Feeling So Low...

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Me and both my children have AS. We're all awaiting our assessments (which was at my instigation). My youngest, who is seven, has had a long period of very difficult behaviour, meaning she has lots of meltdowns, rants, ODD behaviour etc. Recently, our neighbours must have either had enough of hearing her screaming or maybe even thought something was wrong, either way, they reported the screaming to social services. We had a visit, very stressful but all seems OK. I am a worrier, and asked someone else in the local home educating community who is a social worker in another area for advice for the future if neighbours complain again.

I have just spoken to him on the phone, and I feel even worse than before. I told him I couldn't live with the stress of every time my daughter screams that the neighbours will call SS and we will get another visit. He said that could well happen. He also told me that they might possibly consider someone like me who is articulate to be a 'clever' person who is able to 'hide things' from them. I feel so low. I'm such an honest person, who loves my children dearly and does my best by them, there are no child protection issues in my family, and I feel as if I am now under unfair suspicion that I can never get rid of. I feel that I am now living under a shadow, always scared that if my daughter screams neighbours will call them and we will get them coming round. I feel as if my name has been tarnished, I've never been in trouble with the law, in typical Aspie style I believe in justice, and I take things seriously and this all seems so stressful and serious. I don't know how I will stop worrying about it (I do suffer with anxiety).

So now I feel trapped in the situation, I can't stop my daughter screaming, we have no immediate options to move elsewhere away from complaining neighbours. These neighbours, if it was them who called, are not friendly people and always park illegally on the corner of our driveway deliberately (they may have phoned maliciously), they are not approachable, and anyway I don't want to explain my private business to them, so talking to them to say our daughter is awaiting assessment for a condition and she has behavioural problems is not something I feel comfortable going round to speak to them about.

So I am left feeling stressed, sad and desolate for the future, my life feels awful right now.

For what it's worth, I work for a social services agency and have seen some horrific living conditions, not to mention experiencing a fair amount of pretty bad stuff myself when growing up, so, personally, it takes a lot for me to try to get protective services involved with a household. By 'a lot,' I mean clear signs of abuse or neglect, not a child with Asperger's who is prone to meltdowns, due to different neurological wiring.

Does your daughter have an awareness of the situation (I mean, did she understand the reason for the visit from CPS and the worst-case-scenario consequences) and the ability to express her anger and frustration in other ways? I'm just asking because I'm hoping that working with her to find other outlets, other than screaming, might be a possibility. Even if it's just punching pillows or something.

This describes my thoughts well...art healed me when I was going through tough times.

SS came to our house, which is clean and normal, I could have refused them entry but I didn't, because we have nothing to hide. The children are well loved and cared for, which they saw. They are duty bound to investigate when screaming is heard, which I understand. I home educate, and my educational provision is meticulously recorded and documented with the local authority and is approved, but the social worker still made negative assumptions about the home education without having asked any questions about it or seen any of their work (they are both intelligent and work above their age). it's the whole assumptions and suspicion that's awful to deal with and is making me stressed and down. I talked about my daughter's meltdowns from the beginning, and after about three quarters of the time into the visit, she actually asked me what a meltdown was. She had no knowledge or understanding about AS and how it affects children (or adults).

My daughter is 7, and she did understand the reason for the visit. She probably doesn't understand that it's a serious matter to the level an adult would. She still maintains she can't help her behaviour (to the point she gets upset about it). For instance, a couple of days ago she had a disagreement with her sister over something, and her sister refused to show her something and my daughter started screaming at full lung "no! no! no!". She screams many such things out which could be misinterpreted by neighbours, she overreacts all the time and whilst she is very eloquent, she has a way with words that could cause misunderstandings. For instance, one time we were at a children's play centre, she had a bad meltdown and I decided to take her out to the car because of the furore it caused to other users of the centre. She screamed out things like "help, save me!" and "you're taking me!" all the way to the car. Can you imagine what that sounded and looked like to strangers, as if I was abducting a child. She seems to have no regard for consequences and what meanings people could infer from things. She has also always had a problem with lying, which I have read Tony Attwood speak about in AS children. I have explained to her that she could easily give neighbours the wrong impression, but you know what AS is like, meltdowns are not centred in logic or even reality, she loses all awareness of anything except her meltdown.

As the social workers were leaving, my daughter even started ranting from the stairway because I didn't answer her instantly, so they witnessed what she can be like.

I will ask her if she wants to take out her frustrations on something like a pillow etc., as she's now reached the stage of threatening to throw things at me. I don't think this will stop her screaming though, as it's such an instant reaction to whatever she doesn't like/agree with etc.