DD’s birthday was an utter disaster

[bendmeoverbackwards]

It’s DD’s 19th birthday today. She’s ASD and has been out of education for a few years.

Last couple of birthdays have been disappointing to her and I know this one brought up a lot of emotion not just about birthdays but also her situation in general.

I asked her a few weeks ago if she wanted to see a particular show and a meal at a steak place. She just said no but gave no other suggestions. I then asked last week of she wanted just a meal out and where - no response. So I decided to book a local restaurant just in case as Saturday nights get busy, with the option of cancelling if she didn’t want to.

When I told her, she wasn’t happy and said she couldn’t do it now because I’d chosen it (autistic brain). I asked where else she’d like to go but didn’t get a reply. I suggested a takeaway, took hours of questions about this, she didn’t see a takeaway as a birthday celebration. She eventually decided on pizza.

I also got her a beautiful personalised cake. Last year for her 18th, I got her a nice chocolate cake with her name on but it didn’t have the same personalisation as her older sister’s 18th birthday cake (which was celebrated in lockdown so I pushed the boat out a bit). Also the board base was accidentally thrown out when there was a tiny bit of chocolate left on it. She complained about this for months. I said I would buy her an extra cake (cheapy supermarket cake) but I forgot.

Now she says she can’t have this year’s cake because of the lack of the other one and it would be in the wrong order (autistic brain again).

Choosing presents is also difficult for her so I chose a few small gifts and paid in £50 birthday money into her account. She didn’t like this either, she wanted to choose her own presents (but from past experience she takes ages to choose, months and months, so I thought I’d make it easier by giving her money).

Written down, I realise she sounds like a spoilt brat. But I didn’t do some things that I said I would eg buy her an additional cake and take her for a belated birthday meal (from last year).

The evening ended with her sobbing in the kitchen and me losing my temper 😢

It’s not working. She is 19 with no prospects and is still crying over a scraping of chocolate on a cake board from a year ago. It’s not working, is it?

This is exactly how I’d play it. Like a universal basic income. You can do fuck all and I will still put a roof over your head and you can eat whatever meals I am cooking for everyone else but there will be nothing at all beyond that if you are unwilling to put anything in. As soon as you are ready to get a job, start and actually attend an educational course or even do some regular volunteering then I will ‘match fund’ that by restarting some allowance. You put in effort you get a reward otherwise you get just the very very basics. I will not nag you to do what I want as it’s your life and your choices but I will be ready to help you just as soon as you ask for my help. If you are rude and unpleasant I will walk away but remain available when you are ready to engage constructively. I have done exactly this with my DD having realised that I was previously over interfering wanting to save her from bad choices which only led to arguments. This approach is much less emotionally costly for me and has worked a lot better.

See, that phrase alone would have me go nuclear. Retard is not an acceptable phrase to use. In your situation I'd have snapped tbh and told her she was spolit, rude, ungrateful and becoming a really nasty person. I'd be ashamed of my 19 year old having that stuck up and spiteful attitude and I'd bloody tell her so.

Autism is not a green light to behave like an arse. She'd get fuck all for her birthday until she learns to appreciate people's effort and would be staying in her room until she'd apologised to you, her dad and anyone else she has been rude to.

The average time of burnout is 5 years. My dd went into burnout in year10. She was 14. She’s 19 now and is definitely coming out. Although it can flare up.

There’s no alternative to the low demand approach. However, the fact that your Dd can babysit suggests she is out or coming out. She may need very gentle pushes. Her behaviour is normal for ASD though.

I'd argue that you've already BEEN doing the low demand approach, because you're moving heaven and earth for her, and she's not changing her behaviour. It's time to put your foot down and make hard choices.

Massive social care needs yet is safe and appropriate to provide care to vulnerable young children?🙄

How long have you been trying it? It’s meant to start garnering positive changes within a few months, though it can take years to.

The low demand is supposed to focus on non-essential demands. It’s about not hammering her with - get your shoes/tidy your room/do this etc. it’s not about her avoiding all responsibility, being aggressive and rude and berating you for over a year about a cakeboard you threw away.

I think requiring your child to apologise to dad for telling him to F off isn’t non-essential. Asking her to choose between cake A or B for her 19th birthday should be practical. Asking her to visit the local tech college open evening to see if there are any courses she might like to do in September is also feasible.

I think, perhaps, you are mis-applying it? Do you have an autism professional to advise (via the NAS, maybe?). She is old enough - and intelligent enough from what you say - to understand she needs to start engaging in education, job hunting etc. Otherwise, you have been manipulated by a clever teenager into doing what she wants. What she needs is something different.

Wow.

Perhaps you need to withdraw your financial support. She sounds extremely entitled and downright horrible. This is nothing to do with being ASD.

Heaven help society in 10 years then as a quarter of young people seem to have it

I mean it’s going to depend where you are, but here the council/homeless route wouldn’t work. The waiting list for housing is insane. The council would visit you and put pressure on you to keep her, and they’d encourage her to do the same. She’d join a waitlist and be assessed but as a 17 year old with MH issues, I was allocated a room at the Salvation Army. If you didn’t stay there, they presumed you had somewhere else you could be and ended their obligation to help you. It was grim and I chose sleeping outside over going there, but they’re probably not all the same.

If they do find they have an obligation to house her, it’d likely be a bed sit or cheap hotel room for quite a long time.

I’m not saying this to suggest that you don’t act, you might have to, but it was a tough experience when I was going through it and I’m in my mid-30s now. It wasn’t my parents, but my boyfriends parents, and it was horrible and awkward having the council basically begging them to let me stay… the whole thing was horrible.

My own children are much younger so I don’t have a huge amount of advice, but even just from the answers, it seems there are two very clear paths and it must be very difficult to choose which is right. I wish you all the best with it.

A quarter? That’s being conservative, I’d say 70%!

Well quite. There are some disconnects in all this, certainly. But in general principles there’s no reason a person in similar circles can’t apply and have an EHCP.

What is "burnout"? That's not a diagnosis. Too vague to mean anything in terms of intervention/management, so really a cop out term

The issue is that we need to be consistent that the world can’t charge for neuro divergent people as early as childhood.

There are plenty of things that could be changed. Supporting ND young people with their mental health difficulties would be a start. My DC is on her third referral to CAMHS mental health team. She's also been through their eating disorder team. Dismissed from all of them without any support because her difficulties are "related to autism", although they never elaborate kn why this means they can't help her. There is zero interest in supporting young people with autism to manage in the world. Schools have become less inclusive, not more inclusive. Workplaces seem to be going the same way.

As ND is recognised more you would think there might be some changes to societal and workplace expectations but it seems not.

Burnout on mn seems to be a reason to be rude aggressive and abusive, but are of course a victim to anyone who doesn’t pander to you, or makes “demands” Iike be polite, clean up any mess you make, take personal responsibility..

I don’t think the low demand approach is sensible. It’s been 2.5 years and she hasn’t changed or engaged with any support. You are paying all her living costs and an allowance. What incentive is there for her to change. Realistically you’ll be in same position when she’s 25 and she’s failed to launch.
What does she do with her time. I don’t think it’s at all helpful for a physically fit yp to be wafting around doing nothing, watching sm and dwelling on perceived slights from years before.
Structure to day and purpose are massively beneficial. If she’s not up to a ft job she could work pt (McDonalds where my dc worked had lots of autistic staff in kitchen) volunteer eg if she likes children she could volunteer at brownies or cubs weekly.
It’s very infantilising to pay everything like she’s 12.

that you need to toughen up and try something else. Stop giving her an allowance for a start. Tell her to check with these fancy unis she wants to go to, how she can get on a course. Tell her to research how she is going to fund that.

What does your DH say about all this?

She is not your friend, she is your child.
What will happen if you and your DH can't take care of her? What then? are you expecting her sisters to take over? have you asked them?

Exactly. And not just on MN.

Burnout is a diagnosis. It’s in the RCPSY information on ASD.

It’s also in several other papers.

Autism is an enemy of its own success now.

10/15 years ago, I hadn’t even heard of it.

Now every other poster on here has a child with ASD.

It’s not surprising that such a nebulous condition that has suddenly exploded, complete with a spectrum of different profiles and few long term studies, is going to struggle to have a specific robust treatment pathway.

I imagine the professionals are almost as clueless as we are as to how to ‘treat’ this. Nobody can agree on what it is, nobody can agree on anything really.

I hope I can find the strength to toughen up. And whilst I fully agree that we are not our child’s friend but their parent, I also believe that a good relationship with your child is very powerful. I want dd to know that not only do I love her but I also BELIEVE in her and have faith that she’ll sort her life out. Or am I wrong in that belief?

You don’t act like you believe in her, you act like she needs cosseting and micromanaging as she can’t do anything for herself. It may come from a place of love, but it isn’t doing what you think it’s doing.

So, when she fails to flourish and is at home forever being a nightmare, it’s all fine encase you believe in her 🙄.

Namby Pamby parenting at its finest.

Well yes, especially when it’s being used as a “how dare you be upset/offended you were verbally/physically assaulted!! You are evil and dreadful for even acknowledging that! You should apologise for existing”
and yes as has been stated here, NAAPALT… but when it’s a person who engages well as long as people do what they want, yet are foul and abusive at other times… well

agree with pp - you aren't behaving as though you have belief in her, quite the opposite.

By doing all the backwards bending over you are showing her that you have absolutely no confidence that she can behave any other way.

But again - what is the plan for 1 year, 5 years and 10 years hence? when you are no longer around?