My dd2 is definitely not 'normal'. She is nearly 6, and when she was At nursery they flagged her up as having possible ASD, as she would sit there for hours putting things in perfect colour/size order. From When she was really young, less than 2, she'd be able to tell me where we were going in the car, as soon as I turned into a road, even if she'd only been there once, she contantly maps things in her mind. She was assessed at the start of school by the ed
Psych who decided there was nothing wrong with her as she'd settled into school so well.
She has major meltdowns over the smallest thing. She is very slowly getting a bit better but they're still a real issue. She is completely neurotic over things that normally wouldn't bother people - to the point of being hysterical and not being able to even hear any attempts to rationalise. Examples over the course of the last 3 years have included:
Water
Wind
Geckos (in Thailand)
Thunder/lightening
Helicopters
These intense fears come on suddenly for no apparent reason, will normally last a few months and then disappear. When she has a fear of something she will literally go apeshit if she sees it, or sometimes just at the thought of it.
She is extremely switched on and bright but crap socially. Her older (half) sister has been diagnosed with Aspergers recently, but even she had more friends than dd2 does at this age. She made one friend who has been the only person she has played with at school, but recently her friend seems to have dropped her, and now she has no one at all to play with. It's her birthday party coming up and we're really struggling to make a list of names to invite - she wants to invite 15 people but can only name about 5 (and some of them are my friends' children not at the same school). She desperately wants friends but just seems to have no idea how other people her age expect her to behave.
She is like the Duracell bunny, she can't sit still, literally can't, she's forever jumping up and down, doing handstands etc. she can't even sit on a chair to eat, she'll have one leg on the floor and be jiggling about.
I'm a LP and I find her really hard work, it's impossible to tire her out and her temper/tantrums are really exhausting. My instincts tell me that her behaviour isn't normal, but she is always well behaved at school so they don't have any truck with there being anything wrong. She will often start kicking off at me the second we are through the school gates.
Has anyone got any ideas of what I should do? It has got to the point a couple of times where I could happily have handed her over social services and told them to keep her, and I know that sounds awful as I really do love her to bits. She can be so sweet, funny and lovely when she wants to be but its like she has a split personality and can just switch from being nice to horrific in an instant, for no reason.