Can you coach a child to show autistic behavior's

[wonderings2]

This sounds bonkers and I'm probably going to get ripped to shreds but here goes...

My sister is convinced her 3 yo DD is autistic, the problem is she's the only one that does. In reaction to numerous people pointing out that they don't see the child showing any autistic behavior's she almost seems to be encouraging the child to behave in a certain way...

There are so many examples but a few:

She attends nursery 5 days a week for 10 hours a day, she has asked them for a SEN assessment but they refused as they have said she isn't showing any neurodiverse behavior's and they have no concerns regarding her development, but said if there are any specific adaptions she would like they would look into it, she asked for a tent /den that the child can go into when she overwhelmed that the other children know they cant go into, they put this in place but pointed out 2 months later that the child never uses it.

She has taught the child to shout "space" and (fairly gently) push a person /child away if she feels they are too close to her, the problem is no-one has actually seen he child do this unless her mum prompts her, so for example we were at a park and sister was fretting as another child was playing to close to her, so she got her attention and did the movement prompting the child to shout "space" and push the other child away. They were both happily playing before that but understandably the other child moved away.

She hovers over her playing and told another child off for climbing up the slide her DD was trying to slide down as "DD is autistic and doesn't understand when other children don't do things the right way, it could upset her and cause a melt down"

She claims the child has fixations on certain foods, toys tv shows etc but no-one else see's these, theres a never a photo (we share loads of photos) and you don't hear the child talk about it.

She doesn't include the child in activities like trick or treating and seeing Santa as it will overstimulate her then rants on social media about her being left out? Other family members take the child for the day and she copes fine.

Sisters husband was getting so concerned that he mentioned it to our mum, his Dad (a retired school teacher) and friends and they all said they didn't believe the child was currently showing any autistic behavior's. She reacted very badly to this, said a mum knows her child best and that we are all denial, the child only shows autistic traits around her because she feels safe with her and is masking all other times.

Interestingly she isn't pursuing a diagnosis as she is claiming the nursery agree with her (they don't) and when the child starts school next year they can provide support without needing a diagnosis??

This is what I was thinking. It can present very differently in girls than boys, and of course we are all made aware of the ‘signs’ from a boys perspective (eye contact, literal thinking, fixation, stimming etc). The girls I know who’ve been diagnosed recently have been diagnosed at a later age (upper primary) than the typical boy, and I have not spotted it - and I work with children.

Maybe your sister is imagining it. Or maybe she’s right about masking. The reality at home and at bedtime is very different to a trip to the park. I’m not going judge.

Nursery and other people said all those things about my ds. He was diagnosed at 8.

Dd is very subtle too as she copies other children to blend in but her behaviour at home is very up and down and violent. She was diagnosed at 3 years old.

She's at nursery for 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, so breakfast, bedtime and weekends are pretty much the only time she spends with either parent. I'm guessing that dad is present for much of that time.

GPS here only give out antibiotics if a limb is hanging off. Are you sure it's all imaginary?

I'm not sure if I have anything helpful to add. I have a friend who almost certainly has factitious illness syndrome (munschausen's by proxy). There is a lot of exaggeration and coaching that goes on. Unfortunately it is extremely hard for drs to prove and, if you report to child services, unless she is physically harming the child, they don't intervene (even if psychological harm is being caused). People with Munchausen BP rarely know or understand the reasons behind their behaviour. It can be hard to disentangle from health anxiety. They often seek out vague symptoms and speak to lots of different healthcare professionals and of course most will believe her or take her concerns seriously (such as the nursery providing a tent). Then it becomes hard for health professionals to disagree with other health professionals etc.
The one thing that I have noticed is that my friend always goes to the drs on her own. Her husband is rarely involved.
My advice would be for her husband to insist that he accompany her to Dr appointments (although she could sneak off whilst he's working). He could also get someone with a specialism in autism to do a private review. My understanding is that professionals rarely diagnose until kids are older as it's not a straightforward diagnosis. I sincerely doubt that they would advise the actions that your sister is taking in any event (particularly telling others that she is autistic constantly). Unfortunately if you or her DH tells her that they don't believe her, she will dig in deeper to make a point. It's a really tricky situation by the sounds of it. Her husband however should make clear that he doesn't support her diagnosis to professionals so at least that is on file.

Either of these is possible:

The mum's health anxiety is becoming Muchausens by Proxy and there is a safeguarding risk to the child.

The child is genuinely having neurodiversity issues but masks heavily except when with mum. This is not at all unusual especially in girls, if a child quickly learns the "expected" behaviour and mimics their peers. It can be that their mum is the only person they feel safe enough with to let the mask slip. A masking child can go completely undetected until they have a breakdown in late teens due to the overwhelming pressure of maintaining the facade.

You aren't responsible for working out which of these is the case. There are professionals involved already who will be making appropriate assessments. Your role is to be loving and supportive family members, not diagnostic specialists. Focus on loving and caring and supporting, not judging.

we don’t know though - who does the pick ups and drop offs? Those are regular flashpoints for nd children. Maybe dad is doing a hobby half a day at the weekend while mum attempts an organised group activity.

think an open mind and wait and see approach is best, no idea how people know based on a few partial bits of info. I don’t, I just don’t think one person being concerned should be dismissed
or identified as some weird rare mental illness.

I was wondering if she has suggested she or her DH are neurodiverse in any way? I found the parents who thought they were often "taught" their kids their own coping mechanisms, often without noticing their children didn't need them.
I do wonder at the correlation between parent's and learnt ASD. It's a topic that I think will become clearer with increasing research.

i can only tell you my own experience @wonderings2

dc2 was behaving ‘weirdly’ at that age. That’s the only way red I knew to describe how he was. Not naughty, difficult etc… just very very strange (to me).
I knew nothing of autism then.

Then he hit primary school. Then I could see issues. His sibling could see issue (it’s dc1 that came to see me saying dc2 was always on his own at recess etc….)
School carried on saying there was no issue at all with dc2. He was a quiet child getting on with his stuff and never getting in trouble.
At Home though, he was explosive, started hitting dc1. Full on meltdowns. To the point when i was wondering if I could leave dc1 and dc2 alone together - fir dc1 safety really. This always happened after school.

Cue for a diagnosis of autism.
That no one could see. Not the teachers, not the family. Because he was always masking, always tte nice quiet child that doesn’t talk a lot to everyone else.

Now, I’m not saying it’s the case for your niece. But anyone who tells you ‘they dint see it so it’s not there because there are some clear signs to spot fir autism’…. has a very caricatural idea of how autism can present to the ‘outside world’

Unfortunately there are people that attention seek through their children. I'd also look into munchausen by proxy something is very wrong with your sisters behavior.

I’ve only read the OP.

Im sure it seemed as though unused to hover over my dd2 when she was little, and ‘prompt’ her to eg ask for space or remind other children she didn’t want to be picked up/hugged/hair stroked or whatever.

I hovered BECAUSE dd has issues with letting people know she was getting overwhelmed, or didn’t want to do something, or didn’t like something. She didn’t often have a meltdown in public, she saved it all up for when we got home. Many people thought I was being over protective, and looking for issues that simply weren’t there (dd1 has severe ASD and learning difficulties, and I think that often people thought I was projecting my fears into dd2).

dd2 was diagnosed ASD age 8. It should have been earlier. I knew the signs were there, but I was not taken seriously enough (due to people thinking I was projecting). I even had a doctor tell me ‘dd2 is not dd1. You can clearly see they are different and that dd2 is developing along typical lines’. He was wrong. They are, of course different, and dd2 has very different challenges from dd1, but she still has ASD.

It could be that your sister is seeing beyond the masking that her dd can produce in public. Unless you have serious reason to doubt her instinct, trust your sister to know her child.

Sounds like Münchausen's syndrome by proxy to me. It's your sister who needs the assessment.

The child is at nursery for 10 hours per day, 5 days a week.
There are other “primary” caregivers in her life, none of whom have any concerns.

Also it isn’t unusual for children on the spectrum to have a parent on the spectrum.
The father not seeing any issue with his child might well be because the child is behaving like them so they feel ‘it’s normal’.

I know DH struggled with that because accepting that some of dc2 quirks were from autism meant accepting he is autistic too… (and so was his father for that matter).

Now, personally I’d wait a couple if years and then have the child assessed (privately).

Amazing how all these Mumsnetters are competent to diagnose a very rare and controversial condition like Munchausens.

And as many people on this thread, who have children with ASD, have said, children mask.
They mask at school, at nursery, with grand parents.

My parents never saw dc2 exploding and hitting dc1. They never saw meltdowns. And they also never saw dc2 picking the skin of his fingers, rubbing the inside if his elbow instead to relieve his own tension. Dc2 masked all the time bar when at home with me and his dbrother.

The fact no one else has ‘any concerns’ doesn’t mean the mum is wrong.

I know a mum doing a low level version of this.

it’s MBP/fabricated illness at worst, for social media clout at best

desperate for her kids to be ‘sensory sensitive’ so puts them in ear defenders for days out even though the poor fuckers constantly remove them, lots of social media posts about meeting Santa/halloween disco/birthday party being a struggle for her ‘sensory sensitive’ kids when I witnessed a severe lack of sensory sensitivity. She also pulls them away from play to have a ‘break’ even though they do not want one!

poor kids. It’s all for instagram. Constant a and e visits too.

I know a women who done this - to basically get disability benefits. She literally made the kid out to be severely autistic - told them he couldn't cope at night etc but it wasn't true.

She used to work as benefits advisor so basically knew what to say in all the forms.

Indeed, both of my dc did 50
hours at nursery at some points when I couldn’t get better hours - the idea that this means parents aren’t the primary care giver isn’t something most nurseries would agree with. It’s not just about hours it’s about having the actual overall responsibility.

And as for the idea that having autistic dc gets you extra attention as a parent - lmao.

This with bells on!

Mother has issues, or she's doing it for another reason. If she was really convinced she would be getting an assessment. Speaking of a child who is diagnosed I didn't notice until the school told me
I was happily ignorant. Looking back it was obvious . The fact noone else sees it suggests mum had imagined it to me. Although I would point out as devil's advocate that my sons nursery didn't mention it either, it was in reception when the teacher noticed his quirks.
What's concerning is if she's telling the child she is autistic when she isn't. That can have all sorts of issues.

I agree with this^. It’s known fact that some children especially girls are very good at masking and behave very differently with their primary carer. I wouldn’t say that your examples are very suggestive of one or the other. Yes, Mum could be wrong but the same applies to nursery workers. Not all of them are experts in ASD.
It seems that your SIL doesn’t feel that things are good and normal and trying to find the explanation. She might be wrong about ASD but something is worrying her.
A medical professional once said to me about my DD: I don’t think that she’s got “ inset diagnosis@ . We were visiting A&E for a different issue. And my Mum who was present turned to me: See?
By that time DD had official diagnosis for quite some time already and believe me, now more then 16 years later it’s still very much there.

I'm a primary teacher OP and my first thought was Fabricated or Induced Illness (used to be called Munchausen by Proxy)

I've only met this twice in my teaching career...but both times it was the mother doing the fabricating.

Once was when I was teaching in Year 1, and the mother told us that her daughter was 'severely sight impaired' and had to wear special glasses, one side of which had a huge 'patch' on so that the girl could only actually see out of one eye.

She also told us that her child had a severe allergy to many different foods...including milk and other dairy food. However, the child told us that she had milk at home on her cereal and to drink. When we asked mum about this she told us that her child could have milk if it was warmed up in the microwave, and could we give her the free milk, but warm it up first 🤷‍♀️

Over time, we did find out that all of this was fabricated and there was nothing at all wrong with the girl...mum was trying to get rehomed and more benefits by saying that her child was going blind. It was a very sad story and eventually (several years later when she was in Year 4) the child was removed from her mum's care.

By this time, the (very strong!) glasses that this child had been forced to wear (still with the patch) had been worn for so long that she had constant headaches, dizziness and nausea - all of which the mum claimed were new symptoms of this fabricated illness.

It's actually really difficult to prove FII it seems, as are many things where child safeguarding is concerned unfortunately 😢 Saying that, if it's something that you do suspect, I would definitely try to speak to the SENDCO or nursery manager, and raise these issues as a safeguarding concern.

My sitster is the same. Decided that her DD would be autistic when she was still pregnant, 5 years on she has now successfully convinced the whole family. I do think she trained her to do the traits by lavishing extra attention and training her with using ear defenders and so on. There is nothing to do but sit back and be supportive. There is no medication for autism so it's not like they will give her anything, and when she's older she'll be able to say how she feels.

This. Autistic girls are notorious for masking and her mother knows her best. I have a young daughter who I am certain is autistic and no one believes me... yet!