Ok... We went to our appointment with the Triple P psychologist this morning. Before I went I wrote down a few things that were most upsetting to me and what led up to them & how we responded to them. When we got there, he had an assessment to do with us about what was going on, family histories, health issues etc. Then he started asking a few questions about Matilda's behaviour and that was about all. We were in with him for an hour & he had heaps of background info before I even went in, he had histories from infancy and sleep issues and reflux issues and things like that. He also had read everything & had an idea about where we were before we got there (I was shocked). Then he gave us some assesments to do over the next 10 days. Child behaviour assessments, parenting assessments, depression assessments and relationship assessments.

He started to read out the child behaviour one & DH started answering "always" to most of them & after around 8 he said "Just so you know, most parents don't answer always...its usually sometimes. If you are at a place where you answer always to most of the first questions you are in the right place now. You are not imagining your child's behaviour is extreme, you have tried all the techniques you would learn in a Triple P course that are in group settings." There were 25 questions on the assessment and the first 10 described Matilda to a T, others didn't fit which relieved us as well because as he said "one less thing you will have to work on, great." He was happy to have a copy of what was upsetting me most and he said this way when we came back he would have some plans ready for us & the main part of the next session was to observe Matilda, and introduce stressors that we know of like changing a nappy and leaving the door open & trying to get her to listen to us.

While we were there, Matilda was on her best behaviour. She played really well on her own, didn't destroy anything or try to escape at all. I think it helped we took her to the park for 30 minutes first to run & climb.

So we have homework of completeing the assessments, and to go out one night alone together, and to have Matilda fully checked at a GP to make sure something else isn't going on that could cause the behaviour. He does this as a standard because he has had parents come in with 4 year olds with severe hearing deficiencies and no one has caught them before, so he feels it is most important to work with our GP in this. Our GP is the one who told us to do the independant councilling through Triple P so he is aware of her behavioural issues, so hopefully we will get a handle on this.

He told us we have a wonderfully bright girl who is determined. She's not aggressive or destructive to others and she is smart. So it was nice to hear him say she's not bad at all, just strong.