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.

wood and number thanks for the info. I will definitely get on the case with this now.

lance I honestly don't know about friends. She tends to view anyone she has exchanged names with as a friend. She counts all the people she goes to home ed meets with as close friends she would invite to her birthday, and she has a 'best friend'. My worry is that I'm not sure how many of these people would consider HER to be a friend, close friend or best friend.

They are also a group that is dominated with children who are not in school because of SEN, emotional issues or bullying. They are not perhaps the most socially typical group collectively. I realised the other day that she also thinks of all the adults in the home ed as her friends too. She stopped the mother of one of the other home ed kids for a general chit chat, even though the child was off in a music lesson at the time.

I honestly don't know how much of what I perceive as oddness in her friendship structure is a result of my preconceptions, the strangeness of the group and the situation or her approach to things.

I am, as this thread makes painfully clear, not the smartest when it comes to emotions and social interactions myself. I didn't have friends until secondary school and some of them were more enemies I kept closer than actual friends. I'm not sure I have friends now tbh. I have people who I am friendly with, who I'd help move house if they asked, and who would help me...but we don't ever socialize as such.

Autism presents very differently in girls and women, so don't go by general articles on autism (which mostly only discuss male presentation), do look at female presentations.

Samantha Craft This is [not a diagnostic, it is] meant as a springboard for discussion and more awareness into the female experience with autism
everydayaspie.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/females-with-aspergers-syndrome-checklist-by-samantha-craft/

Lorna Wing and Judith Gould, pioneered research into girls and women with ASD network.autism.org.uk/knowledge/insight-opinion/interview-dr-judith-gould-women-and-girls

There are also quite a few youtube channels by women with ASD.

Your DD sounds like she is very high in trait neuroticism. It may be something worth reading up on to inform your parenting.

M3 my 9 year old grandson had an ASD diagnosis aged 6. He hates going to school, and has epic meltdowns, but is fine once he is there. It seems to be more the thought of going that worries him, but once he is there he just gets on with things. Having a set routine does take a lot of the pressure off. He is certainly Mr Rules And Regulations. The only times he has been in trouble at school have stemmed from his perception that someone has been unjust to him or a friend. The school has given him much-needed anger management training!

He is painfully aware that his mum is upset by his meltdowns. He loves her very much but a lot of the time he can't help it, it is panic really. It certainly is not easy for anyone in the family. BUT he has made such progress being in mainstream school. It is so important to learn social skills, and it takes some longer than others.

Not saying your daughter is on the autistic spectrum, of course, but just a vote for mixing with other kids.

most items in the various checklists are normal for someone somewhere

Well, autism IS normal for those of us who are autistic.

So:
She is socially out of kilter - doesn't read situations automatically, doesn't 'know' whether adults or children are her intended peers
Hates white lies
Is sensitive to fabric, noise, smell and colour
Likes things to be consistent
Is anxious to the point that it stops her being at school
Avoids pressure by stopping activities
Attends to fine details
Is hard to refocus away from her own interests
Needs extra processing time (I'm guessing this from your 'trying to rush her)

That's all sounding pretty strong argument for an assessment to me.

Betcha they say 'spiky profile', which seems to mean 'good at some stuff and not at others'!

The fact that she IS open to trying new things is great, and to her (and your) credit.

Be warned that many of us as parents have sat in ASD assessments thinking, 'But that's normal, isn't it? I mean, I feel like that/do that/was like that as a child' and slowly realise things about ourselves that hadn't necessarily struck us previously...

My son was behind academically and in other ways for 21 years, I realised that not everyone has to conform to the standards and was convinced he would be ok in his own time.
He was, he is now a professional and very successful artist.
The biggest damage you can do to a child is to destroy their self esteem and if you do that they will definitely amount to nothing. They know if you are disapointed in them even if you try and hide it.
My own life was absolutely blighted by being crushed as a child and I feel I could have achieved anything with a bit of encouragement.
Try and encourage and praise everything and she will find her niche - she is only 8 for goodness sake.
With confidence a child can do anything but in their own time.
The important thing is that they are happy and confident in life even if they are not gifted particularly.

lance I hear you....I am just still at little stuck at how well she does cope in most ways...I feel like they'll turn me away for time wasting.

The normal for someone somewhere thing...I know an NT person who can't wear certain fabrics...I know another who has a phobia of buttons. I know a load of people suffering all varieties of anxiety and social phobias.

I guess the thing is at what point does one individual having all these traits mean that it becomes a diagnosis...

On the flip side this is hugely under diagnosed...so many of the people I know and am putting in the NT box may not actually be there. I work in a physics department so there are a lot of people populating the grey areas.

Gah. I can ask the question right? I can certainly find out more.

You need to go to parenting classes - in the UK councils offer them for free. Has it ever occurred to you she does not try at things as she is worried she is going to fail and disappoint you? Its very demotivating worrying you are going to disappoint someone - better not to try then try and fail in many people's minds.

Just read this full thread and found it fascinating and also a bit of a drip feed OP! Your initial post sounded fairly brutal and I think a lot of posters are still reading only that first post and then replying.

In the follow up posts you come across as a much more loving and observant parent (although often sounding fairly detached) and it certainly sounds like your DD has more issues going on with her than the natural anxiety that might arise from having a disappointed parent with high expectations.

In particular your description of her as a baby (I would agree with lancelottie that she could have rolled out of an autism textbook) and of her struggling with 'breaking the rules' at music class (in fact pretty much all the updates!) make me think she has more going on than just anxiety. (She also sounds adorable.)

I don't feel I have a lot to add, but wanted to say that I once read someone with adult children say that physical contact is a gift. That stuck with me. Sometimes I feel like a rubbish mum, but I nearly always can hug, cuddle and kiss my children and it makes me happy to know that that physical affection is all building positively into their psyches.

For your DD, giving physical affection and spending time in her company, not necessarily doing anything really significant (maybe just doing puzzles or colouring in whilst listening to an audiobook) shows that you value her and the fact that you have chosen to spend time with her with build her self worth.

I hope things get easier for you

You're absolutely right, many people have traits, but those traits don't affect their daily lives to any significant degree. Those traits don't stop them doing what most other people do, or they find an acceptable work-around.

I guess the thing is at what point does one individual having all these traits mean that it becomes a diagnosis

NAS www.autism.org.uk/about/diagnosis/children.aspx
"in order for a diagnosis to be made, a person will usually be assessed as having had persistent difficulties with social communication and social interaction and restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviours, activities or interests since early childhood, to the extent that these "limit and impair everyday functioning".

If your daughter does have ASD, she was born with it and will always have it, if she only has traits then she won't be given a diagnosis, although to give a fair assessment it should be done by people who have experience of autism in girls and women.

Your DD sounds a lot like my DSD who has just been diagnosed with autism. It might be worth looking into.

I often wonder if we value children on what they experience, eg mostly at school or through hobbies you've signed them up to. My ds loves beavers, went to a beavers activity day, tried archery and was actually quite good at it, I was a bit surprised but pleased that whilst he probably isn't the strongest footballer, he does show altitude for other sports and I now see my role as finding opportunities for him and finding things he loves to do. Maybe try some les traditional activities?

Following along on this thread, learning lots - thank you to you all posting such valuable insights.
So, if my dd does get a diagnosis, what happens then? Do you just read up about it, or do the people that do the diagnosing offer help/support too?
I'm still on the fence about whether to go down this route for my dd. I can see on the one hand that if she is diagnosed, then it would help her to know that she is not struggling because she is stupid /insert whatever word is appropriate here, but because her brain works differently. On the other hand, I'm not convinced having a label, won't just make her opt out of trying, so she can use it as an excuse.

redcaryellow, not sure if this is the best advice for a mum who admits that she can't see her dd engaging in any activity without immediately stressing about how good she is

carting her dd round to more and more activities in the hope of finding the one that she is strong at is just going to reinforce that behaviour which the OP herself admits is already causing problems in their relationship

it will also reinforce the dd's idea (which she is already voicing) that she isn't good enough and that it is desperately important to find something she can excel at

the OP needs to find a way of not thinking along these lines- and to her credit she is very open to that

When you say you’re worried they’ll think you’re a time waster as ‘she copes so well’, please understand that may be her masking so well. With regards to your husband wanting to protect her, I agree with PP your instincts seem more tuned in to me- wanting to understand more and get appropriate help. Childhood and adolescence shape the adults we become: how will she deal with conflict, other people, change in routine, difficult situations at university or a job if she hasn’t been given opportunities to develop resilience and learned to manage her emotions while she is growing up?

My mum wanted to protect me from any diagnosis growing up, while I can understand the reasoning what it essentially meant was that I thought I was wrong to experience intense emotions, that it was something faulty with me. It also meant that I was never taught how to understand and manage my emotions or interpersonal effectiveness until I was an adult. It’s all good now, but I just really think you need to imagine your daughter as a young adult too and consider what the impact of firstly, not having a Ed-psych or child-psych evaluation to help you support her and to help her understand herself and secondly, whether being away from her peer group most of the time is doing her any favours. Long walks in country and a bit of maths sounds lovely but I just keep imagining a young woman starting university or her first job and being so unused to being around other people for entire days and having to deal with all sorts of interactions for the first time.

yes a lot of autistic traits are not a problem all by themselves in the absence of a larger picture. You need to cross a certain threshold of them for it to be a clear diagnosis, and it can be tricky with girls, because often they are less challenging to manage and better at masking. Im autistic. Got diagnosed last year. To some people who know me superfically, this would probably be a surprise, and some of the things that actually disable me to a fair old extent can be seen to some extent in neurotypical people too. This is because we are not a different species.

I wonder if your DH is also in denial to a certain extent. As long as he keeps your DD in her comfort zone then everything feels normal and he can ignore the elephant in the room which is that your DD is not able to function well outside that comfort zone.

She also athropomorphizes everything. I remember us getting her a couple of boxes for her pens when she was about 3 and she immediately named them, worked out what each would prefer to eat, then went about creating a whole list of treatable and untreatable diseases they may suffer from and how to avoid them.

Hah! I wish she was my daughter. I adore all this sort of thing. I could spend hours talking make-believe nonsense-logic like this. She could be a writer with an imagination like that. And her leaflet collection...it could be Aspergic, or it could just be a child with a passion for lots of obscure things in the world, who's still young enough and not yet boxed-in enough to think she's only allowed to have quirks and passions that have been pre-approved by society.

I love the idea of naming pens and coming up with diseases! Did you say she also was thinking about how animals breathe or what they eat? She sounds lovely and quirky and imaginative in her own interesting world.

If you want a fun silly activity that plays to those quirks do what I do and make inanimate objects talk, especially pets. My cat's a high pitched cockney who always asks if there is ham whatever the question. I carry out whole conversations, mainly to please myself but it makes my boys laugh and they like joining in even though they're not hugely creative-play types.

I don't know if she's your only child - sometimes only children are a bit more mature in general about their interactions with adults, talking to them as peers.

If she's really not reading situations or people"correctly" that can be a sign of ASD, / not being able to put herself in other people's position and think about how they might feel and what they might think about what she's doing.

But as others say you can have these traits and be without a diagnosis or have other traits and have one - it's a complex picture but one you're starting to piece together and it's about this age I think some of these quirks become more marked.

But as others say you can have these traits and be without a diagnosis or have other traits and have one

It's not quite as clear-cut as that, it's not a collection of individual autistic-only traits per se, it's the strength of the presentation of the traits and the amount of impact the traits and other behaviours have on someone's daily living.

Unfortunately, because some people see traits in themselves, friends and family, despite those traits not having a significant negative impact on their daily living, it leads people to say things like we're all on the spectrum somewhere which is absolutely untrue. the-art-of-autism.com/understanding-the-spectrum-a-comic-strip-explanation/

Many people trivialise autism by calling it a label when, particularly in children whose presentation isn't immediately obvious, the medical diagnosis of autism is only given after a multi-disciplinary team like Paed, Ed Psych, SLT and Sensory OT have each individually assessed a child and compare their findings. Every person with autism is one person with autism, no two share identical traits and behaviours.

Diagnosis in children tends to happen after parents rule everything else out, it's often the last thing on their minds and their assumptions of what autism actually is are often nowhere near the truth. There is a lot of misinformation circulating about autism, even by people you'd think should know what autism is and support a diagnosis (like some teachers, SENCOs and GPs) who will tell you your child "couldn't possibly be autistic" then they'll present their "reasons" like has really good eye contact, could do anything if only they'd try harder, the child is just shy, needs to be more resilient, needs to listen, needs to join in with others in the playground etc. Many parents are fobbed off by the people who should be supporting them, often for years. Obtaining a diagnosis isn't always as straightforward as people imagine.

I realise this is somewhat off topic but wanted to point out what a great thing this is. So much honesty, so little judgment and lots of help. This is often an amazing place.

Some of the suggestions offered, such as standard parenting classes, may not be appropriate if she is not in fact NT (as a matter of interest, I've rarely heard that used by those with entirely NT families -- so I take it that SEN are not altogether off your radar?).

For instance and this may not apply to your daughter I was told at one point to stop making my son the limited food he would eat and present him with other choices as 'no child would actually starve themselves.'

Oh yes he would.

@M3lon it’s too easy to see our children as extensions of ourselves and to want them to love the things that we love. But once you realise that your daughter is this unique new person, an amazing whole new being, who will evolve while you have the privilege of watching her, then perhaps you can start to see that the exciting parts come when you get to witness the fascinating person she’s growing into. If they were too much like us it would be like reading a book where you knew all the plot. This way you get to see the world through new eyes in how your daughter views it.

To quote a film...

“Do you realize how many events and choices that had to occur since the birth of the universe, leading to the making of you just exactly the way you are?” - Mrs Which