DD is 6. My concerns are:
- has very intense friendships where she is obsessed with those friends but the relationships tend to be quite stormy. She has two besties and they are always falling out, usually because DD has said or done something "bossy" that has upset them or they've done something "not right" that has upset her, "not right" basically means not want DD wanted them to do
- on the subject of "bossy", there is DD's way and then there is no way. Everything has to be done to her exacting standards
- very fussy eater. Will happily eat the same meal for days on end. I offer a wide range and make sure every meal has some safe foods that she'll definitely eat, 99% of the time she will just eat the safe foods
- wears the same 3-4 outfits over and over. Will not wear any other clothes and gets seriously distressed if her preferred clothes are not available. Last time this happened she sobbed on the floor for over two hours, nothing could distract her, no other clothes were accepted, it had to be those or nothing
- she won't join in at parties, she either sits on my knee or she goes off and does other things. At the last party we went to she didn't give a shiny shite about the entertainer and instead wanted to walk around the outside of the miners hall and have me read all the commemoration plaques to her
- obsessive interests that suddenly end and then a new obsessive interest starts by obsessive I mean she fully immerses herself in it. Recently its been Frozen so we have to watch Frozen every day, sometimes on a loop, she wants all Frozen toys for Christmas, if she sees anything with Frozen on it whole we're out then she'll ask if she can have it, all the games she plays are Frozen themed
- she plays very elaborate imagination games where she hands out all the roles and dictates the pattern of play. If you deviate from your designated role and the script she feeds you then the game is over, she runs off crying and lies behind the sofa
- doesn't bother with toys outside of those she uses as props in her games. Automated toys distress her, like those dogs that walk and bark. She only really likes Playdoh and other squishy toys
- if anything upsets her, she lies behind the sofa. She can stay there for hours, nothing will coax her out. Sometimes she lies there silently, other times she will scream the entire time and again, nothing will distract her from this
- she hates noises. An ambulance going past with sirens on will reduce her to howling on the floor, hands clamped over her ears. Ditto loud music, motorbikes, alarms, crowd noise, basically anything noisy
- she loves writing and drawing. She writes out lists of letters and numbers and draws pictures that she labels but they all tend to be the same picture over and over, she will cover pages and pages with her name and the same 2-3 short sentences. She really enjoys doing this and she hands them out to friends and family as gifts for them
- she doesn't like people outside of the family speaking to her, like if someone in a shop speaks to her she'll hide behind me or she'll blatantly ignore them and I have to prompt her to answer their question or else answer for her
- she has a twiddle toy that she can't be without, she can't sleep without having it to twiddle. She twiddles it if she's tired, upset, stressed, anxious, sad, sleepy, in need of comfort
- she uses my hands as if they're her hands, like if we're at a show and there's applause she will pick my hands up and clap them rather than my own
- she hates being left and cries at school drop off, she does an art class and cries when I drop her there, she cries when I leave her at my mum's for babysitting, basically anywhere where she has to be away from me or away from home. She's fine after a short while and she will stay but drop off can be very fraught with her screaming, clinging, attempting to run away even when it's something she wants to do and has asked to do, like art class. On holidays she gets to around dating three and will then have bursts of tears because she "misses home", when DH is at work she will cry that she misses him and so on (she is nowhere near as clingy to DH as she is to me)
There is more but I'm aware I've written a long post already.
School say she is happy, settled, popular amongst her class, and so on although she can be very quiet and her teacher had to rearrange seating as she kept crying every day over being at the "wrong" table, her teacher does see her crying each morning at drop off and is very kind with her, she helps get her in the door. She's a lovely, articulate little girl l, very loving and affectionate, but she is also very rigid and very routine driven with specific expectations around how things should be done.
There is a lot of autism in both sides of the family so a clear genetic link too.
Is this enough to take to the GP or will they tell me to jog on because she's okay in school?