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 😢

@murphys loikkimg back I found her behaviour quite difficult as a younger child, lots of big emotion, she never really outgrew the toddler tantrums, very self centred etc. Then at 11 at the start of puberty she developed misophonia almost overnight and couldn’t bear the sound of people eating. Dh suspected possible autism. We talked to her primary school (at this point she was thriving at school both academically and socially), they hadn’t noticed anything but gave us the details of an excellent private psychologist. She did the assessment and diagnosis. But we weren’t entirely honest with dd, we told her the assessment was about prep for secondary school. I do feel guilty about this but we never would have got her there otherwise. This was the summer before year 7 and in spite of dd being very upset about the diagnosis, she had an excellent start to secondary school. Covid hit in the middle of year 8 and when she went back properly after the lockdowns, it was then that the wheels started to come off.

Be aware that you still need A Levels to get onto the Foundation Years of these courses - they are for people who are likely to get BBB-BCC at A level rather than the AAAs needed but may have had context of personal issues that hampered exam success. Or she can do an access course - officially it is an Access to HE Diploma and is very rigourously taught and assessed. It is not an easy or less robust option.

She can completely bypass Foundation years with an Access Diploma - it is recognised as being equivalent to 3 A Levels. So, for example my daughter obtained 45 distinction points on her Access, this equated to 144 UCAS points, equivalent to 3 As at A level. As I mention above, one of her peers went to Cambridge with her Access Diploma.

Most of the universities require between 128-132 UCAs points (AAB-ABB I think) so the Access Diploma is a better option. It is offered at most adult education and tech colleges - and the experience at the local tech has been very good for both my kids who were raised in an affluent middle class bubble. Sitting along side children of refugees, other autistics, people who left school at 15/16, single parents and adult returners really broadened their perspective. I really would take her to an open day/evening. The staff were also pretty close to bloody saints. So committed to helping young people get back on track.

Ideally yes. She is more likely to commit to something she has invested time into choosing. However she may need guidance regarding her options with whatever education she has to date. Would she speak to an adviser/teacher?

Yes I’d lay out expectation that she finds 3 courses she’s interested in and has researched and then you’ll be happy to look through them on Friday with her.
She’s 19. It’s her choice. I’m sure your elder 2 chose their own uni.
You need to break the cycle of you suggesting things and her dismissing and it all somehow being your fault and backing off for a few months leaving her to bed rot as my daughter would say.
You suggest a foundation year at Bristol and I’m sure she’ll say foundation years are for thickos or Bristol is full of public school toffs or whatever excuse she can think of/tik tok says.
If she’s not been capable of leaving house 99% of time and totally reliant on you then uni in another city seems unrealistic.

i think you are focusing on 'if I can just get her onto the right course, she will be ok'

But actually, she needs to develop into someone who can get herself onto the right course of her choosing.

You got her into an academic secondary school and got her a diagnosis of asd and extra support. She still chose to not go on, spend her nights in her room online and fucked up her GCSEs. You then got her into a lovely private school and she chose not to go, and blamed you. If you get her onto an animal care course I suspect she will.... not attend, stay up all night on her phone and fuck it up. And will then blame you for choosing the wrong course.

Her being NEET is a symptom if the problem, not the problem. The problem is she doesn't know how to handle adult life, has developed some avoidant and unhelpful coping strategies, and knows she can manipulate you into keeping things in a way that suit her.

You need to help her mature a bit, so she can choose her next step. I would start by turning off the wifi at night and in the day, and make any money you give her conditional on her doing something. She gets £50 a month IF she cleans out the cats littter tray, cleans the bathrooms every week and takes the bins out. If she doesn't, no money. And build from there. I make my neurotypical 10 year olds allowance conditional on chores, free money is no good for anyone.

And when she starts whinging about her past disappointments, tell her you aren't listening to it. You tried you best, she needs to decide how she wants her next birthday to go and plan for it, you aren't her servant. If she says things are beneath her I would tell her that anything she wants she has to work for, and she certainly doesn't deserve an oxbridge or medical school place at the moment, sat in her room ringing you to bring her meal up.

But we weren’t entirely honest with dd, we told her the assessment was about prep for secondary school. I do feel guilty about this

Are you thinking this might be the route of the problem as to her not accepting the diagnosis? Perhaps she felt a bit hoodwinked into why she was going.

And then also, do you still feel guilt about not telling her the truth and are battling to move on from that? Because this could absolutely explain some things.

It sounds as if she has two or three possible paths into education. That's enough. She must choose between them or propose a reasonable alternative of her own, and all her home privileges stop until she does. Lifts. Phone. Money. Internet. Fancy clothes. Gone.

Lay it out to her and list the concrete alternatives, including the nice diploma course, and tell her to choose or everything stops.

Don't expect her to be positive about any of the choices. Instead remember Marvin the paranoid android - "don't try to engage my enthusiasm because I haven't got one". That's your DD. She only needs to choose, she doesn't need to like it. She can be as negative and rude and dismissive about it as she likes and don't try to argue with her that she is wrong about it because that will only dig her in deeper - but she still has to choose one and follow through.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow I know there is no way to know if I am telling the truth, but without giving too much info about myself I can assure you than in this particular sphere I am very much not a random off the internet (from both professional and personal viewpoint). Make of that what you will, and if course I recognise that, as for everyone else, my opinion is my opinion, not hard fact (although saying that burnout is not a clinical diagnosis is a fact, of course).

It sounds like she coped reasonably well when she had structure and expectations and lockdown taking away a lot of that had a big impact. So time to bring back structure and expectations. There are some good suggestions here from where to start, chores etc. to get her pocket money.

The para explaining the private diagnosis at your instigation explains a lot.
Lots online she’ll be seeing and reading about how you just pay for a private diagnosis and they hand them out like sweeties. Tik toks saying MC mummies do it as they can’t face their dc not being academic enough or a bit quirky. You have to realise her head is filled with nonsense she’s seeing on sm and nothing else as she doesn’t go anywhere or do anything.
I think getting her outside away from sm will do her world of good. You are paying for her to access it you can choose to change that today.

OP I feel for you and as I’ve said in a couple of posts, my DD sounds very similar.

Firstly, low demand is not working, she’s not figuring things out herself.

At 19, it’s not too late for you to take a different approach, but it is more difficult. I would try and have a conversation with your DD around where does she want to be in 10 years.

Hopefully she will respond with something along the lines of working , living independently etc

Then talk through the steps she needs to take to get there - job, education etc.

I would firmly but gently say that we are a family that either work or engage in full time education. It’s part of life and part of growing up. Sitting around isn’t an option and if she doesn’t choose one of these routes you will stop paying for her phone and there will be no allowance.

You will then need to hope that this either springs her into action or that the experience of having all this cut off will make her so miserable she will make positive decisions herself.

If she doesn’t then you know you have a bigger issue, that will need significant professional intervention.
As it stands though you still have a chance to get her on the right path.

My experience with DD is constant fights and pushing her outside her comfort zone. We’ve been doing it for so long that it’s exhausting but we hope that it gets her over adolescence and into a space where being a functioning adult with a job is just her norm. I don’t know if she’ll ever achieve the way her siblings will, or if she can have a full life but we are giving her a chance of it and that’s all we can do.

Not necessarily, I’ve researched this and there are university foundation year courses available that don’t require A levels or equivalent. I was surprised too but they’re trying to widen access. My friend’s daughter has just done a a year at Essex with no A levels, she now has an offer from Cambridge!

She needs a plan for her future. You will obviously need to help her with that, but not by finding everything for her. Perhaps narrow down to pathways for a couple of interesting jobs - childcare, animals for example and let her think / investigate those). She can be as snobby as she likes but it won’t help her pay bills and move forward.

What is her plan for financial independence? Does she get PIP? If not, then time for her to look into that so you can stop the allowance (the PIP application is complex - she will need help but don’t just do it for)

It is very scary worrying about a child who might harm themselves but she needs you to help her become ready to adult, not be too scared to do that.

That's lovely, but your daughter isn't going to thrive on an access course at the monent, is she? She's barely leaving her room and sobbing about her birthday cake. You need to do something work to get her in a position where she can apply for this

Yes I do feel some guilt about that, we should have been honest with an 11 year old. And when I think about it, I start spiralling with worry and guilt that if we’d been honest maybe things would he better now 🤷‍♀️

Also what's to stop her getting onto the course, going to the first day then refusing to ever go back, like she did for her A levels?
Something needs to change

As parents we make decisions for what seem like the right reasons at the time. We do this for all our children. If things turn out to be difficult it’s human nature to wonder what would have happened if we’d done things differently. None of that looking backwards and dwelling will help your family now. And probably wouldn’t have made any difference then.
Your daughter has a diagnosis so you can all (herself included) make informed decisions about how to support her and her future.
Now is the time to do that.

Wow. We missed those then when I was researching for my two (tbf am mainly only au fait with the Physics foundation courses and the classics/history ones!)

Fingers crossed that you can have a conversation with DD and lay out her options - there really are so many available to her if she will take a deep breath and give them a go. With our DD we said ‘just try it’. If it’s not for you we’ll try the next thing. For us the message was about not giving up and being open to exploring new options (3 years in her room/on her phone was ‘giving up’ in my book).

There is far too much emphasis in schools on GCSE-ALevels-Uni pathways and not enough understanding that there are loads of other routes, that no one will ever ask you about your A Levels again once you have got your first post uni job. I have met so many people in the past two years that took different routes and are successful adults.

The bonus of the Access Diploma, btw, is no exams. It is all done by dissertation/essays and assignments which, if you are managing anxiety [with or without medication/therapy] is a real gift. A friend’s daughter is doing a degree at Kent and is deliberately choosing all the modules without exams, in case that is a factor for your DD.

What is done is done now though OP. You do have to move on from this.
It is very possible you are over compensating for this now.

I know this is easier said than done, but maybe you can work on this with a therapist yourself.

I think you know you aren't helping your dd in the long run by saving her all the time, saving her from emotions, decisions etc. Start with you. You also learn coping skills with the situation.

I feel for you, I really do. Things have just spiralled now as it has just been easier to push everything under the rug. Time now to take the bull by the horns.

OP what difference would it make to your parenting if you knew for certain she was just manipulating you, rather than actually a suicide risk?

Years ago my nephew had a friend in a similar position, NEET, his parents tiptoeing around him, he was very autistic and one of the first “furries” (fucks sake, that’s another tale altogether) and he would tell his parents regularly that he would kill himself if they didn’t comply to his increasingly outrageous demands. They were demented with worry and yet kept most of it private, because they were also scared of him being “labelled” and so he was off a lot of radars. They somehow ended up in an echo chamber where no one seemed to say “cop on, this is bullshit, this kid is doing exactly as he pleases.”

Anyway he opened up to his cousin, and his uncle heard him saying “if they don’t do what I want, I tell them I’m going to kill myself”. They’d got to the stage where they were all literally camping in the lounge because that’s what this kid wanted and he had to have what he wanted and as he was apparently PDA then low demands were the way forward. It was madness. So the uncle told this kid’s mum all about what he had heard and she wouldn’t believe her child had lied and manipulated them all, so he managed to get this boy to open up again about how life was, and this time recorded it. And there it was, clear as day. His diagnosis was ASD but after hearing that, words like sociopath were mentioned. He clearly didn’t give a damn about anyone else. And his mum, ASD herself, believed everything he had told her, without question.

So his long suffering parents had something of a breakdown, he went to stay with the uncle for a couple of weeks and when he came back, the parents got their shit together, got him back into school and from then on, something approaching normality ensued.

OP I do wonder if there are parallels. You don’t seem able to see the wood for the trees.

I see what you mean but as she gets older and spends more time with different people then they are sometimes going to let her down. Her autism makes that hard to accept but she is going to have to realise that may be the case, hard as that may be.

You can’t dwell on past only move forward.
I will say I’m picking up on uni snobbery from your posts so that will be filtering to dd. Oh Louise’s daughter was like you and now she’s going to Cambridge is a lot of pressure. She barely leaves house, can’t eat around others and needs you for support. Realistically OU or access course and local uni living at home seem far more likely.
If she won’t engage with education then I’d insist she’s working. Would give her structure to her day and hopefully give her that push to education.
Language schools/summer camps are advertising. Our council always has cleaning jobs anti social hours. McDonald’s when my dc worked there had staff with autism.

Lots of people saying she needs a plan for her future but I think that's likely to be an overwhelming step.

I think she needs to realise she must try something, literally anything. She doesn't need a plan, at her age is a time for experimenting and trying things out. Try to make the prospect of trying something light and playful. It might not turn out to be for her but she will learn something about herself along the way.

If you do nothing, nothing happens but if you do something, something might just happen.

In the wobbly time between ending GCSEs and when other kids were getting on with next steps and we were worried our son might 'slip through the cracks' we told lots of stories about us at that age. About how it was a tricky time but also about how we navigated it. Lots of little hopeful scenarios that we drew on and possibly a little creative licence here and there.
So for example my husband realised it was an opportunity for a fresh start, he'd be with a completely new set of people and could really be who he wanted without the peer pressure of school. He realised the teachers didn't know him so he could go and be the person who excelled in his field rather than the one who was expected to fail his GCSEs etc.....
This type of story telling is low pressure. It offers possibilities without making demands.

Honestly, guilt seems to be part and parcel of motherhood. I still battle it now.
But I tell myself that whatever I did, whatever choices I made, it was with the best of intentions for the welfare of my DC.

If you had told your then 11 Yr old DD3 that all the tests and assessments were re autism, she wouldn't have gone. And that would have lead to different problems. So park that guilt.

You have been very worried about her suicide threats - deal with it next time by taking her to A&E. If she won't get in the car, call the paramedics. This would be the consequences of her actions - no guilt there for you.

And incentivise her to find and start a course of study, even an OU short course - anything to get her out of this awful do-nothing cycle. Yes she's 19 not 30, but the longer her inactivity goes on the harder it will be to get her out of it.

Good luck.

It’s clear you are comfortable financially and in a way I think that’s been a poisoned chalice. She’s been able to do nothing and be fully supported.
Years of sitting at home dwelling on things without purpose or structure isn’t good for anyone.
If money was an issue she’d have had to work or engage with benefits system.
The poster who said in our family you work or are in education matches my ethos. Have you had long periods where you haven’t worked or perhaps not required her siblings to work in long uni hols. Just wondering if seeing adults doing nothing is something that seems normal to her. My dc is same age and I’ve said in past to her I’m not going to work and you lazing around in bed.
If the private diagnosis is a sticking point be clear it’s up to your dc what she decides to declare on applications and how she identifies. It removes all the blame she’s heaped on you re actions you took at 11.