What do you wish you’d taught your child earlier, now they’re a neurodiverse adult?

[Treaclebear]

I’m a mum to a young neurodiverse child and often wonder what skills or lessons will really help them later in life. For those of you whose neurodiverse children are now teenagers or adults what do you wish you’d taught or focused on earlier?

I’d love to hear what has made the biggest difference for your child’s independence, wellbeing, and happiness as they’ve grown.

Following as in the same boat.

My son is 20 and very likely autistic. He's waiting on assessment results. Best thing we did was work out a coping strategy. So if he feels overwhelmed by a situation how to handle it. Hugs to anyone going through this, it's not easy but you find a way through x

My dd was diagnosed young, aged 2, and I was given advice to teach her independence, no not use autism as an excuse and to assume she can be a successful adult. Took longer than a typical person to get independent but at 25 she managed it, no so much working, more still studying

Self care strategies both for regulation in the moment and pacing in everyday life.

They need to know when young that you are their biggest advocate. That you help them when they are too young to regulate so they trust you to be a safe space as they get older. Teach them some behaviour is not acceptable whether they are ND or not. Make them aware the world is not always accepting and help them to have a variety stims or soothing behaviours, so they have some more discreet ones, regulating is much harder if you feel the world is watching. Fortunately these days wandering around with headphones on all the time will barely get you a second glance! However within our four walls our child is free to be as random as they wish to be we’ve only occasionally asked them to rein it in at home if it gets a bit too loud but we always do so gently and with an explanation.
Help them learn what can help with self regulation, what situations can be avoided how to deal with harder ones. A little bit of pushing around comfort zones so they maybe attempt new things, but always give them ultimate control over whether or not they do something. Ie we will try this once and if you don’t like it that’s fine. It helps them to know that a single slightly unpleasant/annnoying experience isn’t the end of the world.

I wish that id been able to teach them how to tidy up better

Thats the main thing that bothers me for all of them that stresses me out.
Its something that all of us struggle with, but the things that I would do for everyone when they were little and I was a sahm, are really really getting to me now im working and they're older.

I wish id been able to instill better habits earlier, but I struggle enough myself and always needed to reduce conflict for my own mental health. Now its something that I really worry about

I think the most important thing is for each individual to understand themselves. To understand their nervous system, sensory system, cognitive processing and executive functioning systems. That applies at every level of support need. How it looks might be different but I think the same principles apply.
Too much focus is on teaching autistic children to understand the allistic world and people in it, before they've been given a chance to understand what it is to be themelves.

Ensure they know that the goal is not to be 'less autistic' or more 'typically passing'.

Support them in understanding others just as I'd expect all children to do. The degree to which this is possible will vary as all children are different.

Help them balance the benefits of doing something (such as socialising) with the resulting dysregulation or impact on their energy levels or 'spoons'. Support them in making choices that work for them.

Mine are 20 and 17 now.

Things that have really benefited them (I think):

Politeness. They come across as odd (sometimes), but pleasant. They always say please and thank you and offer to help with things, etc. This is a fairly teachable behaviour and it actually makes a big difference to the way they are treated. It just makes their lives so much easier, because it makes a big difference to how they are perceived.

Practical skills like cooking, laundry, cleaning, personal hygiene. Useful in themselves, but also useful for building confidence and making them feel like they can cope with life independently. Having said that, the 20 year old (now away at uni) barely washes or changes their clothes, and lives on frozen junk food. It drives me mad, but at least I know it's out of choice and not because they lack the ability to do anything else.

Personally I'm also a big fan of Scouts, Guides, etc for ND kids, if possible. They are often really good at building confidence and practical skills, and they provide a structured social environment with set activities (usually non-competitive), which can be a great way for ND kids to spend time with their peers.

ASD teen boy mum here.

The importance of handwashing, deodorant as normal from a young age (pre 8) and I would have told him again and again and again about clean pants.

DD is two years older and I never had to emphasise this stuff over and beyond what most mums do. 'wash your hands after the toilet' or 'give me your dirty uniform, heres a clean pile'.

He is wonderful in a million ways, but his resistance to changing comfy socks (aka stinky two week old socks) and pants 🤢 is without doubt the most challenging thing at the moment!

Oh and I would have made brocoli no negotiable at every dinner even when we were busy. He now lives on home made pasta sauce, home made pizza (I do the dough from scratch) and mince.

So personal hygiene but don't stop mentioning it when you think they've got it, because a couple of years goes by and they remember none of what you taught them!

I do wonder what his (amazing and incredibly supportive and lovely) teachers think of me. I hope they judge me on how i look and the cleanliness of my other child!

Good luck.

how to cook
how to tolerate other people and the many obstacles in life

I work with a lovely man with autism - during work time he will try his hardest to fit in with us NT people, is brilliant at his work, will speak in a very structured way (very polite etc)
He has told us that if he has his headphones on to just leave him alone ie at breaks etc, and occasionally when working as that is his safe space.
It helps that we know his signals

I've taken my ASD teen out of school to HE at age 14. I don't know whether I have done the right thing, maybe I'll never know, but I do know she is finally happy. She hums, chats to her friends and even sings. She even had a coluntary laugh at the dog today. In school she was so shut down it was unreal. She never spoke at home at all. Family all comment on the new improved her. We are putting huge efforts into getting her an education but allowing time for her to also be happy means doing 3 GCSEs in Yrs 10/11 and then another 3 in A-level years which puts her "behind". I also have no idea how she will ever have a job. But she is learning to wash her clothes and has started to learn the very basics of cooking which she will definitely need.

As an ASD adult I wish my parents HADN'T taught me that I am rude. That was all I heard and I struggled so hard not to be seen as rude that I nowhave a massive people pleasing issue. I am not rude, I am autistic. However I also have a great job, a wonderful boyfriend, a house, a car... MAybe if I hadn't learned so well how to act normally then I'd not have got all of this. I am, at age 48, finally letting my autistic inner me out and the relief is huge.

As parents you do your best and that's really all you can do.

I'm assuming this is another thread about autistic children/people whereby you mean those who are not severely autistic?

God these threads piss me off. We really need differential diagnoses for varying types of autism.

I would query that you can 'teach' ND children things that they don't want to learn.

You can role model, you can build skills if they are willing, but some ND children are very resistant to being 'taught'.

I have one who both myself and school have tried to teach to cook, at several different points in their lives and am still trying. They absolutely refused to touch the oven or knives in school and would get others to do things for them. At home I have explored the fears they have around this and have found some ways round it like buying prechopped veg and using an air fryer. Despite a lot of intervention they still seek reassurance at EVERY step of the process and there are some things they will not do. It doesn't help that when they are using a knife they look as if they are about to chop their own fingers off.

D&T at school was a similar story - absolute and total refusal to pick up tools that they viewed as dangerous.

It really varies OP according to the child and their willingness and some days you are so exhausted trying to just get through the basics of getting dressed, brushing teeth etc there isn't time for the extra stuff.

Cooking and tidying. I always saw home as a low-demand environment where he could decompress after school, now I have a 20 year old who can’t boil pasta as he’s frightened he’ll get burned and who is surprised that clothes don’t wash himself.

Oh hiya @willingtolearnare you me and what are you doing with my DS?

As a neurodivergent adult, there are certain things I wish I had been taught.

One would be around setting boundaries, and healthy relationships, recognising red flags.

When I was young I really internalised the messages about being kind, putting others first, caring for others.

Those are great values, but I was quite trusting and didn't notice when other people were actually minipulating me. So I would fall for total sob stories and feel very responsible for looking after others. This trait can leave you open to exploitation.

So yes, healthy relationships, setting boundaries, recognising red flags, looking after yourself first.

I have neurodiverse children so am keen to teach them some good skills that will benefit later in life. I myself am late diagnosed ADHD and struggled so much growing up and into adulthood so I think what I wish I’d be taught more of and what I plan to do with my own children now I’m aware and have experience is routine - get them to create healthy routines for everything they do, even if it’s the weekend and they have nothing planned, still have certain things like showering , making the bed, tidying bedroom, good breakfast, journaling or reading, practicing breathing techniques to help with anxiety, going on a walk. Anything that can keep them from becoming bored and getting lost inside their own thoughts for hours spiralling. I also wish I’d been taught more about finances and budgeting and how to manage my money, this is something I still find difficult and have to really manage day to day, so I think teaching them from a young age will really help them to be able to handle when older. Being tidier, with ADHD I’ll never be show room clean, but just to manage the mess so it doesn’t turn into something so overwhelming that it consumes them and is a never ending cycle. I think the most important thing more than anything though is letting them know how proud of them I am, recognising their small wins and not letting them hear they aren’t reaching their potential or they are lazy or too much. I want to try and instill as much positive self esteem in them as possible and self confidence, to advocate for themselves. I want them to be proud of who they are and not to constantly be thinking ‘ I’m a failure’ or ‘ if only I could do this, this and this then I’d be ok and worthy’. I want to teach them that they are enough as they are and they should be proud of that. My self worth and confidence is something I’ve struggled with since I was a child, and it’s only now I'm diagnosed and on medication that I’m slowly starting to build it up and let it show through the self doubt and imposter syndrome. A lot of that was down to being told when I was younger that I wasn’t hitting expectations and failing to reach my potential. I was constantly criticised for being careless and lazy when I was struggling inside so much being undiagnosed. I hated myself and my mind but didnt know I had ADHD so just assumed this was how everyone was so why can’t I do it? So I would be so cruel on myself and beat myself up constantly. So I think that would be my main objective- to ensure they heard positive things about themselves and that I celebrated things they did however small they were.

Don’t feel guilty because you can’t do the same things as neurotypical people, or because you need to do things differently. I’m in therapy as an autistic adult and one of the things I struggled with was wanting to be like my peers and not understanding why I couldn’t cope the way they did.

The op has a question in relation to her circumstance, surely she should be free to ask?

Yes, I absolutely agree with this.

My kids needed to learn that they were just as important as other people. Other people's needs and wants were not more important than theirs, and it was not their job to fix everything. (Still not been completely successful in teaching them this.)

They also needed to be valued and praised and told/shown that they were great people and they deserved to be treated well.

ND doesn't always mean autistic.

Yes, there is also lots of variety among autistic people.

In general there are lots of different types of people, and no Mumsnet thread is going to be relevant to all of them. This would be an unrealistic bar to set.

OP didn’t even use the word autistic - neurodiverse can mean all kinds of different things - yet did some reason you still felt the need to come on and be unpleasant.

If you have an issue with the way autism is diagnosed and labelled then start your own thread - don’t come on someone else’s and bitch.

What do you mean by severely autistic?

Why get pissed off? Have some understanding that there is a spectrum and individuals face challenges. You might not see the challenges as they are more hidden but they are still real.

I think this is a very useful thread. I grew up in a time where there was no understanding of ND, especially in girls. I struggled enormously and despite achieving extremely highly in school I found friendships, office politics and relationships very hard. Consequently my life has been unhappy, stressful and I have no career having burnt out very young trying to do everything for everyone. My family never did anything other than tell me I was too shy, too sensitive, how I needed to toughen up, how only the weak get bullied so it was effectively my fault.

Thank you @Treaclebear for understanding your dc and trying to share knowledge to understand and help them make a success of navigating what to them is a complex world. You're a good mum.

I think one important thing to teach them is how to prioritise and manage their workloads. It is easy to spiral and achieve nothing when overwhelmed. Give them a coping strategy, even a list with dates on it can help. Basic life skills that most people would just do without thinking.