In a dilemma with DD (12) How much freedom to give in these circumstances?..

[margaritaontherocks]

Hi,

I'm really not sure what to do. This will be difficult to explain, so bear with...

DD has mild undiagnosed SN. Her difficulties have mainly been with her social skills and because of this, she has really struggled to make friends. Actually, she never really had any in primary, but since starting high school, she's started to find 'her people' and now seems to have a nice mixture of friends, which is obviously absolutely fantastic! And tbh, not what we were expecting at all, so a very nice surprise.

However, she is still behind in her social development and has recently started asking me for more freedom. I get this- she's 12 and of course she wants to go into town with friends without me looming in the background, but because she's never had the opportunity to do this with friends before, I'm so anxious about it and just don't feel she's mature enough. A real catch 22, as how will she develop those skills unless she gets out there and experiences life with more freedom?

The problem is, she's very naive and is almost desperate to maintain these friendships and sometimes worries me how quick she is to please them.

I tried giving her more independence when she wasn't doing the "norm" with going round to friends houses etc, but she always really struggled to do basic things, like go into the shops with a small list of items to find and pay for. She'd freeze and forget what to do. That said, she does sometimes surprise me with her maturity and resilience.

She gets angry with me sometimes (understandable) and says that all her friends go out on their own and have done for years, which is probably true, but I strongly suspect most of them have grown up together and she's never had this. I always tried to help her keep friendships going when she was little, but they never went anywhere and would often fizzle out after a few weeks.

I know I can't lock her away and I keep her in a bubble, but what do you do when you just don't feel as though they could handle themselves?

Please, can anyone offer any advice on how to handle this and move forward?

Thanks.

My dd has asd, and really struggled with friends so, like you, we didn't want to hold her back, but we were worried they'd take advantage of her trusting nature.

I always insisted on meeting her friends, and having them for sleepovers. I also offered to do the driving so that I could get to know them.

It's been slow, but she's also had to make her own mistakes. She now has a very small group of friends and she mostly seems happy.

What about (as others have mentioned) a shopping centre you can maybe practise with?

At least there's no traffic to worry about and if she gets separated etc she can't go too far? You could stay in a coffee shop or follow discreetly.

Shopping can be a bit overwhelming at times for some people. Having money ready, getting things in and out of purse or bag can be difficult. Also, not leaving bag in toilet, remembering to pay etc.

12 is still very young no matter what and to be honest, I don't allow too much general wandering around anyway!

Advice, it's so hard isn't it? I've picked up in the past, that some mums think I'm just a neurotic, over protective mother, trying to wrap their DC in bubble wrap, but because DD isn't obviously a DC who struggles, I can understand why they'd think that.

trees, we don't have a shopping centre round here and the nearest is about 40 minutes away and she wouldn't be familiar with it at all. Our town is quite small though, so it should be quite good practice.

Yesterday went quite well. The other girls mum was there initially and she was actually quite similar in terms of concern and so it helped not make me feel as paranoid as I usually do. I wasn't expecting to meet her at all actually, because my DD had made out as though this girl was completely independent and could do what she liked, when she liked. Typical 12 year old in that sense

Yeah, It's hard. Emotionally, I'd say my dc is about 2 years below their actual age so that makes it more difficult as their friends don't have that so obviously do have more freedoms.
She's 18 now and is becoming much more mature, although can still be easily led as she wants to please her friends.

When she was 16 she managed to get herself a part time job and that's really helped build her self esteem and confidence in social situations.

I've always gone with the notion that my dc have to earn the trust of having freedoms. They do this by sticking to my ground rules, etc, and if they do that then they get more freedom. If they mess up then their freedom is temporarily curtailed (eg, not keeping in touch when out). It seems to have worked so far.