To wonder if my daughter is normal…

[HappinessLasts]

I absolutely adore DD, but find her character really interesting. She can be so challenging at times, but also so loving and very creative in all that she does. She is 10 and is my 2nd child.

Im going to describe her as best I can in a few paragraphs.

At school, she is well behaved and compliant. In fact, she gets quite bothered by people who aren’t working hard. On that note, in her free time she is very self motivated, and can learn absolutely anything with a YouTube tutorial. It must be things of her own choosing and I can’t get involved.

If something is someone else’s idea, this will put her off choosing that option. For instance, if she wad choosing a cake for her birthday, and someone said “this one looks nice”, whilst pointing to one, she then wouldn’t be able to choose that one.

She makes friends very easily, and little children adore her, but she gets really overwhelmed if these people become clingy and they aren’t one of her favourites. She doesn’t like it when people she knows well look different to normal - if I had my hair restyled, did my makeup differently, or something like that, it would cause her distress.

Her emotions are of the extreme, and she can still have the occasional outburst. However, she is very affectionate and kind hearted. For example, she gives me a cuddly toy for me to take to bed every night.

She has a huge imagination and writes loads of stories in her spare time. However she can’t handle anything remotely scary. Certain facial expressions - like me having my eyes wide open with a surprised expression causes her distress. No reason behind this, although I think it might be linked to her not liking me looking different to my most common expressions.

She is funny, has a great sense of humour, and loves to make people laugh. She would stand at the centre of any room and speak confidently to any audience.

I find her personality and quirks interesting. She is just so different to me. She has been a more challenging child to raise than my eldest, who is more similar to me in certain regards.

I feel like understanding her has been and continues to be a challenge, as I feel like I’m navigating through a maze and I don’t know what’s around the next corner.

Can anyone relate? Are these traits what we would call “normal”?

This would be horrible for her to read one day, she sounds like a child. We’re all different, and yes the word ‘normal’ is an awful thing to ask strangers on the internet about the child you birthed.

Perfectly normal. I'm interested as to what you're trying to get out of this post.

I think everyone is different. If you are thinking she has asd traits I would read up on how it presents for girls. Masking is common in school but I think most children are behaving differently at home to some extent. My child has asd and a fairly late diagnosis in school. It became more obvious as they got older. When I consider quirks from toddler age it also connects.

Very very similar to my daughter. Head girl material in school and chilled and funny and relaxed and yet similar to how you describe at home. I expect some level of ND but we are all bright and sociable but ‘quirky’ as you say in this house.

Note - we do have family history of severe ND so I’m not being insensitive and ‘light around this’.

We found all of this ‘peaked’ around 8-9 and has eased a little now.

One point I would suggest is buckets and buckets of exercise, enough sleep and not too much sugar before a day out. Honestly once we ramped up to ‘squad/team’ level exercise we found it a lot better and when that is off through holidays we see a revert to form.

We are careful to help her decide when to do homework for eg so it’s ’her choice’ but make sure we carve out that time for her.

Also we find we can sometimes be a bit ‘scared of her’ 😀 As in if we are tired after work can find her interactions quite stressful and needy so we have to make sure that she gets enough attention by ‘love bombing’ almost ie)actively spending time with her when she’s hard to spend time with.

That all sounds harsh but I’m being really transparent incase it’s what you need. That said we adore her, she’s such a magical and amazing person and she will have an amazing life we can see that already.

It helps that I see myself as a child in her too but my husband is in your position and found 8-9 hard. He now has some hobbies he shares with her - football stickers, team sports, doing yoga sessions on you tube and that’s helped. We watch tv series she likes with her too that are ‘our thing’.

Am glad you bought up HSP as it rarely gets a mention. I have this but I thought it meant I was neurodiverse? Are you a psychologist?.

Also my daughter has issues with changes too. I can’t cut my hair (nor can she other than the tiniest trim). She absolutely won’t let us change the front door paint from black to any other colour. She also struggling getting rid of things unless it’s her idea and in the mood for it xx

She sounds weirdly similar to my 9yo son. Just add in we can't have play dates because he has a mortal phobia that another child will climb on his bed. A thought he just can't handle!! He gets really upset if i change my hair or if I wear clothes or colours I usually don't. He even notices if I change deodorant and will moan. Same with not being able.to handle scary stuff. Sometimes we can be playing and messing around all fine and he will burst into hysterical sobs and he's genuinely terrified because of a face i pulled. Through his tears he will be constantly repeating sorry because he knows its daft but he can't help it. 2bh he's my eldest and I thought he was normal just quirky. But My three others aren't like this at all.
He's super popular at school and gets on really well, very clever. I don't think he shows a lot of these behaviours there.

And she sounds just like I was - and I have Aspergers!

As long as she's happy, let that be enough.

Did you not read OPs almost instant update on her use of the word ‘normal’ ? OP has posted for genuine advice from others’ experience, not a derail from the language police.

She sounds normal and you sound like you want to put her in some type of box/diagnose her with something. Each of those things sound fine and normal on their own and even together.
why is the mindset today, that everyone needs a label for everything?

I’m stepping in to say that I agree with this. My own beautiful daughter, very similar to yours OP was bullied relentlessly throughout secondary school and during the latter years of being a primary school child she became confused and frustrated. She changed from the bright, happy, imaginative little girl to one who was depressed, angry and anxious. She started to experience physical health problems related to the last three things and the impact of trauma is now deep seated. I think it’s great that you want to explore and talk about ND. Why wouldn’t you?

ETA my daughter has been diagnosed as autistic and with ADHD.
She was bullied for being “different”, for expressing herself differently, for being unable to cope with unruly behaviour in classrooms, for not liking the same things as the other girls as time went on etc etc and she is incredibly artistic but this became stunted when being told how to follow formulae to produce a sketchbook a certain way in order to get marked correctly.

It would be worth talking to a child psychologist.
One thing I have noticed is, that DC are rarely like their parents, sometimes the complete opposite.
I have a really shy friend, her 8 year old is the loud and proud narrator in the school hall. I'm outgoing, my DC are chronically shy.
It wouldn't hurt to chat with a professional.
Once she hits teenage years, it could hit her like a train.
Hormones and asd teenagers, fun times.

That’s not what l took from OPs post. It sounds as though there are difficulties here that need to be addressed and if there’s a possibility of ND then early intervention is key.

I agree. Some of these things were things I felt at 10/11. My Mum cut her long hair into a very different style and I cried, I hated that she looked so different. I am definitely still put off something if someone suggests it to me. I also have a very vivid imagination.
I am not neurodivergent, but I do probably fit the HSP profile.

Sounds just like me as a child!

It really depends what you mean by 'distress'. You need to expand on that.

She sounds pretty 'normal' to me.

I agree with the posters who have mentioned asd/adhd.
Sometimes it all gets a lot harder during puberty, high school and things can fall apart a bit.

Another late diagnosed woman here who certainly has some similarities to your DD from what you’ve described. I went my whole life being told I was abnormal and weird and since my use of the internet it seems most late diagnosed ND women have had similar. I have hugely enjoyed connecting with these women and been able to share and over share (iykyk) our experiences.
People worry about over diagnosing children over a few “quirks” but if it’s more than a “quirk” then a professional should be able to tell you. I think it’s worth looking into for your DD.
All my DC are diagnosed ND to varying degrees (it was after their diagnosis' my GP who has known me over 20 years suggested it may be worth considering looking into ND for me) and it’s helped me massively to understand that Im not just a bundle of chaos for the sheer fun of it.
Your DD may or may not be ND but it’s worth finding out for her benefit. I have NT friends who aren’t remotely typical in their behaviour without ND, they’re just very unusual characters which is great, be boring if we were all the same. I do understand the reluctance people have to seek a diagnosis for a child who may be absolutely typical, but if they’re not, it’s worth knowing, because they deserve people around them to be educated about their behaviours and triggers etc x

Why would it be horrible to read when nothing horrible has been said ? OP clearly suspects something is amiss and has come to the forum to ask advice from those with similar experience, so that she can better support her child. She qualified the use of the word ‘normal’ almost immediately which you clearly missed. So many OPs being chased from their own threads by pile ons started by thoughtless comments like this. OP asked for advice from anyone with similar experience, which you clearly don’t have, so why post at all ?

Nobody on here is qualified to make judgements about the OP's daughter, not least because they've never met her.

I am sure OP realised that when she decided to post and is looking for people who may have experienced similar personality traits to hear about those experiences. Lots of people post on these forums for that reason.

The poster who outlandishly claimed 'she's NT, not ND' is equally irresponsible and has no clue whether this is true or not.

OP isn't asking anyone here to decide if her daughter is NT or ND - she's looking for commonality of experience (very normal to want to do this) and whether other parents / people reading her thread recognise the behaviours demonstrated by her DD so she can start to build up a picture of whether she may or may not want to make further investigations.

Autistic and ADHD woman here 🙋‍♀️and this sounds EXACTLY like me growing up! (The being unable to choose something if I think it’s someone else’s choice resonates hard…) 41 now, still by no stretch normal but doing just fine 😂

My 2.5 year old is off his absolute rocker, as all toddlers are. But mix that with a couple of things - he's being referred to senco for some particular traits they picked up on so strongly they clocked them before he turned 2, and he's waiting for speech therapy. I have observed many many things that have me thinking "hmm, ill keep a mental note of that for the senco meeting should it result in referral for diagnosis".

He is very different to other children. He's exceptionally clever, independent, imaginative, loves causing problems so he can solve them, needs routine to an absolute T, funny about sensory issues ie loud and busy he can't cope for long but also textures he has that he loves. Etc etc. (when i say different to other children i dont mean he's more clever i just mean all the above are displayed differently in his behaviour to other clever funny children)

Im not keen on labels until intervention and professional assessments. So i just go with it. So for now he is who he is.

I make our life as easy and fun as I can so i can provide what he needs to be happy daily. And i use it to enrich his life. Our life is an oxymoron of complete chaos and run like a military operation!

I think what im trying to say is can you lean into it in order to make life easier? For me running a home was so difficult i couldn't even do the washing without him messing with the dials because of his curiosity. So instead i taught him to fill the washer, he closes the door, i choose the setting, and he presses start. Then we take the clothes and i pass them to him to fill the dryer, and same thing with that because he was always messing with that. Now he never touches the dials.

In shops he gets bored and runs around. So i taught him to use the bank card. Now he waits because he loves it. Ill give him jobs like putting his rubbish in the bin and cleaning his spills with baby wipes after our monthly ice cream in town.

Lots of examples but i choose my battles and i lean into it and we have a wonderful, hard work, fun, exhausting but happy life.

Can you not get her referred if that's necessary, and in the meantime go with the flow where you can? Dont suggest a cake. Let her choose. Dont pull faces that scare her.

But from what im reading, she sounds a wonderful little girl full of fierce independence (mine is the same!) kind hearted, knows what she doesn't like and implements those boundaries by making it known, she sounds wonderful. You should be proud, and i feel like she is perfectly normal sounding to me! But as above, can relate re wondering if this or that is normal behaviour!!

I had a lot of these traits growing up. I don’t have ADHD or autism. I always got a feeling from my mum though that I wasn’t quite the child she wanted.

She sounds awesome. Celebrate her. Lots of this is well within the range of ‘normal’ behaviour. Obviously I’m not saying she is not ND, but she isn’t necessarily. But don’t make her feel like she’s not really the right fit for you like my mum did.

Do you know what it feels like to grow up being told that everything you intuitively do and feel is a problem, that you are always wrong and no matter how hard you try you can’t fit in? No? Well it’s shit.

Nobody is desperate to give everyone a label 🙄 but more parents nowadays are wanting to make sure their kids are being met exactly where they are and receiving exactly the right sort of educational and emotional support they need, and if having a diagnosis helps identify which types of support their kid might need then of course they’ll seek it. So bugger off with this “everyone needs a label” bollocks, you have no idea what you’re talking about.

She sounds a lot like my daughter who has PDA autism.