Teenaged DD not letting go of childhood.

[orangeandyellowandbr0wn]

My teenaged dd doesn't seem to be growing up. She isn't letting go of her childhood.
She still plays with toys and wants to be played with, has no independence and won't even leave the house alone, has very few friends who she never goes out with as well and doesn't engage properly in school/advanced topics of discussion. She also still watches babytv/in the night garden/bluey etc. She doesn't wear bras (which might cause embarrassment for her) and has temper tantrums quickly and easily. Additionally, she likes soft play, imagination play and talking to herself and I still feel like I have a toddler and she hates the idea of being a teenager and engages in no 'teenage' behaviour either. She's never thrown away any of her baby stuff/baby books/toddler stuff either.
I don't want her to be the stereotypical eye rolling moody teenager but I'm so, so fed up. AIBU for being fed up about this and also how do I explain to her to grow out of this?!!!!!!!?? How can I help her???

This is a very complex thread to enter into. And I haven't read every detail of it. But it seems that this a 14-year-old, not a toddler. So "she spends most of her time in her nurse" seems inappropriate, whether or not that was a typo for "nursery" which I hope it was.
This child probably needs a diagnosis. But also needs grown-up parents.

She sounds autistic. Is she autistic?

Hi, OP. The recent resurgence of popularity for Interview With A Vampire is because of a tv adaptation. It's on iPlayer if you want to have a look. The unique selling point of this adaptation is that it takes the homoerotic undertones of the book and makes them more upfront. It's Louis and Lestat in a gay relationship, basically, complete with sex scenes.

I mention this because it seems unlikely your teenage daughter, who spends a lot of time online, didn't get into the book through the show. It's a pretty explicit show. Think Game of Thrones or True Blood. I doubt it's the kind of thing you'd allow your fourteen year old to watch normally, so if she is watching it, she's streaming it behind your back. That's one point to consider.

Another point is that the way you describe her . . . if she is a big fan of this show, there's no way she's not involved in online fandom for it. She will hide this and delete any history if she knows you're looking, but she will be spending a lot of time on Tiktok, Tumblr, and the fanfiction writing site Archive of our Own (AO3 for short.)

Let me be very clear. You might think this is cute and harmless - just teenage girls writing stories about the male characters they have a crush on. But the vast, vast, vast majority of what she's reading will be explicit gay sex. Far more in-depth stuff than she's seeing on the TV show. Less than one percent of fanfiction is what you might call "gen fic" (stories about the characters). The rest is romance stories with a lot of explicit sex scenes, or just straight up porn. Anal sex, anal fingering, rimming, and things like that, will be standard fare in almost every story she's reading. Given that it's a vampire fandom, I can tell you without even bothering to look that there will also be a heavy presence of kink. Blood-drinking, choking, and BDSM are a guarantee.

This is your daughter's first exposure to sex. Everything I described will be completely normalised within the fandom. Young women like your daughter - every one of whom will describe herself as having ADHD, autism and anxiety - will be the ones writing these stories. She'll think she's found her people.

In this community, "kink-shaming" is considered a form of bigotry akin to homophobia, so no-one will be reining anyone else in when they go too far. No-one will want to be mean and tell them the kink stuff is ridiculous. Or admit it makes them uncomfortable. As you can imagine, this leads to the autistic, inexperienced young authors diving deeper and deeper into kink to gain clout with their peers. It makes them look more mature and gets them respect if their fics are more sexually explicit. Everyone's chasing novelty. It's not uncommon for girls like this to freely admit to watching gay porn to get "inspiration".

The boundary is getting pushed further and further out, and the younger people coming into these fan spaces have no reference point for what's normal. So they decide it all is. They form the opinion that extreme kink is just sex, and think it's what is going to be expected of them in adulthood. You can imagine the issues these girls are developing as a result.

If your daughter is clinging to toddler things the way you describe, two things could be happening. One is that she's regressing out of fear. Adulthood is sex and sex is scary and degrading, so she wants to go back to being a little kid. The other, more disturbing option is that she has encountered a kink popular in these spaces, known as "ddlg" or "daddy dom little girl". Basically one person infantilises themselves by behaving like an actual child, and then another comes along and "doms" them (in the BDSM sense) by being their sexual "daddy".

I'm sorry. It's as vomit-inducing as it sounds. But you will see young girls caught up in this on these social media sites. Live streaming with strange men from their bedrooms. I don't mean to scare you, and I hope this isn't what's going on with your daughter, OP. I don't think it's likely.
But I do think she has probably been exposed to sexual content she wasn't mature enough to cope with, and she's struggling to process it. I think there's a side to her you're not seeing, and it would be a good idea to check her devices.

Plenty of autistic teenagers have a plushie collection, but for a fourteen year old to be watching In The Night Garden at the same time as reading Russian literature, is unusual.

@SnoopyPajamas I nor she knew about that show until 3 days ago. She brought it up and said it was ‘raunchy and tasteless’, so I have literally no concerns about that + I check her phone extensively

If the "Russian literature" she's been reading included Lolita, by the way, that's also a red flag for exposure to kink. The ddlg crowd are obsessed with it

That's great, if true. Maybe she's just an Anne Rice purist and has no interest. They do exist, just usually not in her demographic.

When you say she spends a lot of time online, what is doing, exactly?

SEND children can often present as younger than their peers and can be emotionally immature. I would let her go at her own pace. Maybe try a comfy sports bra?

As a SEN parent I never jump to sounds like SEN but you did then confirm in another post this is indeed the case. Is she in mainstream school? My DD is younger than yours but she absolutely flourished once in a social and communication unit attached to a mainstream and I wonder if this is maybe an avenue to explore? Other than that given i haven't reached this stage yet I think just keep giving her opportunities to be independent in small baby steps and hopefully she will get there eventually? College is more relaxed than secondary school so it may be she comes into her own there if she decides to continue her education which from what you've said about her intelligence may be likely

@SnoopyPajamas Shes usually gaming or playing relaxing games. That or she’s watching my little pony etc or writing.

Have you had a look at WHAT she is writing?

Yes I’m very sure that’s her real opinion..

TBF I am 40 and I quite like Bluey.

The clinging to childhood, childishness

Saying she’ll always need someone with her, breaking down that she’ll be alone/single forever

clininging to comfort items

…. and you’re divorced? How recent? did it shake up her world? Perhaps she just needs more comfort and reassurance than most due to her additional needs?

In this siutation, I’d drop the topic of conversation entirely (stop saying things like “oh you don’t want that, it is for babies”),but lean into the comfort/reassurance thing by almost going over the top with cuddles and telling her that you do indeed like and love her - but not when she’s seeking it, pepper it throughout the day.

The saying that you don’t love her sounds like reassurance seeking to me.

Maybe lean into the reading, even if russian and femininist literature aren’t your thing. Try and steer her into making reading an established hobby, e.g. library visits to look for new books, see if you can find tickets for something to do together that she might be interested in. Basically try and nurture areas of interest that are more teenager-suited and I’d totally ignore those that arent.

I’d also try and gently encourage her to do things with you that she might then go on to enjoy and want to do more of herself. E.g. both go swimming, to a pottery painting place, to a museum.

The being very afraid of men/sexual assault can be from spending too much time online, following certain people on social networks etc, it can really make you feel that way.

You need to stop thinking about her biological age and remember that her emotional age is much younger.

As a PP said, she has her whole life to be a grown up.

It may be worth looking into an ARB and a school/college designed fit children with SN.

I worked with many older teens than your DD and they would watch peppa pig etc too but because they were surrounded others with SN then there was no worry about them being different or anything.

It’s actually beautiful being in a school where they can be completely themselves and not have this pressure of trying to act older.

You express frustration that she doesn’t seem to be letting go of her childhood, but you also admit that she is AuDHD so surely it’s likely these signs fall within the realms of her neurodiversity? I think what she needs is acceptance, not pushing to conform to how you feel she ‘should’ be behaving as a 14 year old. It also sounds like she may also be experiencing anxiety and low self esteem. None of what you have described is inherently harmful.
It is acceptance by and connection to you that is most likely to eventually give her the confidence to grow and develop. I noticed you say she is closer to the nanny. Maybe that’s something to focus on- your relationship.

To be fair OP, all the pieces do seem to be pointing to her being exposed to a lot of sexual content, and violent sexual content, and that she is being disturbed by it. (feminist literature, russian literature, Vampire literature. Being too scared to go into the world as men as scary, as you described).

This. Let her go at her own pace. My DD is similar.
It's a lot more common for young women to not wear bras these days so, if she's not uncomfortable, I say leave her to it. Or help her to find a vest or crop top which is comfy but also gives her a bit of support.

Sounds similar to my AuDHD stepdaughter. In hindsight I gave it too much headspace- she has eventually started to grow up now she's 15.

Adult woman with reasonable sized breasts here. Unless I’m at the gym, I would never wear a bra. They’re extremely uncomfortable and offer no health benefits. And I’m not willing to suffer to conform to other people’s ideas of how I should look.

I do leave the house alone. And haven’t watched Bluey. But each to their own.

She’s autistic, this is very typical behaviour. Puberty is a very difficult transition time for many people with ASD, and holding on to comforts is how she’s getting through it. She may well need support for life on some level, that’s part of parenting a child with ASD. I love Bluey and Pokemon (though I was a child when the latter started so a lifelong fan), I’m nearly 40. But at my age I can tell anyone who thinks that’s silly to bugger off to be fair…

I don't think it is how they look, rather unsupported breasts can be uncomfortable, and of course cause back pain too.

There are many comfy bras nowadays. It isn't all 24hr girdle types.

@RaveToTheGrave1 Yes! She writes magnificently and it’s almost uncanny how well she does it. Don’t worry though, the topics are usually about random things like leaves instead of novels and novels.

I’d rather that than so many kids I know today having sex, drugs, alcohol, smoking, sneaking out etc being bad teens

@rustydoorhinge To be fair she’s had experiences/trauma with strange men so I can understand that. Again, I do try to heavily limit what she’s exposed to but in this world there’s only so much you can do. I suspect shes LGBTQ+ tbh.

What ongoing support does she have around her AuDHD and what it means for her?

Are you/she involed in anything locally where she might have opportunity to socialise and you have support from other parents with an ND child/children?

What a load of rubbish! You have absolutely no idea about AuDHD do you!
My 16 year old son's current obsessions are Cbeebies bedtime stories, Coronation Street, EastEnders, Dr Who and reading Shakespeare!
He also has a full collection of and plays with actual toys.
He doesn't access the internet so isn't in any BDSM forums - he's just AuDHD!