Family row scheduled for this afternoon - help me prepare myself

[Oakmaiden]

This is not the way I would prefer to deal with this, but unfortunately my husband scheduled a family row (aka "We will discuss this tomorrow") with my teenage daughter. I need help to work out what we hope to achieve and what is reasonable to expect. Please.

The background: I am trying to keep this as brief as possible. DD is 16 and is currently (was, before everything shut down) being assessed for Autism. She also suffers from sometimes very bad depression and very high levels of anxiety. She is very bright (was hoping for straight A's for GCSEs, but with all that is going on, who can tell...) but her passion has always been for performing - she normally spends around 20 hours a week on top of her school week dancing/acting/singing etc.

Lockdown obviously changed her life dramatically. As well as an abrupt end to her schooling and the cancellation of several performances she had been working hard toward, her "extra curricula" life changed. Her dance, drama and singing lessons all went on line, so she could have continued them as normal, but she finds the online format very difficult, and says that she no longer feel as though she is being taught and corrected, merely given activities to do. She has stopped singing and drama completely, and goes to maybe 3 or 4 dance classes a week. At most. The rest of the time - she plays on the computer or sleeps.

And this is the source of most of the conflict - she plays a game with people in the States, so goes to bed at about 4am and gets up early afternoon. Yesterday we didn't see her until 6pm. She hasn't been outside since the week before lockdown (she was isolating the week before as she had mumps) except occasionally in the garden. Her contribution to the household is to cook one meal a week and wash up once a week (these are her official "tasks") which I don't think is very much, but she thinks is hugely unreasonable. Yesterday it was her turn to cook, and she decided to make macaroni cheese (which my husband can't eat as cooked cheese makes him ill) and refused to heat up a jar of ready made sauce alongside it for her father so he could eat.

And EVERYTHING we say to her she has a comeback for.

I want her to live more "UK centric" and sociable hours, to become more involved in preparing for her future and to help out a bit more. To lead a more normal life. She says she can't see what difference it makes to us, and we should leave her to do what makes her happy. DH wants to confiscate her computer.

Am I being unreasonable to want to make changes (I am willing to compromise, and in honesty her happiness IS very important to me) or should we just leave her to get on with it.

I thought this could be my "what I would like" starting position

Change your words "this is what we could work towards" using max 2 or three of the MOST achievable for her.

"what I (you) want" is not going to tally with her wants/needs and she will feel like you are trying to mold her into who you think she should be, not who she wants to be, that along with her fathers feeling regarding her academics is a recipe for disaster.

And you voicing your starting position will mean little to her, if her doesn't match, and will give her a sense of failure as she fails to "live up" to what you expect of her.

Can I ask, op..if she has autistic brothers, and a (suspected) autistic father, why is she so late to get a diagnosis?

Does she understand self care from the perspective of doing something nice for herself? Would be better to approach it that way, I think, rather than something she has to do because otherwise she’ll smell...Does she like baths? Maybe a bath would be a better option - I find them a great way to soak away stresses.

I think choose two daily things for her to focus on for herself - getting outside and having a shower or bath. Let her work out her own routine to fit them in.

One meal to cook per week and one small job per day. Again, let her decide what her daily routine will look like to fit that little chore in.

Whatever method appeals to her, let her do it. I love a daily tick list. A weekly chart is better for some people.

As long as the self care, time outside and chore is done, let her organise the rest of her day however she wants to.

@Ninkanink Does she like baths? Maybe a bath would be a better option

Good point, showers are a sensory nightmare for my dd, she cannot stand the feeling of the water hitting her body and of the few that she has had, she totally shuts down. She is totally a bath girl.

wrt the get up by lunchtime and have lunch with the family.
ds (17) is awake by lunchtime. And I am a bit mean in that I am not quiet after 10 am, so I call upstairs to dh/girls and that wakes him up. I suggested that he join us for lunch. I have been trying to make lunches a little bit less routine in lockdown, so bacon sarnies etc. he moans about no interesting food in the house, so I said it would be better if he joined us at lunchtime.

He was horrified. Apparently it is 'hard enough' being at home all the time and having dinner together every evening, without the added stress of lunchtime too!

He really thought of it as an added chore. Despite being charming and chatty at dinner time, taking his turn to cook willingly etc
And when he said it, I remembered what it was like as an older teen living with parents, who, however nice, really didn't 'get it'

Honestly, to me what you are describing is a normal teenager in lockdown.

I think you are being way too harsh. I have a bright Dd 16, does well at school. She does have a asc diagnosis. She cannot even make a cup of tea (fear of burning herself for one).
Even without the diagnosis, heavy handed never achieves anything.

I have two older DDs with ASD.

It sounds like eating is a source of anxiety for her already.

If executive function and central coherence are challenges for her, choosing from a wide selection of possibilities to meet quite a loose set of criteria may be quite a daunting task.

Once she had planned the meal, making changes to those plans to meet needs that she might have previously forgotten about could be harder due to to her rigid thinking and the requirement for additional executive function.

Often someone with ASD won't realise why things that seem simple to others feel like such overwhelming and daunting tasks and that can have a huge impact on their self-esteem. Being criticised when you have made a big effort can therefore result in a meltdown type of situation in which logical thought and communication go out of the window. This can easily look like obstructive and selfish behaviour.

I agree that it is reasonable for her to help out more at the moment. it will probably also support her self-esteem, sleep pattern, etc too. Just think carefully about the tasks she is asked to do. Ask her to work with you to identify what she could do that doesn't place too much of a demand on her. A short, routine task daily might be better, like wiping over the bathroom sink mid-morning or unpacking the dishwasher. Those things don't change from day to day and don't require a huge amount of executive function (unless you have the sort of kitchen where you need to move ten things to fit one thing in a cupboard).

Making the task a short one that happens every day will make it more routine and therefore, once it is established, it should feel more manageable.

If she hasn't been diagnosed then I wouldn't make any "special needs" type allowances. She clearly functions perfectly well when she has things set up the way the she likes them!

This is one of the most ignorant comments I have seen on MN for quite a while.

A child who has ASD but does not have a diagnosis still has ASD!

Lots of people with ASD function as if they were NT in their own homes or their own bedrooms where everything is set up to meet their needs.

When you talk to her, keep calm and speak clearly. Don't make her guess what you are asking for. It's reasonable to say that the gaming needs to stop at midnight but don't say she has to stop gaming all night. If she has been stopping at 4.00am, she hasn't been gaming all night and being accused of it will feel unfair.

Give her time to understand the issues and process them. Ask her to come back with her ideas for what needs to change and how it could change tomorrow.

If you threaten to take away the computer, she migth react like you're threatening the take away her access to oxygen because that may well be how it feels. The gaming has a structure and a script that allows her to feel included and successful. Don't underestimate the importance of that to her mental well-being. She has lost the other parts of her life that provide that.

Lastly, whatever changes you decide (preferably together) to make, give her time to process the new routines before they are implemented.

It sounds like she thrived on a very structured life before lockdown in which almost everything she did was planned for her and there was a huge amount of routine, repetition and familiarity. She must feel like the rug has been pulled from under her already and is hanging on desperately to what still makes her feel safe. Be very careful about doing anything that makes those feelings worse.

Good luck for this afternoon x

I really hope you have taken on board the advice that you can't parent an autistic child like you would a neurotypical child. Please, please ignore the well meaning advice from parents of neurotypical teens. They really have no idea of how to manage an autistic child or teen.

First up, your teen has social skills and understanding more akin to someone half to two thirds of her age. Your emotional expectations should reflect that. She may have problems with literal and inflexible thought patterns, lack of theory of mind and also be really struggling still to adjust to the new reality.

I'd highly recommend a book called Raising Human Beings by Ross Greene. It is very practical and works well for neurodiverse families.

Good luck with the discussion, and try to really listen to and understand your daughter.

@Poppinjay has given you some excellent advice.

YABU
Why does she need to keep “UK hours” when her entire social life is with people from the US? What’s wrong with playing a collaborative online game?
She has no schoolwork being Year 11.
She is in lockdown so cannot visit her U.K. friends or socialise with them.
What is she supposed to do? Are you going to play a game with her during “UK hours” ?

If it were her lifestyle and interfering with school or dance, but it’s temporary to keep her occupied until school and everything starts back up again.

She makes dinner and washes up one night a week. That’s a good thing. If refusing to heat up sauce for her dad was such a big deal, just talk to her about that aspect. To me I don’t see why it is. In my home, if a person cannot or will not eat whatever is made for dinner, they have to fend for themselves because it’s unreasonable to have whoever is cooking make multiple dinners.

**I think choose two daily things for her to focus on for herself - getting outside and having a shower or bath. Let her work out her own routine to fit them in.

One meal to cook per week and one small job per day. Again, let her decide what her daily routine will look like to fit that little chore in.

Whatever method appeals to her, let her do it. I love a daily tick list. A weekly chart is better for some people.

As long as the self care, time outside and chore is done, let her organise the rest of her day however she wants to. **

Totally agree with @Ninkankink post. Getting outside will help her mood, but let her decide when and what she wants to do. Schedule the tasks somehow - ours are Dinner/Dishwasher/Washing which rotate between the three DC daily.

If your DD is cooking dinner, you or DH can help her - it's spending time together and getting the job done. I have also been asking my DD if I can join her on her run/walk/cycle once or twice a week when it fits with my work, it's nice to chat but without the whole family all there at the dinner table. (Like @steppemum DS I am a bit sick of family dinners as well!)

I admit I’m at the phrase “cooked cheese makes him ill”. That’s an odd way to phrase it. Not a dairy intolerance, or doesn’t like cheese, or can’t eat cooked cheese.
Sounds to me like your husband has his own wee food issue going on there - maybe she reached breaking point on him not being tolerant of her issues, and thought, “fuck it” about his?

@Oakmaiden. Re your dd’s choice of subjects. My dd did music and drama with our full support. I was, however, disgusted at other parents who felt it was acceptable to mock and belittle my dd’s choices and blatantly saying she would end up as a server in McDonalds. Btw I don’t think there’s anything wrong working in McDonalds it was their words.
My dd studied drama at uni and got a job in a museum, she then did a masters degree in drama and has a very good managerial job in another museum.
People who study drama will ace job interviews and are good at public speaking.
Bizarrely the parent who mocked my dd most and insisted his dd would be an architect had to eat his words when said dd left school after gcse’s to study dance!

Thinking back to my mid to late teens, going nocturnal was an excellent way of avoiding my father who was extremely critical of everything I did and I could never live up to his expectations

His disapproval of her lifestyle, choices and ambitions (whether spoken or unspoken) may well have ramped up the tensions in the house to the point where she can only relax and be herself when away from your DH. If you are all cooped up in lockdown then I can totally understand her behaviour in that regard.

I'd second Island35's suggestion (and share the annoyance of others that the DH isn't considering music academic enough). I can see why the time lag would be really annoying and make the practice feel unuseful, hopefully a workaround can be found.

It must be hard for her to have her father get really defensive towards having traits that she possibly shares with him and trivialize her goals as not enough. Honestly, the only thing I might even consider suggestin that's somewhat academic is maybe an online tech course, but only because she has an interest in computer games, a lot of performing jobs do require use in different software, and it helped my DS when he was feeling down about everything going to hell in a handbasket. We ended up making a task list together - he does a certain amount of hours a week on that and a few other things to prepare for hopefully September, a few other tasks, and then he's pretty much free to do whatever.

The list looks okay as a starting point of 'these are goals', though I agree with others that bath might be an option to consider (I had such a conflict with one of mine until I asked if she wanted a bath instead. She didn't seem to realize that was an option). Starting from a 'I want us to work towards' is, as others have said, better than just pointing out everything you and even more her father dislikes about what she's doing.

learning to jog/run is the best way of staying fit and flexible. It really isn't, and especially not for dancers who are at higher risk of arthritis and joint problems from an earlier age than most. Generally, it's recommended to stick to low-impact exercise outside of dance training - cycling, walking, resistance/weight training and things like tai chi and similar.

Also if hygiene is really a problem then have you tried buying her nice body washes and soaps? My DD spends about half of her allowance on things like face masks and body butter (whatever that is). More difficult at the moment but you could ask her to choose a few things online to try as a lockdown treat.

I think she Sounds like an amazing teen with loads of get up and go. Getting top grades plus devoting hours and hours to extra curricular activities whilst also managing anxiety is a massive achievement.

Lockdown is brutal for many people and I can see that your daughter would be particularly badly hit by it. Her method of coping is to socialise online - that doesn’t sound unreasonable at all.

If I were you I’d be cross about the food and I try and encourage her to go not bed earlier and exercise but i wouldn’t force anything. Mostly I’d be very sympathetic. It’s weird at the moment. She will be going back to school in September. It will hopefully sort itself out.

Do you think she might be trying to avoid her Dad?

She will be an ‘adult’ soon enough and if you lose your relationship with her now you will have no hope of helping her and guiding her when she is older.

Good luck. It’s flipping hard raising kids.

Good luck with the meeting OP
Yes to giving her some options that you laid out above, particularly the getting out and more time with the family. Not too many though. I personally would have her tidying, cleaning and cooking a bit more obviously on par with other dc. If she participated in family life a bit more I'd possibly be more relaxed about late nights, maybe until 1am online.

No to removing her computer, not only is this her way of passing time and having fun I'd also hazard a guess at saying she'll be somewhat addicted to Roblox. I say this as my ASD niece most definitely is.
She's younger than your dd but would happily stay on it 24/7 if not told to come off. My sister has had words with her many times and tries to reduce hours spent on it but it leads to anxiety and behaviours every time. It's seriously bordering on obsessional right now. So maybe factor that in to your decision making too.

Her father - he needs to not show any negativity around whether or not he has ASD traits - that would be awful if she heard.
Also he needs to back off about what A levels she chooses. At the end of the day it's her doing them NOT him so it needs to be things she enjoys and will complete. She's really very young and if she gets through them and later decides oh I really wish I'd chosen xyz....well there's plenty of time to return to studying if she wishes.

You definitely need to have a list of what you want to achieve that you and your husband agree on.

1. She should be asked to understand her dads feelings on the dinner.

I think that you feeding her separately because she is at classes and is 'fussy' has created this issue. If she doesn't like something she has somethings else -in her head it's the same thing. A little talk about how it made her dad feel might help. I'd also say she needs to plan meals in advance.

1. Chores- a general rebalance is in order due to the change in circumstance for everyone- your boys must be peeved they are still doing more even now everyone is home.
2. Exercise- she wants to do dance then she needs to keep fit and flexible, if she does nothing until Sept she will struggle to get back into dancing for hours at a time. So she should be doing something to maintain her stamina etc.
3. Hours. This is tougher because there is no motivation to keep normal hours except that you feel she should. I get that Op and I'd feel the same but you need a reason. I'd like everyone up by 10am and if she can do that and be a decent human going to be in the small hours don't worry about it.

Keep calm tonight, keep your husband calm, maybe talk things through first before the talk with your dd.
Try to avoid confrontation words and blame, talk about feelings and emotions.

I think you have got good advice already.

My bottom-line would be- is her mental health worsening due to the anti-social (to you) hours and being on the computer all the time?

If the answer is no, then I would not be too concerned. As lots have said, Year 10 (taking GCSE this year) have literally nothing to do, and it is very hard to motivate them to start doing all but a bit of work towards A levels- you have to remember they would be taking their GCSE's now and then having two months off, so trying to motivate them to work when actually they don't have to, is counter-productive. At most, watching some relevant films together, reading books, discussing these would be productive on that score.

Second, if her mental health is holding up, that's excellent news given the huge change in her life. If she is socializing online in an essentially fairly innocuous game, then so be it.

Even if she is not, she is 16. Some of the parenting on here about going to bed with the router, and stopping her playing certain games, seems appropriate for a pre-teen but really not a teen. Even if she is younger emotionally, you can't actually treat teens like young children, it undermines their autonomy and their own decision-making capabilities.

I think your list is too extensive and will make her feel you are trying to change and control everything she does.
You're dealing with a teen, who may be autistic and who is in lockdown. These are not normal times. You can't expect usual solutions to work.
There's no acknowledgement in any of your posts that she may be struggling with how much her life has changed. You're trying to paper over her disappointment and confusion by imposing an ever more structured routine that will meet your needs but doesn't even seem to consider what her needs are.

I do agree she was not helpful about the meal, and meals need to be for everyone.

That is worth addressing but not worth rowing about in lockdown, a suggestion of how to approach this should be enough.

I also agree with the person who said that she needs to be doing some exercise otherwise her dance abilities are going to be affected.

If her mental health is really suffering, then interfering more might be justified, but if she is actually coping well and seems reasonably happy, despite it not being your chosen lifestyle, then I think things are ok, with a bit more cooperation around the house.

@dontdisturbmenow

Leave her to get on, most teenagers have taken the lockdown as she has BUT she needs to be more involved in family chores and get on with them without such drama.

This. Lockdown is dismal for most of us, it must be hideous for her. Any punishment will be hugely magnified right now. The macaroni cheese incident sounds thoughtless more than anything else.

I’d just let everything go until we start to get back some semblance of normality.

The bedtime wouldn't bother me as I am a night owl, always have been. Plus when I was a teenager I would spend all my time in my room, so my parents wouldn't have seen me anyway. I am still a night owl. My natural bedtime is around 3am and me and my DH are totally nocturnal at the moment.

If all of her friends are in the US then if she goes to bed earlier, she can't speak to them. I would be wary of removing all her social contact at the moment, especially if she is autistic. It also gives you nowhere else to go. Better to get her to earn computer time than remove it.

No teens like doing chores in my experience, they always complain. Also at 16 I remember finding my family totally annoying and I just wanted to be with friends. Even if she gets up at a time you prefer, she may well not want to have family time anyway. I nodded when someone up thread said their son saw it as a chore, this is something I hear a lot in my work with teenagers.

She is 16, your days of influence are waning really. Don't go in expecting a row, have a discussion and agree compromises.

So I would like her to:
1. Spend some time outside every day (cycling with her brother or walking)
2. Keep up with her dance and singing - maybe I could phone her teachers and try to organise one to one lessons for dance, and talk about restarting singing as soon as practical (apparently it doesn't work on Zoom because of the time lag).
3.Do her (modest) chores without complaint.
4. Shower regularly.
5. Get up by lunchtime (ready to eat at 1pm?)
6. Spend some time taking part in activities with the rest of the family.

Does that sound reasonable?

For an NT child, it's reasonable, but my son has ASD and he would really struggle with all that.

To me, it seems like she is usually very busy and perhaps it's good for her to have a bit of a break. I don't see a problem with what she's doing really. Do most 16 year olds really hang out with family and do family activities? I can't imagine. I was pretty much nocturnal during the holidays at that age too. I just got my own meals.