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”?

I disagree with this. If you suspect ASD or ADHD, start the process now. Many parents of ND children provide a strong framework to help their children and basically have a rolling system of adjustments in place, long before they even realise/suspect their child is ND because they recognise that they need a bit of extra support. That can work fine when they’re small, but when the teenage years arrive and they naturally want some independence, all sorts of problems can arise. Better to be prepared for those than have them land on you. You will wait years for an assessment. You fill in the forms with as much detail as possible. If it is considered that there is not enough evidence to suggest ASD/ADHD, the referral will not be pursued anyway. And if there is sufficient suggestion of ASD/ADHD, your child will be on the (very long) waiting list for assessment.

I totally agree with this.They usually cope in primary.

Fall apart in secondary. Often in the exam years. And then you’ve got a real problem in your hands.

Assess sooner rather than later

Just saying that she's very similar with those quirks to my diagnosed audhd teen with pda.

She sounds completely 'normal', to me, if that's a thing, which I don't personally think it is! Imagine if we were all the same, how incredibly boring life would be.

It concerns me that we're so quick to label any difference in personality as neurodivergence. People can also have traits that exist in neurodivergence without being themselves ADHD, autistic etc. If you read the lists of traits for these, a lot of them apply to a lot of us. I don't think being resistant to peer pressure for example or choosing what others suggest means anything, beyond being quite headstrong and independent-minded and good for her - that's a real quality! I think perhaps in future we'll come to realize that there is no such thing as neurotypical, in fact there are specialists that already argue that.

Wow. Sorry to be absolutely no help, but came here to say that this sounds just like me as a title girl. The only thing that bothers me now is hyper-independence. I can’t shake it!

Those saying "it's normal", "she's like everyother 10 year old", "I did this and I'm NT" etc would be the same posters on different threads saying that a 10year old or younger child should grow up and stop behaving like a baby if someone posted something like this about their NT child.

But here, because it's alluding to ND, some posters are being deliberately contrary and acting like it's normal for NT 10 year old children to be in distress if their parent changes hairstyle or makeup or facial expressions; habitually chooses something else because someone else likes the same thing or said it would look nice; struggles to learn anything or maintain friendship unless it's of interest; and gives them a cuddly toy to take to bed. I'll bet there's more that OP hasn't written if she's talking about her being challenging.

I know that people believe "everyone and everything is now ND" but let's just stop acting obtuse.

Edited to add: I'm not saying she's autistic or not by the way but those things combined aren't typical behaviour for her age. They could just be traits and she still wouldn't be ND. OP won't know unless she's assessed. If it's causing problems, then I'd encourage speaking to the GP or school SENCO.

Your DD is just like me as a child. I don't think she is ND, she's just a highly-sensitive person. And my DD is exactly the same as me. Extreme emotions...yes. Liking to be different...definitely. I hated being the same as other people...I even chose to support a different football team from the rest of the family, which caused much disdain. I remember my Mum saying to me "You just want to be different." Yes she was right, and what's wrong with that? At school my teachers always said that I didn't suffer fools gladly. I was also very affectionate and for a while I suffered from separation anxiety, as did my DD.

My DD and I don't like scary stuff either. I can't watch the news because it upsets me, especially stuff about children or animals. We can't watch those animal charity adverts either...if one comes on, I have to change the channel. My DD can always tell when I am upset about something...like your DD, she questions me when my facial expressions change...she says "are you all right Mum?" many times a day.

Being a highly-sensitive person is an advantage in many ways. I have an exceptionally good memory. I am a great judge of character. And nobody could ever scam me...I can spot a scam straight away. A disadvantage is that I find it difficult to trust people.

Don't expect your DD do be like you, just accept that she is different and give her plenty of support. She will be fine.