If you are autistic what do you wish your parents had done differently

[Timeforanewname2014]

Just as the title says really ... my daughter has recently been diagnosed and I'm keen to know how I / we can best support her. Thank you

To answer your second question, what they did well- Accepted me for who I am/ was and reinforced at home that being different was something to be celebrated. Special interests were encouraged, and hobbies supported. I had dolls for my birthday till I was around 15 or 16, we visited steam trains every holiday, I was allowed and encouraged to have collections of things that were important to me. I felt listened to, loved and supported. Like a pp there was never any question of me achieving my potential. I did struggle with what I percieved as pressure to succeed and the only thing I would have liked as a kid and teen to be different is to have them praise my mediocre work when that was my best, as much as my perfect work. I also would have appreciated more slack around bedrooms being tidy and being scaffolded with that- instead I was told, not shown, and I didn't "get" the rules for tidyness or organisation. But, autism wasnt even something drs thought that girls could get when I was a very small child, and I was smart, so I managed, mostly, with the support at home, from a family who it turns out had a lot of autistic traits themselves. So yeah, acceptance and not being expected to change who I was, home was a safe space to be yourself. Which all benefitted my neurotypical sibling as well!

Help her find a way to exercise that is autism friendly.

Exercise is hugely regulating for me - yet I did little when younger as I'd been traumatized by team sports and PE, which back then were ritualised humiliation for a young uncoordinated and socially awkward girl. Do they still do that thing in schools where they let the kids pick teams so the autistic child is invariably last?

Things like yoga, swimming and even weight lifting, are hugely regulating for me.

Get me diagnosed - but "we didn't want to label you". Tbf if they had, I would have been put in a special school and not got the education that pushed me to use my intelligence (it's what happened to some boys in primary). On the other hand, considering I was bullied and didn't fit in, a school move would probably have done me good.

Not hit me when I was disagreeing with my dad and digging my heels in. I had no idea how to extricate myself and stop it becoming worse. I still don't know why my dad hit me and we've never talked about it. I think he's just as autistic. Has strong feelings but hasn't learnt how to talk about them, and special interests.

As an adult, I wish my mum would stop bringing up my intelligence and call me "highly gifted". According to her it means I can have some social difficulties, yet somehow this is not autism.

The non-team sports (which is so good for me, now), and feeling that I was an alien/adopted and my real family would find me mentioned by @Gruffling and @InvisibleDuck ring true for me.

I moved to another country.

I wasn't diagnosed until my forties and asd wasn't really a thing when I was growing up.

I was mocked for being different a lot at school and home. I had an eating disorder which I was not supported with. I was also vulnerable to abuse.

I wish my parents/siblings could have accepted me for who I was. That I had been more nurtured and looked out for. That they had let me move school to get away from bullying.

The best thing you can do is accept you child, recognise the difference between negative behaviour and reacting to environment/struggle with regulation. Advocate for your child.

Much of the above plus

Not moved house multiple times or sent me to many different holiday camps and relatives in the holidays. Not force fed me food with horrible textures. Believed me when I said I was afraid of "stupid things".

I left school in year 9 and left home at 15.

Maybe wonder why I was always in bed, always tired no matter how much sleep I'd had. Honestly a weighted duvet has changed my life.

Realised that when your autistic child is upset, they may want to be alone to deal with it rather than the parent trying to remonstrate or cheer them up. ( I was the parent and I realise this now.)

Did well - quiet childhood, very samey with routine (I was undiagnosed until early adulthood, so this was by chance rather than design). Lots of rules explaining for eg table manners, thank you letters, social stuff.

Wish they'd done better - I had an eating disorder (not uncommon), not helped by me struggling to know when I'm full (google autism and interoception) and being hungry sending me into a meltdown (so I ended up obese as a child). Likewise I can't stand feeling sweaty so never got into good exercise habits. So when I wanted to lose weight I didn't do it in a healthy way. As an adult I'm finally getting into good eating / exercise habits, but I wish that my parents had modelled this for me as it's so hard as an adult.

• black and white explained about people taking advantage, particularly female safety around men. I ended up in some very dodgy situations because I can't read when someone is after something / didn't understand you can withdraw consent at any time (I'm fine, but it could have been much much worse). Making your kids hug and kiss people when they don't want to (for eg) is such a confusing message for someone with ASD.
• not called me weird. One of my parents did this a lot (they thought out of earshot, but I heard) and now I don't have much of a relationship with them.

I wish they'd let me be me rather than encouraging me to behave a certain way to make people like me, this also made me a people pleaser and even more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. I wish they hadn't made me feel like or even told me there was something wrong with me and constantly criticised me. I wish they hadn't lied about me to make themselves look like better parents and me the problem. I wish they hadn't and didn't still lie to me and about me. I wish they'd apologise/d when in the wrong.

Do you see signs of ND in yourself or other family members OP? Autism is mostly genetic so it is worth thinking about any others that have similar traits.

DH and I are both autistic and ADHD, as is DS. Our motto as parents is to be very honest with ourselves about our needs, very honest with each other and try to be open with people around us. The idea is that we can't support DS if we don't recognise our own needs.

When he is a bit older we will also tell him that he's got a special brain like Mummy and Daddy ❤️

I haven't been diagnosed as autistic but I am pretty sure I am on the spectrum but high functioning. I tend to struggle more when stressed.

As a young child I had delayed speech and my grandma and her friend really helped me, I remember them doing flash cards and getting me to say the words etc.

As a child my family gave me confidence, I was a very shy child, I struggled to make friends. They encouraged me, were always really positive and gave me confidence in myself which I think helped.

Apart from that I was really left to it, I didn't stuggle at school and I loved to learn, I would sometimes struggle to concentrate.

Doing GCSEs I struggled and had a mini break down, my parents took me out of school before the exams and didn't make a big deal out of it. My grandma and grandad helped me revise and I did well in GCSEs.

I guess they were always there, supporting me even if not obvious. I was listened to.

Spotted it in the first place!

High achieving, well behaved dd waiting for an adult diagnosis (mid twenties)
I pride myself on how well I deal with autistic children in my work yet I totally missed it 😟

So, perceived her to be controlling, sometimes intimidating and rude. She’s none of those things. She suffered as a child and I didn’t do anything 🥲 I regret this, but we do have a good relationship and I’m learning every day.

Just so glad for you she’s diagnosed and you are asking for advice.

Absolutely everything.
Realising that my sensory seeking from being a baby wasn’t right (sucking the mop under the table every chance I got 🤢), sensory issues with noise, just “weirder” than my siblings and cousins, absolutely rigid thinking…
Plenty of signs were there, but they were laughed at as oddities by them.

Following with interest as I am sure my DS has autism and/or ADHD.

I'm so sorry to read about how badly many of you were treated by your parents

I do think we've come a long way in a short time and hopefully many of today's parents are doing better.

I wish they'd had me sent to a psychologist aged four when I was diagnosed with trichotillomania like our GP suggested. My autism could have been discovered then instead of at 32 which would have changed my entire school life. By which I mean I could have been sent to a more academically focussed school instead of the local comprehensive where, hopefully, I wouldn't have been bullied to the extent that I was.

I be wish they had understood my struggles at school (horrific times) and supported me. It got to the stage where I wanted to die it was so bad.

This was the 1970's when 'autism' didn't exist in girls and your differences were ridiculed out of you.

Find a way to talk to siblings, with your daughter‘s consent. I grew up with a sibling who very likely had ASD (school raised concerns, parents aggressively dismissed). Growing up was a fog of fear and shame, wondering what we were doing wrong and why our family was not like others. Of course worse for sibling who did not get help

I wish mum had stopped shouting at me when I was upset about stuff and actually realised that I really struggled with emotional regulation.
She would tell me off for being "rude" in social interactions - but never actually explained what I'd done that was rude - yes, I was probably inappropriate but if she had explained explicitly that X or Y wasn't right - I would have taken it on board and learnt (yes we're then into the tricky world of masking but let's leave that can of worms unopened right now).
I wish she'd realised that me moving away from hugs was not just some kind of scar emotionally from their fucked up divorce and to be used in shouting matches with my waste of space father - but that it was just really fucking uncomfortable and unpleasant for me to do it.
And I wish she'd realised just how bullied I was for being "odd" - and not minimised it as me needing to learn to fight my own battles.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing though - she did what she could in a society which didn't really understand female autism and the system failed me massively - she wasn't given the tools to understand this kid of hers. I think she's probably autistic herself, and she didn't have a good maternal role model either as my nan was in and out of psychiatric hospitals her entire life - so I don't blame her for it. I do blame people like the ed psych who missed it and just focused on my high IQ and didn't even consider ASD as a possibility.

DD2 is diagnosed with ASD and I try to handle things with her in such a different way to how my childhood was. She seems a fairly happy and relatively confident little soul so far.

There was no awareness of autism amongst the ordinary working class when I was a child.

My parents' response when I had a meltdown or refused to do something because things weren't 'right' in my world was to beat me until I did it.

Bullied relentlessly, including physically, at school, tried to tell a teacher and got a flea in my ear for 'telling tales'.

Often in trouble for being 'cheeky' or asking inappropriate questions - completely unintentional on my part.

In trouble sometimes at school for 'cheating' when actually I'd genuinely completed something very quickly and correctly because certain things were exceptionally easy for me.

Life was awful as an undiagnosed autistic child in the 1970s and 80s.

I was diagnosed in my 40s, after my kids.

My parents didn’t do a bad job to be honest. They always made me feel safe and loved, and accepted me for who I was. So many of my differences were - maybe unsurprisingly- explained away by being “just like your mother!”

I’m pretty sure she is autistic, as was her dad.

Of course they weren’t perfect, no one is. I was told off for stimming and meltdowns, my extreme anxiety was missed, my social issues was put down to shyness or being too aloof. I went to the rough local comp which was such a bad environment (they would say “But you still did really well, didn’t you?”)

Overall I feel sad that my screaming autistic traits (along with obvious risk factors in my history like premature birth) were missed because autism just wasn’t considered in a bright, quiet girl.

So in that sense @Timeforanewname2014 you are winning because your daughter has a diagnosis. With my children I discuss autistic traits in a very neutral way, as neither good nor bad, just brain quirks that can’t be helped. We laugh about them sometimes. I never make my daughter feel like she needs to be anything other than who she is. As a result, she forgives herself for being socially awkward and finding socialising hard. She forgives herself for her slow processing. Little things like that do wonders for her self esteem. I won’t have her growing up feeling like a freak, as I did.

This is a great thread and question, thanks OP. My academically able DD has just crashed out of school with burnout in year 10. Probably autistic, and we're just getting started on assessment. She says she won't feel good until she leaves the school system and I fully believe her. I don't know what we'll do, but it's one day at a time...

Listened to me, not criticised constantly and not pushed me to go to things that made me uncomfortable.
She was always more bothered about how she would look to other people than how my sister and I were doing.
You’ve already shown your daughter she’s safe, just be led by her

Not to be deemed difficult, awkward, and told I'm too everything. Too sensitive generally. That no one else can see that, hear that, smell that, feel that, has said anything so it's not an issue. It's still happening now in my 40s.

Thank you so much to everyone who is taking time to reply. I am getting so many helpful insights.
I am glad to read somethings where I think we are doing well, but also lots to get better at.
For those who have mentioned being or having an academic, well behaved girl - this is my daughter too. We never suspected autism through her years of struggling at school until a TA who had more insight than us pointed it out and suggested we get her assessed. As others have said, I very much know this makes us lucky (and feel guilty that we didn't notice it ourselves / cross that her previous schools didn't )
@AshGirl - funny that you should ask about if I / others in the family are ND as we were talking about this yesterday! I honestly don't know! We are aware it is often hereditary and parents often have lightbulb moments when their children are being assessed and realise they are ND too. This absolutely didn't happen for either of us. But I'm also aware that as adults we have much more autonomy over our lives and we both (me especially) have a lot of control over our lives - if we don't feel comfortable in a situation we are able to avoid it. I'm pretty sure we aren't though but I know this is unusual so it is something I wonder about.

Sorry to hear about your daughter. Mine is also in year 10, and academically able. I feel grateful for every day she is in school. How supportive are your daughters school? Mine is very supportive, she goes in when she can with no pressure if she is late (I'm lucky that my job also allows me to facilitate this I know it's not an option for everyone). Without this flexibility I'm not sure she would still be there either. Hope things get better for your daughter (and you its hard for parents too) soon