Question for ASD parents about teens

[Queenofbeebers]

Does your child eat with you or prefer to eat alone?

Dd 16 now eats in her room and apart from school rarely leaves her room. She is high functioning.

I would like to understand if I am being unreasonable by asking her to eat downstairs at least during the week. She has said yes she will do this but doesn’t want to eat around other people.

Any opinions would be great. Thanks

That title should actually be Parents of ASD teens.

My DD (15) is high functioning as well (Aspergers) and eats with us. She's quite a regimented personality and believes food should only be consumed in certain rooms and never in bedrooms.

If your DD is anxious about eating around other people, could you let her eat alone at a slightly different time, and just ask her to join the rest of the family at the table while they eat, and she doesn't have to eat with them?

No mine eats alone. Sometimes downstairs but mostly in her room. She doesn't want to be watched. And after school she's had enough of people.
To be honest we couldn't all eat the same thing anyway so it would be a point of principle and it's more trouble than it's worth.

She doesn’t want to be around other people when they eat either. I’m just worried she is becoming a complete recluse.
I try and get her downstairs to watch a film or do something she enjoys but she isn’t interested.

My DD eats with us but if she is feeling anxious her tolerance is lower so if she is worried about going somewhere she will find her brother is unbearably noisy when she is eating. We generally eat together though as we feel it's important

As an ASD adult, I also have times when i really want to eat alone so I understand the impulse.

We have an open plan downstairs. One of the “compromises” we have worked out is that sometimes one of us will eat at the table, one at the breakfast bar, one on the couch. All with our phones. Yet in this setup, we often end up putting the phones down and chatting. The pressure to talk being gone let’s the conversation flow.

Alone - DS prefers to eat alone in his own time.

There are 3 who prefer it that way and one who prefers company.

My dd is 17 and awaiting assessment. She is exactly the same but eats in the kitchen while we eat in the dining room. She has misophonia and can't stand us eating or drinking near her. She also mainly only leaves her room for college and has no friends 😕. She is happier like this so I don't push her to socialise. It's difficult though

This is so helpful pp's. I thought I was being a crap parent by not insisting that DS eats downstairs.

Mine has misophonia so can only manage eating around others if there are other sounds to drown eating noises out. She also struggles to use cutlery. Everyone sitting round the table can be very stressful and not worth it.

I feel like a crap parent often. DD always on screens, doesn't eat with us, always in her room, doesn't go out.....but she is happiest this way. I'm trying hard to stop blaming myself and just let her be. I do worry for her future though

I don't think this is specific to autistic people. Lots of teens would stay in their rooms to eat if they could. I think the difference is that some parents enforce mealtimes together/downstairs and others don't.

I have an autistic teen and a NT teen. They both eat in their rooms. Often at different times too.

I’ve got two autistic children. We mostly eat dinner in front of the tv which has two good points of watching a show together that we can laugh about at other times and not so pressured eye contact. We do sometimes eat together at the table. My dd particularly is very insular and given half a chance I think she would eat by herself. I think it’s quite important that she manages to eat with others and honestly if she lived life exactly as she’d like I don’t think we’d ever see her at all! Ds is better about eating together but finds it hard at school because as it’s a free flowing thing in the canteen he finds it hard to know when he can get up and leave the table.

The thing is with ASD kids as we all know is they are so drastically different there’s no set rules so you just have to go with what works. Maybe setting up a routine (oh how we love a routine!) where certain days a week she has to eat with you?

The other reason I wouldn’t let dd eat in her room as she’s an absolute pig and won’t even bring down mugs so there’s no way I’m adding food into that petri dish!

What doesn't she like? I think not liking the sound of other people eating is quite common, if that's the case she could perhaps wear headphones or have the tv on. I would expect her to eat downstairs though tbh and find ways to allow her to cope, I have a 15 year old ds with asd and I would not let him eat meals in his room - although he certainly would want to if he thought it was an option I'm sure.

My ds eats all meals alone in his room. We make the food and tell him it's ready and then he comes to get it in his own time.

If we try to insist he comes down immediately then it'll just trigger a meltdown at some point because he's so demand avoidant.

Thanks all. Lock down has certainly not helped the feelings of isolation.
She is back at school last week I came home and she had three very similar friends sitting in the garden. They all got up to leave the minute I arrived. I just called out no please stay where you are and left a box of ice creams out on the table. They all left after about half an hour which was nice and all the ice creams had gone.

I try not to pressurise her but enjoy seeing her socialise particularly with those similar to it makes me exhale a sigh of relief.

Am worried about upcoming college and the change from school. Mostly I just want her to be Ok and happy. I don’t care about anything else.

Dd hated eating around me, or anyone really.
She went through phases of eating in her room, sitting on the chair in the lounge, or sitting at the table.
I had to stay in the kitchen and she had to watch The Big Theory on her laptop whilst eating.
It had to be on the laptop too, not the TV.
I just accepted it, she ate anything I made, wasn't fussy and no issues at all so long as she could do it her way.
She's moved out now and will eat around her boyfriend, or me, and will go out for a meal on occasion but it needs to be her choice.
This sounds so odd typing it out but I got so used to it that it was just normal and didn't bother me at all.

Sorry, should have said, Dd has PDA and is high functioning.
The eating thing started when she was about 12, she's now 19.

She will not go out for dinner, she will however get a takeaway or if I go in the car we can get a Starbucks where she remains in the car. Hoping college and the more fluid system of getting lunch off campus will help with this.

DD 15 hates eating with us, only a few meals that we can all eat, like others she hates coming out if her room, we compromise that she eats twice during the week and Sundays with us, although she does eat and run

My teen was like this.

I insisted attendance at meals - but was open to her using the window to complete her household chores if she didn’t want to eat with us.

Often she would end up fixing her own food while she was there.

Pretty much never actually eats family meal -
but it is still a family event iykwim.

She has said that it was helpful for me to enforce that - otherwise she would forget to eat entirely .

My 14 year old eats with us but our 16yo has always had issues with eating around other people and comes in for his (different) meal after we're all done (and Ds2 has buggered off out of the way!)

@blacktuesday1 I worry about DD's future as well, she is struggling at school finding GSCE's overwhelming to the point that she is burying her head in the sand

It was sort of easier in my house as I'd never been a big table enforcer anyway, there's only ever been the two of us so a family meal to all catch up wasn't needed.
That said, in hindsight the routines she had were a bit odd, but given the rest of the issues they were nothing.
Coincidentally I asked her earlier if she perhaps wanted to get food together on Saturday as we're spending the day together and she's really keen on it.
(Probably because I'm paying and she's desperate to try this Korean takeaway but still!)

@Queenofbeebers

She doesn’t want to be around other people when they eat either. I’m just worried she is becoming a complete recluse. I try and get her downstairs to watch a film or do something she enjoys but she isn’t interested.

That (not coming down for anything much at all) would worry me more than the meal situation specifically. I had a teen with Aspergers who became very depressed at that age, and hardly ever leaving their room was a very obvious sign. It’s not unusual for teens on the autistic spectrum to become depressed.

How long has she been like this? Is she in Yr 11? What are her plans for next year? What does she say about her mood?

I’d be keeping an eye on it, at the very least. It’s a difficult age and your ability to lay down the law is fading as she grows older. Her educational placement and how well that’s going, academically and socially, might make a big difference.