to transition and take her time to wake up. Stop labeling her based on that frustration. Wake her up earlier, go to bed earlier, and/or shower at night. Your schedule is the problem.
Anonymous
Post 09/09/2024 13:36     Subject: This isn't normal is it?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Trust your gut on this one. I'd bring her to a psychiatrist for therapy, and also consider the neuropathy test. Girls aren't always identified with ADHD/anxiety/ASD, and this could be it. An IEP will be helpful, even though she is doing really well.

We had to take this on ourselves, since my kid wasn't doing poorly in school. But now, a few years in, we know we did the right thing.

I'm so sorry. This is really hard.


A child doesn't just get an IEP, whether they have a formal diagnosis of anxiety or ADHD or ASD. It doesn't work like that (nor should it).


OP - what would an IEP look like for a kid who tests well and does well in school?

I am also so worried that we ruined DD during covid lockdowns. She does not do well with change/unfamiliar schedules and during covid we had just had a new baby, ripped her out of her daycare and then started her in virtual kindergarten. I had very severe PPD during this time that was untreated (due to covid policies) and probably was the worst parent ever during this time. Lots of yelling, screaming, disregulated household, etc. I got treated for my PPD, my youngest started sleeping through the night and it got better but I am so worried that during this time we truly ruined DD and this is all stemming from that period of time.


While most of us parents have wondered whether we "ruined" our children at times, the household environment you described is highly unlikely to be the cause of whatever is going on now. The pandemic was already close to 3 years ago. Maybe the stress caused some of the underlying issues that were already there to surface, but based on what you described, it's unlikely that the household environment for a finite period of time "caused" this.

Just get the neuro psych exam. Better to have answers than trying to figure it out on your own. My DD was diagnosed with ADHD at age 7. She shares a lot of the same traits you describe with your DD: inflexibility, emotional outbursts, losing track of time/difficulty staying on task (especially when we are trying to leave the house), wanting things to be just so--esp with her hair. She was also have difficulty regulating her emotions at school but she's a good student overall. I thought she had anxiety but when we finally had her tested, she was diagnosed with ADHD which took me by surprise. I didn't realize how much emotional dysregulation is a core feature of ADHD.

All of this to say, just have her tested. If this was any other medical issue, of course you'd WANT the test to understand what is going on and how to treat it. It's the same here.


… emotional dysregulation can be a symptom of a lot of things, including, yes, instability at home and a dysfunctional parenting style. (also OP says no academic issues so ADHD is unlikely.) a neuropsych will take months/years to access. OP doesn’t have time for that and needs to find parenting support.


Of course you can have ADHD without any resulting academic issues. That can be one of the symptoms, but isn't always. There are lot of kids--especially girls--who are good students but have ADHD nonetheless. Second, you can get a test done within a few months. I know because I did it last year. OP should certainly try to find parenting support in the meantime, but why not pursue all possible avenues to get answers?
Anonymous
Post 09/09/2024 13:35     Subject: Re:This isn't normal is it?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Op here - the reason our therapist hasn’t indicated it was ADHD is that DD has no trouble concentrating. She does great and school, comes home and immediately does her homework, has never once not studied for a test, is very organized. Not sure if that is just masking a problem or not.

Will look into the SPACE therapy.


I think you are looking for problems where there aren’t any.
It sounds like you have a very high functioning kid whose outbursts don’t really affect her life significantly in any way (doesn’t have them at school or around friends), and you already have her in therapy.





13:25 here. I think people can be outwardly hugh functioning and inwardly an anxious mess. The motivation that gets her to be high functioning in those ways may be fear of failure, just like the fear of failure w.r.t. to hee hair.

It's just coming out differently because even hard schoolwork at age 9 can usually be made easy by following a formula if sitting down and practicing enough (even if more than mom and sister had to). But her hair is not cooperating with her best efforts like the schoolwork does.
Anonymous
Post 09/09/2024 13:31     Subject: This isn't normal is it?
You are getting advice kind of all over the place here because this is anonymous and the internet. Do you have any friends who know your DD and have been through this and would be honest with you about their own experiences? The best thing I ever did to get to the bottom of stuff going on with my DS is talk to friends who had some specialized knowledge.

The incident you describe honestly does not seem that abnormal to me, but the way you are talking about this makes it clear that this was more than just a one off.
Anonymous
Post 09/09/2024 13:28     Subject: Re:This isn't normal is it?
Anonymous wrote:Op here - the reason our therapist hasn’t indicated it was ADHD is that DD has no trouble concentrating. She does great and school, comes home and immediately does her homework, has never once not studied for a test, is very organized. Not sure if that is just masking a problem or not.

Will look into the SPACE therapy.


I think you are looking for problems where there aren’t any.
It sounds like you have a very high functioning kid whose outbursts don’t really affect her life significantly in any way (doesn’t have them at school or around friends), and you already have her in therapy.



Anonymous
Post 09/09/2024 13:25     Subject: Re:This isn't normal is it?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Op here - the reason our therapist hasn’t indicated it was ADHD is that DD has no trouble concentrating. She does great and school, comes home and immediately does her homework, has never once not studied for a test, is very organized. Not sure if that is just masking a problem or not.

Will look into the SPACE therapy.


Is she intelligent? School may just be easy - ADHD will show up more as school gets harder. When you can do your homework easily you don’t need to command much of your executive function. Then later, you hit high school and have no study skills.


Yes, also school is providing the structure. Probably something "bad" and known and relatively immediate happens if she doesn't turn in her homework. She will get a bad grade or get called out by the teacher, plus it might be embarrassing not to be seen as perfect, so she does the homework.

That built in structure and consequence/action-forcing event might be substituting for the executive function skills she's lacking.
Anonymous
Post 09/09/2024 13:21     Subject: Re:This isn't normal is it?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Op here - the reason our therapist hasn’t indicated it was ADHD is that DD has no trouble concentrating. She does great and school, comes home and immediately does her homework, has never once not studied for a test, is very organized. Not sure if that is just masking a problem or not.

Will look into the SPACE therapy.


Is she intelligent? School may just be easy - ADHD will show up more as school gets harder. When you can do your homework easily you don’t need to command much of your executive function. Then later, you hit high school and have no study skills.


OP - yes but she does have to put the work in when she doesn't know something. It doesn't always come easily to her. DD is a copy of my DH. He wasn't always the smartest but he always was the one who studied hardest, worked out hardest, tried the most until he was the best. So he was valedictorian, graduated summa cum laude, top 5 of his law school class, etc.

My other DD reminds me of me - it all just sort of came easy to me. Didn't need to study really at all in high school. Never really studied until I went to college.
Anonymous
Post 09/09/2024 13:16     Subject: This isn't normal is it?
Skip the morning shower. Do it at night.
Anonymous
Post 09/09/2024 13:15     Subject: Re:This isn't normal is it?
Anonymous wrote:Op here - the reason our therapist hasn’t indicated it was ADHD is that DD has no trouble concentrating. She does great and school, comes home and immediately does her homework, has never once not studied for a test, is very organized. Not sure if that is just masking a problem or not.

Will look into the SPACE therapy.


Is she intelligent? School may just be easy - ADHD will show up more as school gets harder. When you can do your homework easily you don’t need to command much of your executive function. Then later, you hit high school and have no study skills.
Anonymous
Post 09/09/2024 13:09     Subject: This isn't normal is it?
Anonymous wrote:DD is 9 and has been in virtual therapy every other week for the past 3 years. She has anxiety and is prone to outbursts when things are not going her way. I have repeatedly asked her pediatrician and therapist if they think she has signs of ADHD, autism, any other neurocognitive disabilities and they all say no. I would like to get a neuropsych evaluations but my DH doesn't think she needs it because her pediatrician and therapist have not recommended it.

Example of her outbursts - she is very slow in the mornings. We need to leave at 7:30am for school. I woke her up at 6:45am this morning and she went into the shower. She didn't get out of the shower until 7:10am and the needed to change and eat. Usually this is fine but this morning her hair "wasn't perfect" and she kept trying to get it smoothed out and getting more and more upset. It culminated with her downstairs yelling that I couldn't get her hair perfect, screaming on the floor, hitting her head and saying she was stupid and an idiot.

I try my hardest not to react but of course I am human as well. I have 2 other kids I need to get up and out the door and I didn't want them to be late for school. I always feel like I am trying to mitigate any possible obstacles in her life so she doesn't have huge emotional breakdowns, which I know isn't the best course of action. I am at a loss as to what to do. She is very well behaved at school, never has this type of reaction, her teachers all tell me she is polite, helpful and does her work. Her test scores are high and her grades are always very good. She is exhausting and makes if difficult for me to parent. I did not want to start my Monday this way and has made the beginning of the week miserable for everyone in the house.


I didn't read all of the responses, so some one else may have mentioned, but this sounds similar to my DS. He was eventually diagnosed with inattentive ADHD. He did not act up in school, and his test scores were largely high, with one weird dip (working memory). Problems emerged in middle school, and he wasn't given any supports until HS. I would do the neuropsych testing, but continue with the therapy, also.
Anonymous
Post 09/09/2024 13:00     Subject: Re:This isn't normal is it?
Op here - the reason our therapist hasn’t indicated it was ADHD is that DD has no trouble concentrating. She does great and school, comes home and immediately does her homework, has never once not studied for a test, is very organized. Not sure if that is just masking a problem or not.

Will look into the SPACE therapy.
Anonymous
Post 09/09/2024 12:59     Subject: This isn't normal is it?
She needs to be doing CBT and not virtually.
Anonymous
Post 09/09/2024 12:56     Subject: This isn't normal is it?
I'm a child therapist. You should look into SPACE therapy. It's parent led and you can do a lot of it yourself. Look into Eli Liebowitz. I would also suggest a neuropsych eval and likely meds. I'm sorry, this is hard.
Anonymous
Post 09/09/2024 12:50     Subject: This isn't normal is it?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Trust your gut on this one. I'd bring her to a psychiatrist for therapy, and also consider the neuropathy test. Girls aren't always identified with ADHD/anxiety/ASD, and this could be it. An IEP will be helpful, even though she is doing really well.

We had to take this on ourselves, since my kid wasn't doing poorly in school. But now, a few years in, we know we did the right thing.

I'm so sorry. This is really hard.


A child doesn't just get an IEP, whether they have a formal diagnosis of anxiety or ADHD or ASD. It doesn't work like that (nor should it).


OP - what would an IEP look like for a kid who tests well and does well in school?

I am also so worried that we ruined DD during covid lockdowns. She does not do well with change/unfamiliar schedules and during covid we had just had a new baby, ripped her out of her daycare and then started her in virtual kindergarten. I had very severe PPD during this time that was untreated (due to covid policies) and probably was the worst parent ever during this time. Lots of yelling, screaming, disregulated household, etc. I got treated for my PPD, my youngest started sleeping through the night and it got better but I am so worried that during this time we truly ruined DD and this is all stemming from that period of time.


I was going to say earlier that the best thing we did for our child with anxiety is to end any yelling in our household, particularly yelling at our anxious child.
There is no way I wouldn’t have been yelling or at least talking in a very irritated voice in the situation you described. You have three kids who need to be out the door in 10 minutes. Your husband is taking his time with his own morning routine, and your daughter is freaking out about her hair. Other kids probably need to get shoes on and make sure their hair is fixed and backpacks are packed. I would have yelled at either my daughter or my husband, and/or maybe one of the other kids if they decided to get in the middle of it or they couldn’t find their shoes or something.

You have to find ways to not set yourself up to fail like this. For us, it meant more screen time at stressful times, pulling kids out of any activities that caused family conflict (ahem:: piano lessons), formalizing something we call “transition zones” getting into and out of the car, and prioritizing our marriage so that DH and I weren’t fighting.

You’ve got to find a way to fix your routines so that you aren’t in this situation. Maybe getting a different hair routine is enough. If I had to, I would go as far as putting my daughter in a private school near DH’s office and having him be in charge of getting her to school and back while you deal with the other kids.

Anonymous
Post 09/09/2024 12:46     Subject: This isn't normal is it?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Trust your gut on this one. I'd bring her to a psychiatrist for therapy, and also consider the neuropathy test. Girls aren't always identified with ADHD/anxiety/ASD, and this could be it. An IEP will be helpful, even though she is doing really well.

We had to take this on ourselves, since my kid wasn't doing poorly in school. But now, a few years in, we know we did the right thing.

I'm so sorry. This is really hard.


A child doesn't just get an IEP, whether they have a formal diagnosis of anxiety or ADHD or ASD. It doesn't work like that (nor should it).


OP - what would an IEP look like for a kid who tests well and does well in school?

I am also so worried that we ruined DD during covid lockdowns. She does not do well with change/unfamiliar schedules and during covid we had just had a new baby, ripped her out of her daycare and then started her in virtual kindergarten. I had very severe PPD during this time that was untreated (due to covid policies) and probably was the worst parent ever during this time. Lots of yelling, screaming, disregulated household, etc. I got treated for my PPD, my youngest started sleeping through the night and it got better but I am so worried that during this time we truly ruined DD and this is all stemming from that period of time.


While most of us parents have wondered whether we "ruined" our children at times, the household environment you described is highly unlikely to be the cause of whatever is going on now. The pandemic was already close to 3 years ago. Maybe the stress caused some of the underlying issues that were already there to surface, but based on what you described, it's unlikely that the household environment for a finite period of time "caused" this.

Just get the neuro psych exam. Better to have answers than trying to figure it out on your own. My DD was diagnosed with ADHD at age 7. She shares a lot of the same traits you describe with your DD: inflexibility, emotional outbursts, losing track of time/difficulty staying on task (especially when we are trying to leave the house), wanting things to be just so--esp with her hair. She was also have difficulty regulating her emotions at school but she's a good student overall. I thought she had anxiety but when we finally had her tested, she was diagnosed with ADHD which took me by surprise. I didn't realize how much emotional dysregulation is a core feature of ADHD.

All of this to say, just have her tested. If this was any other medical issue, of course you'd WANT the test to understand what is going on and how to treat it. It's the same here.


This is great insight/advice. I hope you take it, OP.

Going out on a limb here but I think a lot of men are resistant to some of the testing/evals because they, whether consciously or not, don't like the idea that something is "wrong" with their kid. It sounds like she and your family are really struggling though and knowing the root cause of her issues could really help.