To medicate or not to medicate?

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I feel like a terrible parent. Yesterday I think I was the one to have the melt down.

I have a 4-year-old daughter, dx on two separate occasions with autism. She's bull-headed and suffers with anxiety. I've been looking at Bach Flowers Rescue Remedy and also L-Carnosine to help with the anxiety, but I'm not sure it's working.

Our daughter isn't responding well to positive reinforcement. Granted, I did manage to get her to start peeing on the potty using bribery for rewards (shopkins). She still poops in a diaper. And I know and acknowledge it can take some AS kids longer to get there than other kids. I really understand that. She doesn't respond to negative reinforcement either - that makes the anxiety worse. So, it's kind of tricky to figure out.

Food is a nightmare. Before she has even tried something, she says I don't like it. Or she says I don't want chocolate pudding (because that might be something offered if she eats her dinner). It becomes a total tantrum and crosses into a meltdown. Sometimes if I take long enough, I can get her to eat. Other times there are only about 3 things she will eat. She probably has a magnesium deficiency due to the lack of fresh produce. She will turn down food she likes, perhaps because we want her to eat. I honestly have no clue.

Trying to get her to tidy up is difficult. You have to keep trying to focus her and then it becomes really ridiculous.

The teacher at her preschool has brought up the concept of medication to us again recently to help with the roller coaster of emotion that is our bundle of joy. Now, I like her teacher. Her teacher actually has a special needs kid. I can't recall what specifically was her child's difference, but I do respect her and our daughter loves her and will talk about her outside of school.

Yesterday I was at work in the morning and phoned hubby and said I think she needs to see a psychiatrist and I burst into tears (I should have said her developmental pediatrician, but didn't really know that was the term). I said we can't do this alone. He texted me to tell me Grandma was coming in for the weekend and that's when I just about lost it. I didn't want to put on a brave face for my few days off. And I told him so. He then said Grandma was taking our daughter for a few days. Honestly, I didn't want this either. I love my daughter with all my heart and I don't want her being sent away. I missed her as soon as I got home from work yesterday. Just because she's difficult, doesn't mean I want her to be elsewhere! She's a delight, even with all her idiosyncrasies. She's my flesh and blood. I love her to bits.

It's hard to quantify everything about our daughter in text. You have to see it. Sometimes she appears almost like a regular kid, but the tiniest thing can set her off. She's learning to read and I think she's doing well. I think in a way she's teaching herself with some help from us. My brother was a different kid. He wasn't diagnosed with anything specific, but we suspect brain damage occurred at birth and caused problems for his thinking processes as he got older. Mum didn't medicate because the only thing available back then was stuff like Ritalin. He went to prison several times for stupid things. Is a benevolent individual who just has trouble thinking things through. Life was hard for him. I've been on medication for years for epilepsy and much of the meds were 'zombie' drugs until I found something else that actually stopped my seizures, but it screwed up a good chunk of my formative years because I was always waiting for my brain to go haywire. I almost became an alcoholic as a teen. So, I come from an angle of knowing how some drugs make people feel and knowing when someone might have benefited from meds.

Maybe I'm the one that needs to see a shrink. I'm just scared that if we medicate, we screw her up. If we don't medicate her we screw her up.

Anyone else been in this situation? I want my daughter to grow up a happy and as-well-adjusted-as-possible woman. Our parenting obviously sucks. And I don't know what to do to NOT screw up my child.

Your daughter sounds a lot like my daughter at that age. Flash forward to 10 and she has seriously changed. In a positive way. She is still stubborn and is still a picky eater, but she mainstreamed in school (this year no supports...next year she will go to middle school, so we will likely add them in again) and she is well-adjusted. She is not a "regular kid" though she does pass for one as long as she is not overstimulated and is compensating well. When she loses it, she loses it. But if you ask her if she is happy and if she has a good life, she says yes.

I tell you all of this so that you do not lose hope.

She has never been medicated, though I don't know if she will stay unmedicated. She has EF issues very similar to her brother's ADD and she has...well, I don't know if it is more like anxiety or more like OCD. But I am going to hold off until she says she can't handle it anymore.

My son was medicated at 7. I was staunchly against medicating children at the time (and still think many are unnecessarily medicated and I am not "for" medicating children), but he was in such a state that I finally realized my ideology was potentially preventing him from functioning. So, I opened my mind and looked in to him starting meds for ADHD. He was very hyperactive back then and impulsive and intrusive...he was starting to think he was a "bad boy" because he routinely did things that he knew he wasn't supposed to do, but he couldn't stop himself. He was miserable. It was so heartbreaking. He consented to medication to the degree that a 7 year old can. He is no longer medicated, but again, I don't know if that will last. He is 14 now and it is 100% his decision.

It's not an easy decision, but I think one thing to take into consideration is that if you are going to medicate a kid, it should be to make his/her life easier/better, not necessarily your own (or her teacher's). I am sorry if I am overstepping a boundary by saying that. But it is how I feel and having 1 kid who we chose to medicate and one who we didn't, I feel that you might find our story informative. My son was suffering. My daughter was not. Both of them were very difficult as toddlers, probably up through early elementary. Now they are late elementary and early high school and things are much easier. Part of it is probably because I am not new to parenting atypical kids, part of it is because they have matured and part of it is that we have figured out what works for us.

To be honest, I would never choose to go back to the toddler years. They were harsh. Sure, there were some things that were really awesome, like watching them learn to do things and enjoying them when things were going well. But the hard parts were hard. And exhausting.

Whatever you decide, please try to remember that this is only one phase in her life. She will develop. You will develop. Things will change. Try not to make decisions from a place of desperation, but from a place of advocacy.

And none of it makes you a terrible parent. It's hard. And we aren't perfect.

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I replied on your other question thread, but wanted to add this about the potty. Yay, for her being partly potty-trained anyway! Mine was almost 5, but once she got it, it stuck. I thought she never would be - for REAL...I thought I was the worst Mom in the world...of course at the time I had not idea she was on the spectrum.

I tried many, many things and types of potty's...I really think, 1. either she was just developmentally ready for her to be toilet trained or 2. she LOVED the musical potty...I really think both. The reward of the music playing when she went seemed to really interest her and make her want to go on it more than anything I'd tried before. Don't know if it would work for yours, but just an idea.
And don't beat yourself up too bad...At least you have a diagnosis, so you can find the tools to work with your daughter. It might not always be easy, but at least you have a starting point. Try to enjoy her, too, as well as working with her, as those years go by so,so fast.
And you're not a bad mom or else you wouldn't be searching for help for her!

Of course I don't know what is going on at her school or the teacher situation, but could it be the teacher is not a good fit for her??
It happens...if you can, observe a class a couple of times or be a "helper" if they'd let you and maybe get a feel of how the teacher deals with her, how patient she really is, etc...I would sure do that before any meds were considered, etc...definitely don't medicate for the teacher...She seems awfully young for meds. I'm not judging you if you have to if things are really that bad, but I would exhaust all possibilities before I would at that age...even changing schools or someone being home with her more if possible, whatever you need to do. I don't think my daughter would have coped very well with an all day structured school at that age at all...maybe if you both have to work, even a home based babysitter that is patient might be easier on her than the "busyness" of a school...at least a couple days a week....Anyway, just some thoughts...
And don't let grandparents make you feel bad...I have before...And I will say that you know your child the best and are probably the best judge of what she needs...It's ok to trust yourself!!...I have listened to others before with advice, but they didn't and don't KNOW her the way I do...It's easy for outsiders, even grandparents, to think they have all the answers, when they really don't.