How do I stop feeling disappointed about my DD?

[M3lon]

There is no need to respond to this telling me I'm an arsehole...I know. I would like to stop being an arsehole before it does any damage to my poor child, who certainly deserves better than me for a parent.

The problem is that I'm just constantly disappointed with her progress at basically everything.

I definitely love her....though its taken a while due to PND and depression, to truly understand that. She is now nearly 8 yo.

But I feel disappointed all the time. Obviously I try to hide it - but I'm sure it leaks through.

Both me and DH are musical, sporty and academic and I just don't know how to feel positive about DD who seems to have no aptitude or interest in anything.

So any advice on how to stop being an arsehole would be greatly appreciated.

Goodness, yes, the new routes your children can take you down is such a big part of the fun -- even if I do know more than I ever wanted to about bus seating plans, ukulele strings, army hats, dog breeds and Caryl Churchill.

She sounds so, so autistic. Every single thing you've said here. I'm glad that others have been saying this too.

Please look into it properly for her. My parents didn't know about it and I suffered unnecessarily - but you could help her and understand her so much more.

Look into things that help with autism even without a diagnosis and see if they help (I'm thinking ways of explaining changes in advance, things like dark rooms, sensory items from toys to rocking chairs, weighted blankets, ear defenders).

Just try "being" with her - be gentle and don't over react or under react to stuff.

Mmm. Even if all you come away with is the awareness that there are things you just expected her to 'know' because you know them and are good at them yourself, that's a start.

DS at school-age didn't automatically know that some people teachers, parents... were supposed to be in charge: 'You mean, I'm just supposed to do what they say? But they don't have to do what I say? How is that fair?'

Not really sure why other children do automatically get it, now I think about it.

Lancelottie - yes. DH and I had an embarrassed lightbulb moment when we realised that for years and years we'd been telling DS to 'get a move on' before school which meant nothing to him. He'd be playing guitar or day dreaming, not getting dressed because no one had said get dressed... Years of us being annoyed and him being bemused.

We've had another good chilled out evening and I've had a chance to get DH on board with letting her take her time when she gets absorbed in random things. DH now tells me (better late than never) that whenever he takes her to a museum or art gallery she just stares at one picture for long enough that the guide type people tend to come over and ask if she's okay...she then quizzes them for everything they know about the style/time period/materials used etc. So they maybe get through half a dozen pictures in a two/three hour visit. Me, I'd have walked the whole thing gotten bored and had a coffee within 30 mins!

We did have a little difficulty with violin today because it turns out that my genuine surprised pride in her improvement in her lesson at the weekend had made her worry she couldn't do as well again so she didn't want to play.

But we got through it very quickly because I now understand where she is coming from better and could tell her straight away that doing well one day didn't mean I thought she was going to be on a non-stop trip to international stardom. She does appreciate the hyperbole most days :)

We also just loafed around the garden and she found some amazing beetles to inspect which was great and snuggled in the den under her bed.

I know its going to take time to undo all the historic bad parenting, and it will take us both a long time to rebuild trust, but I do feel the green shoots of recovery all ready.

Thank you all so so much!

Mumsnet at its BEST!

Sounds like things are getting better. My Ds is 14 and is currently being assessed for autism. In the last year we have had to accept and completely change our whole idea of him and his life. Ds is very clever but struggles to cope with school and doesn't want to learn because he is so anxious and unhappy. He is capable of all 8s and 9s and gcses next year but I don't think he will be close. School has not worked for him at all and it's disappointing for us when he has so much potential.

But we are learning to accept that he has difficulties and seeing him so unhappy has put his academic success into perspective. We had hopes and dreams for him when he was little and they are not the same anymore. But I'm just hoping that we can get him to a place that means he will be able to be happy and function in life. Its very different to what I expected for him but its fine too. Our children are their own people and when you have experienced seeing them so broken then the small achievements and little steps forward become something to be really positive about.

Good luck as you go forward.

What a lovely post OP. You do know we all mess up as parents at some point and every single one of us has made a disastrous choice at some point or simply misread our child for months or years on end. All of us. What matters is you noticed and you cared and you changed your approach.

Enjoy beetle hunting and gazing at paintings. It sounds like an idyllic life to me.

What a lovely update, OP. It's hard when you realise your child is not a little mini-me but a complex, different, separate, wonderful being. I have been through exactly the same thing in having to reassess and redefine my expectations, my child will take a different path to me but hopefully be happy, which is all we really want isn't it?
A wise person said to me once, 'Parent the child you have, not the one you think you have'.
Your daughter sounds adorable.

Lovely update OP

You can have breakthrough moments in parenting, like this

For me it happened when DS was around age 8, and struggling at school, struggling socially and emotionally. I went to a Stephen Biddulp talk, he explained how you should not impose your own ideas of "success" onto your child, but instead you should listen to your kid, find their spark, and run with it.

My DS loved anything robotics/electronics, and instead of pushing him into sports he did not like or getting him an English tutor, we let him take the lead.

He took radios apart, modified nerf guns, went to tech camp, and by just letting him be him, and letting him develop his own interests (without becoming over keen or over involved as parents. Step back, step back) he is now a very happy teen who embraces his geekiness/nerdiness and is confident in who he is.

He is so different from DH and I, and he just needed space and quiet support in becoming his own person.

Good luck OP

It's refreshing when children find their own thing, however quirky, as opposed to latching on to parents interests. I am a rock chick through and through but love hearing pop or dnb or rap blaring out of my sons rooms. I know some people would be appalled but to my mind they're showing a bit of independent thought!

I would get her assessed for autism, that could be causing her anxiety.

If she does have it, find a good school that will support her and send her to school. You need a team of people helping a child that is struggling so much at 8.

I wish you and your daughter well.

Can I just say OP that your DD sounds absolutely fantastic - I love her leaflets and her pictures - and you do too, your desire to support her and be the best parent you can and your love for her really does shine out especially in your last posts. If I met you I would love to be your friend and your DD's friend!

DD had spontaneously made a little graph for me this morning...it showed my happiness versus time (I have asked her to plot hers too!) complete with nicely labelled axes and data points with really big error bars.

I was mostly happy to see she thinks I am feeling happier as time goes on this week (I am), but the error bars were just awesome. When I pointed them out she told me 'well its quite difficult to judge exactly how happy someone else is so these show my uncertainty - but the tread is still clear'.

there just wasn't enough in the world to cope with my heart melting. I'm now missing her like crazy at work. I was thinking I might actually take some time off if I can....though I also don't want to push too hard and wreck everything as is my usual MO!

Thank you all also for the info about traits versus diagnosis. I think I am going to see how things are after a month or so of trying to parent in a way that ISN'T practically designed to exacerbate her symptoms and see where we are. She may be much more 'real world functional' than we realise if we can effectively support her rather than compounding issues for her.

If she is still clearly struggling to deal with the world on her own terms at that point then it will be time to have a difficult conversation with DH about how to move forward and get her more support.

I'm sorry that I've not been engaging with the other posters also seeking autism advice - I don't have anything much to offer being obviously very behind the curve on this myself. But I'm really glad to see you are getting some detailed advice too.

Error bars!! Maybe she is more of a chip off the old block than you realise.

And are you really behind the curve? Maybe you just need bigger error bars on that too...

Great. Do you know much about aspergers yourself?

It sounds like you are making great progress.

OP it’s great that you are feeling more positive and taking steps to move forward. I’m another flagging the possible autism from your descriptions. Your comment upthread that she copes so well in lots of situations was interesting- it sounds like she is coping but in a very, very modified environment. ASD presents so differently in girls and this is the time that it can become more apparent to parents and school.

OP, I’m very much a failed perfectionist- nothing I ever do is good enough, and I’m sure much of that came from my mother for whom nothing I did was good enough.

She liked singing, but wasn’t very good at it. I liked singing and the music teacher at school told her I should start lessons when I was 12/13. If you thought things were bad when I wasn’t good enough, you should have seen how bad they were when I was better at something than she was.

I ended up doing a drama degree - she’d always enjoyed being in plays etc and encouraged me to get involved in drama when I was little. She came to my final performance for my degree (for which I got a first) and had nothing positive to say. When my tutors suggested I go on to drama school I said no - I’d never survive the audition process, I have no confidence.

I’m intelligent, so is DH, I did well at school and got a good degree from a top five redbrick university. I hoped I’d be a perfect parent and raise highly intelligent children who’d want to do all the academic things I did as a child.

Except my twins have both been diagnosed with ASD this year and it hit me very hard at first. It felt like an indictment of my parenting. It felt like a failure on my part when they regressed and then made no progress for months on end.

I’ve learnt the hard way that achievements mean fuck all. My son finally wanting to play with a toy or learning to walk down the stairs or say a few sounds and me know what he means are all I have, and they mean the world to me. I don’t know if my children will ever be able to talk, let alone go to mainstream school or university but they are wonderful and only getting more wonderful each day.

I don’t want to kick you when you’re down but I suspect that your attainment focus has been a factor in your child’s anxiety and the sooner you address that, the better.

She’s a true original, isn’t she?

Our DD is at her best when doing something utterly bonkers and entirely ‘her’ - such as doing startlingly vivid impersonations of boiling apple crumble or a rubber hammer with concussion.

She keeps me in a frequent state of giggles during which I try to remember that she also might need nagging to do homework and music practice.

Sorry, for some reason the last couple of pages didn’t load for me

I think you’re awesome for taking all this onboard and trying to find a better way to communicate. You’re doing a great job. Hang in there.

lance yes that occurred to me too - there are, when I think about it, a few areas that she could come and teach my undergraduates a thing or two about!

I realise patchiness of learning is another obvious autism trait - though it definitely a home education trait as well - she'll happily solve a simple simultaneous equation, but utterly refuses to engage with times tables.

She does seem to be a person who knows the things they DO know to a serious depth - at the expense of having even touched on a bunch of stuff that most people take for granted - and that does make her more than a bit like me...just in a totally different way.

I really hope you do seek diagnosis with her, even if the next few months are easier. It's not just about "how can you parent better", it could help her throughout the rest of her life. It's an explanation that can give so much relief, and it lets others make modifications. If you're hoping for her to one day go to a school or university or a job then it could be especially invaluable.

To me, seeing this massively, stark clear thing and then ignoring it would be like knowing your child needs glasses, and ignoring it. (I'm not accusing you of this by the way, just saying that the number of people who "don't like to put labels on things" miss the point of the labels).

It can also take years in some areas, so the earlier you get into the system, the better.

sink I'm really sorry to hear you had that experience growing up. I shall certainly do everything I can to follow your example in appreciating your children for who they are.

I think I'm really beginning to see the curse of 'reaching your potential' for what it is.

I feel like there is an arbitrariness about which factors in our individual make up we see as intrinsic and imposed. I feel we see intelligence as something that defines us, while emotional strengths/weakness are limiters to us achieving what we were somehow 'meant' to.

You hear a lot of people say that they had the intelligence/talent to be world beaters, but their mental health limited them. You almost never hear someone say that they had the mental resilience to be a world beater but their lack of talent/intelligence prevented them from reaching their full potential.

The point if I have one, is that I am determined not to view any element of who I or my daughter is, as something that is blocking me or her from achieving our full potential. We need to see ourselves as whole people. From this day forward I will not wish myself or my daughter away like that.

just I think that's a good point about the trap of not labelling.

It does still feel different to me, as glasses can correct the identified problem. To not use them because you don't want the label is not rational.

It isn't clear to me (yet - I'm certainly prepared to change my mind on this) what equivalent advantage a diagnosis in the autism spectrum might bring. Understanding and acceptance that DD thinks differently, perceives the world differently and struggles to handle things that seem easy to me is of course massively important. This thread has made me very very aware of how I have been failing in that area. I and DH need to make that adjustment immediately and wholeheartedly - but a diagnosis will not necessarily help us to do that.

Where DD's issues align with autism traits we can and have already begun to use those resources as a source of ideas for adjustments to her environment and the way we interact with her - and of course the adjustments people have recommended from there own experiences on here - for which I am incredibly grateful.

Are there things I'm missing that a formal diagnosis process would provide?