Selective mutism and horrible behaviour?

[Grizabella]

I live with my sister, her husband, and their daughter. My niece is 8 and is diagnosed with selective mutism. She goes to a counsellor once a week in an effort to lower her anxiety levels, and for a while doctors had her on a prescription of Prozac. She's also in speach therapy, and her doctors hope that being more confident in her speaking abilities will make her more confident for speaking outside our home.

In the past several months, her behaviour is unbelievable. She swears, hits us, calls us names, and once she gets going, it's almost like she cannot stop. And nothing we do works. My sister and her husband aren't bad parents - it's not that they let her do whatever she wants. But it's like nothing gets through to her. We take away toys, ground her, send her to bed early, have a chore chart of stickers for good behaviour with prizes if she gets enough of them...no method of discipline they try works. We've gone on selective mutism parent forums, and it seems that this is characteristic of selective mutism children. But with that consensus, we've also yet to find a single parent with a recommendation of what's worked to adjust their child's behaviour.

It's not the Prozac, her behaviour remains the same whether she's on or off it.

I know my sister is doing her best, but it's becoming so overwhelming. I literally spend as much time out of the house as I can because I can't deal with being around my niece. I'm starting to feel so miserable here. I've considered moving out, but we moved to this condo because when I wanted to move in with them we needed another bedroom, and I know they can't afford the rent here without me. So I'd feel really horrible if I moved on them. But I feel like I'm going crazy.

Are there any parents here with selective mutism children? Or anyone who's had selective mutism in the past? Has anything worked for you in controlling your children?

[FranklinF]

is she doing it for attention? maybe if her parents made a deal with her on saturdays if she has had a good week to take her out all by herself and them (if there are other children sometimes its jealousy) to do something special like go to the library and get in some reading time snuggling with the parent, or to a movie, but she has to understand the bounderies.

and though i am not in the situation i do not agree with putting children on prozac or any other mood stablizing med. has she been in a traumatic experience? what brought all these new actions on? that is also something that needs to be tackled, now i dont know the situation but she is sounding almost like she was sexually or physically abused. how does she act at school?

[iHEAVENn]

My son doesn't have selective mutism.. so I can't offer much help..

Have you tried asking the doctors for ways to help her deal with her anger/cussing?
Then again.. maybe she's doing it because she's tired of all the doctors and medicines?

[Algernon]

My little sister had done some crazy things. Her father had serious ADD or ADHD. He's not around though. She's dropped a dog out of a window, she's killed a pet rabbit. She has issues.

There's nothing you can really do. But I try and treat her like an adult and talk to her. She turned 9 recently. If she can't behave like a child, then I'll treat her like an adult in such a way.

[Grizabella]

is she doing it for attention? maybe if her parents made a deal with her on saturdays if she has had a good week to take her out all by herself and them (if there are other children sometimes its jealousy) to do something special like go to the library and get in some reading time snuggling with the parent, or to a movie, but she has to understand the bounderies.

There's no other children in our family. She's an only child, and as such is very much the centre of attention (not in a bad way - just there's no sibling rivalry)

We have tried a reward system. She has a chore chart, and if she gets enough magnets on it at the end of the week, she gets a prize - the more magnets, the bigger the prize. It doesn't work with her.

and though i am not in the situation i do not agree with putting children on prozac or any other mood stablizing med. has she been in a traumatic experience? what brought all these new actions on? that is also something that needs to be tackled, now i dont know the situation but she is sounding almost like she was sexually or physically abused. how does she act at school?

We don't like it either, but there wasn't anything else we could do. Prozac was completely a last resort. I'm not talking about a slightly shy child - even with intensive therapy, she remains completely silent at school, doesn't move from her seat unless specifically told to by her teacher (so if the teacher tells the whole class to go get their math workbooks, Hailey stays in her seat until the teacher says "Hailey, you should go get yours too"), won't interact with other children, keeps a completely blank facial expression...I really can't describe how saddening and painful it is to watch her. And she's not happy either.

She's never been sexually abused. She's never gone through any type of trauma. She was diagnosed with selective mutism when she was about 2. I guess I didn't explain properly...these aren't new actions. They've gotten much worse in the past couple months, but she's always been like this.

Have you tried asking the doctors for ways to help her deal with her anger/cussing?
Then again.. maybe she's doing it because she's tired of all the doctors and medicines?

I don't go with them to her therapist, but I'm sure my sister's brought it up with them. I guess we can just hope that the counsellor, made aware of the problem, will be able to help.

She also has epilepsy and has to go to BC Children's hospital every so often to get that checked out, and admittedly, she does have a lot of appointments, between neurologists and anxiety therapists and speech therapists. And I can understand how that would be straining on a child, but at the same time...we can't just stop bringing her to the doctors. So I'm not sure what we could do for in her that case.