I’ll try and keep this succinct.
DD is 11 and has autism, diagnosed this year. She also has a chronic kidney disease that was disgnosed 4 years ago. Due to this she has missed a lot
of school over the past couple of years due to hospital admissions and it’s been hard on us all. School generally isn’t a happy place for her, it’s a big school and she’s get much a Sen-betweener and while they have things in place to support her they mainly involve her accessing them herself and she mainly doesn’t.
The last year or so she’s been in a friendship group of 3 including her which I know can often be tricky. They are nice girls, they all share similar interests and don’t yet use make up/ skincare like the rest of the girls in their class so have formed a little group that’s slightly separate to the other girls.
My daughter has been off for 4 weeks since admission to hospital and I’ve noticed this is the first time neither friend has called her (prior to this they’d message after school/ weekends so her phone was often pinging with just these 2
girls). Last night it struck me again how silent her phone has been so I had a Quick look and my heart sank as I saw she’s
reached out lots to both girls and they’ve either not responded or shut her down with “busy”. One had sent her pictures of the 2 of
them wearing matching clothes with BFF glitter tattoos and not in a “we miss you” way. I can see she’s asked a few times if they want to come
Over to visit, and they’ve read and ignored it. it’s so different from their previous messages. I gently mentioned to her how her friends are and she said fine so I don’t think my daughter is upset by it, but her
autism often means she misses non verbal social cues.
she’s due to go back to school next week and I’m nervous she’s walking into a friendship complex issue and has no idea and will have no idea how to manage it. She’s even got little cards she made for them both in hospital and I’m nervous she’ll be rejected with no warning.
do I just put my big girl pants on and let this all unfold next week as it happens? Or do I try to reach out to one of their parents? I don’t know either
well as both work full time as it’s not like when they were tiny and you know their parents well.