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I was where you are last year with my DD. She is also 11, a DYS. I was very, very concerned about her, as she hated school and she has always been SUPER-intense. We feared we were going to have a 10-year-old drop out. It was BAD. I love her dearly, but she is fiercely independent and not easy to parent.

We were lucky - she had a natural change in schools and the switch has been amazing for her. She happens to be in more challenging classes (including some acceleration, adding increased EF challenges, but not overwhelming to her), but with an even bigger school, she has met even more kids like her - we are lucky to live in a community where she is able to find so many peers...she does not "click" with everyone. Her friends? Quirky. SMART, creative - and it seems like this year she is just so much happier. She kept her old friends and made some great new ones. Breathing a sigh of relief and hoping something like this can happen for your DD. It is hard. I understand your concern. (((Hugs))) and we are here for you.

@Loy58 - You have no idea of how happy reading the above post made me :-)

greenlotus, I don't have much advice and also don't want to ask anything here that's private for you and your dd. Some of what you wrote echos things we've experienced with one of our children, who's been through some trauma when she was extremely young. The need for perfectionism, need for others to follow "rules", seeming lack of empathy etc. I don't have any idea if any of that might apply to your dd, but only mention it in light of - those are big things to deal with, and they are also things that are somewhat easy for a high-ability child to somewhat cope with without help from others, so they can build up a world that where they feel like they are coping, yet it relies on a lot of things going one way and doesn't allow for much to flex, and when the world naturally doesn't align perfectly with that structure that makes a child feel secure - I hope that makes sense!

The second reason I mention it is just that things got a lot more emotional and difficult to deal with going through early puberty.

Sorry I don't have any specific advice about how to deal with things, I think you're already doing a wonderful job of trying to help your dd and trying to understand her. Hang in there!

polarbear

I can totally understand this sentiment. At least for me, some of it is a sense of keen injustice - why do they get away with this and ruin it for rest of us? And for me, it made it harder for me to focus on what I considered important or collect my own thoughts on the subject.

is it possible that for her, she feels like that the dog's mistakes is a reflection of her failures, rather than the dog itself is not is not cooperating at that time?



Oddly, some of these things you say sort of reminds me of me - and I remember my mother used to lecture me that everything did not have to be so black and white or so absolute. I was extremely literal and extremely rigid (I still have some of that, but managed to learn to see more grey and gotten less rigid over time - or as a friend said a while ago, I have mellowed out some).

I would be curious as to how your DD would view things like "honor code" and stories such as the knights of King Arthur - and whether she would be sympathetic based for instance on grownups vs kids etc. Because I am pretty sure my mother would have said some similar things about me. I can remember having a protective streak towards younger kids and fighting back when some kids tried to bully me or my friend(s) on the middle school bus (which freaked the bullies out) and yet I definitely recall having a lack of concern over bigger/older kids or grownups - basically, I could not believe that they would actually feel pain or hurt like me because they were invincible in my mind and I attributed a level of stoicism to grownups that I know now is unrealistic. I am wondering if there is any similarity there... if she is more absolute than you, there could be some differences in your perspective vs hers.

(I remember my mother saying that she was so worried about how rigid and absolute I was as a child, and how hard it was for her to understand my way of thinking - due to the challenges I had, she was well aware that it has influences on me that she could not understand but she still had many frustrating moments because in some ways, our personalities were so different and our reactions to same things were basically opposite.)

We went to see a psychiatrist to talk about his anxious personality. We didn't think he'd end up being diagnosed with anxiety, and he wasn't. But we really wanted to give him the necessary tools to manage his feelings, emotions and behaviour to avoid having it spin out of control. She proposed working with a child guidance consultant/therapist, and she recommended one. It's been incredibly helpful and I would highly recommend it.

Thanks to all of you! Even if I didn't respond to each and every person, I carefully read all your posts. It's very scary to have one's child say they think the world would be better off without them. She had also checked on the assessment that she had thought about suicide. DH and I had a conversation with her about suicide (with notes from the psych). She said "of course" she had thought about it. And then she goes on to say she had read a couple of books in which a character kills themselves so "philosophically" she had thought about suicide. That's why she answered the assessment the way she did. She didn't plan to do it herself. She is so frustrating!!!!!

I really appreciate the support here.