I’ll start this by saying my daughter is on the spectrum, she is 5, wonderful, a handful but perfect and exactly who she is meant to be. We’ve always been very open about our day to day struggles with our daughter and her needs, to our loved ones. Our friends are very aware of our day to day life and are great with our DD. Very patient and inclusive and always chat lots to us about her. As well as making a big effort to include her, they are wonderful friends.
Our lovely friends in question have two daughters, the youngest is 4. She is showing signs of Asd. It’s been obvious for me for some time but I’ve never broached the subject as it’s not my place. I’ve always been ready to listen should they need to chat. We recently went on a weekend away with the family and the DD (4) had some big meltdowns, struggling with her emotions. I’m not an expert of course but her emotional outbursts were very similar to my daughters, I have two sons too who are neurotypical and the difference between tantrum and meltdown is quite stark.
Friends husband spoke privately to my husband and mentioned that their DD’s school had expressed concerns about their DD’s behaviour and suggested asd. I think a referral to speech therapy was in place to get the ball rolling. His wife, my very good friend who I see regularly has not mentioned this to me at all and has never bought up a conversation relating to her DD’s meltdowns. Despite us witnessing them. I’m confused as to why she doesn’t feel like she can talk to me about it. Is it that she’s not ready to accept it could be ASD?
Im not sure what I’m looking for here really. I would never give out unsolicited advice to them (having received plenty ourselves from family in the early days of DD’s referral to Children’s assessment centre). I’m not going to broach the subject unless I feel she’s ready to talk about it. I just want to be able to support her, knowing how confusing and difficult it can be when the school first makes contact about a concern.