Why is my dd so emotionally stunted?

[KTNoo]

dd1 (7 next month) has always been high maintenance. Never played well on her own, always wanting attention, gets into big tangles over everything, you know the type.

She's extremely academic and an obsessive rule follower so school in the learning sense has never been a problem. Socially, however (at school and home and everywhere really) she is just so DIFFICULT. She tries to play with younger brother and sister but goes totally over the top, almost hysterical. It's like she doesn't know how to just play and enjoy, and has some rule system going in her head all the time. Honestly, I think she would have done better in Victorian times when you just said what was expected of you rather than what you actually felt.

I was brought up in a very stiff upper lip, keep up the appearance kind of way, and I have made a lot of effort to be open and encourage expression of emotion with my dcs. So why does she find it so difficult? My other 2 have no problem. She's also incredibly black and white about everything and finds imaginative/creative things hard. I have tried the "How to talk so kids will listen" approach to try to get her to problem solve a bit more, but she just gets annoyed with me and says "But you're not telling me what I need to do!"

Does anyone else have a child like this? How can I help her?

well it was clever in a way wasn't it? she was bored and wanted to talk to all of you instead so tried to come up with a sort of conversation but she's not quite got adult conversation down pat as she's only 6.

the remembering rules is, as aitch said, the fairness thing.

thing is, I reckon you take this quite personally. You say 'she is trying to catch me out' - maybe she doesn't feel she is trying to catch you out, perhaps this is just the way life appears to her. Rules, rules and more rules. That's how life works for her - it's safe when it's governed by these rules. So it's not an attack on you, it's just her way of negotiating situations iyswim.

KTNoo - I have to say that everything you have said about you DD i could have writen about my DD.

The need for stucture.

wanting to cross the road in the same place
extremely academic
obsessive rule follower
black and white about everything
finds imaginative/creative things hard
anxious about everything and can't seem to relax
Very advanced reading age
not understaning why everyone was laughing at the theatre
enjoys adult attention

My DD is 5 (almost 6) she is academicly gifted, however she also has a diagnosis of Aspergers.

Im not for one minute saying that you DD has Aspergers!! My DD also has lots of other isssues to add to the list above. To be honest im not sure which causes us the most issues!! the fact that she spend most of her day at school board or the AS.

During my DD assessement process for ASD, i came across this site, i found it most helpfull.

www.gt-cybersource.org/Record.aspx?NavID=2_0&rid=11381

The traits for a child who is gifted and a child that has Aspergers are almarmingly similar and this site helps to separate the two.

I am truly sorry if i am speaking out of turn here, i did see early on in your thread that you dont believe your DD has AS. I always knew that my DD was differant which is why we took things further.

"she thought up what she considered was a good thing to say to get sympathy which is attention."

WHY does that annoy you so much? and why do you give a monkey's that the other adults at the table couldn't believe that a child of her age had said that? and WHY don't you think that mate of yours who gave you the pleading glance asking to be rescued from your own daughter wasn't in fact an ungracious twit who should have had the nous to say 'i'm off to the loo now' instead of embarrassing a child in front of her mother? i am getting stupidly cross with you here, but if someone did that to my kid i'd want them to fuck right off tbh, i certainly wouldn't feel a compunction to 'rescue' them.

i think you should start looking at yourself and your own upbringing tbh, you don't seem very easy-going either. you sound a bit ashamed of her tbh. and with that i really must go.

exactly, foxy. 'catch me out' fgs. she's your kid. she's at school where they're bossing her about all the time and her mother is clearly dissatisfied with her behaviour and lets her know it. why shouldn't she want some structure? you're making her sound sly and i'd bet a pound to a penny that's unfair of you.

I love the story about the berries! For some reason I imagine it in Lola's voice!

In answer to your question, she gets pocket money but the others do not yet. She shares a bedroom with ds who will not go to sleep on his own, so they go to bed at the same time. We will have to do something about that as they get older, but at the moment she says she's ok about it.

Aitch, I absolutely do not favour my ds. He is just different. I have way more battles of the traditional screaming tantrum kind but it's all so straightforward with him. I think if anything it's him who suffers because he just doesn't demand the attention that dd does. I make sure I have times when it's just her and me. ds deserves it just as much.

hah! unfair again. see? i can't help it.

all i'm going on is what you've written here, KT. to me it sounds like you prefer your son.

As another oldest child, I agree with all Aitch has said.

DS1 is a bit like this - he's much younger (4yo), but he gets very indignant about injustice, etc. I am often glad I'm his mum because he feels like an extension of me - I know what he'll think about any given situation and I can help him through the bits he finds really tricky because I have such vivid memories of that strength of feeling and nobody understanding why it was so important.

You sound like you resent her a bit, tbh - like she's getting in the way of your happy family. I'm sure you do love her, but I think you need to work out how to like her more.

And from what you've written, I don't think she's emotionally stunted - I think that's a spectacular missing of the point of how she is, actually.

twocutedarlings, thanks for that link. I do wonder if there is a bigger problem sometimes, but got sidetracked from that by all the talk of me apparently favouring my other children.

Have only skimmed the article so far - will look in more detail tomorrow. I was thinking about the humour issue in particular. She is a serious child. When everyone was laughing in the theatre (and it was packed full of school kids who were ALL laughing), it actually wasn't funny really, just something silly appeared on stage and they all started laughing as a pack. Now that I think about it. That's different from not actually getting the joke, just not joining in if you didn't think it was funny.

If you don't mind me asking, what prompted you to have you dd further assessed?

She'll grow into her skin eventually - maybe at 11 or 12 - once she 'gets' the rules of social interaction and that aspect of her emotional intelligence catches up with her academic intelligence. She'll probably give you no trouble as a teenager; that'll be sociable ds' job who, as second sibling, will be charming but idle!

Aitch has raised some really interesting points which I am going to re-read.

Does dd respond better, when she does her silly voices etc, to a brief hug and an affectionate 'daft bat' to acknowledge she's being silly but is still loved?

she not following the herd, thats NOT always a bad thing
I had my dd assessed too btw and they said she was very powerful with her ways, but that she was ok and unless it was causing her issues at school then we would just see how it progressed.
That was 5 years ago. She gets disgruntled with the teachers saying We will do X tommorow the they dont, but its never been an issue with school, thankfully.

Here's to the teenage years then!

Heated, I try to respond to the way I think she's feeling and try to work out what the issue really is rather than what she's actually saying but it's so complicated. I sometimes give her a cuddle and try to change the subject if I think we've reached stalemate but she's not easily diverted to be honest. She's incredibly determined (a good thing I know) and sees everything through to the bitter end.

oh my dd often starts conversations about 5 steps away from the point? Do you know what i mean?

I have recently realised that he whole fairness thing is TOSH! At its simplest level, a child is being given/ asked to choose a gift. What matters is that appropriate levels of thought have gone into the choice/ choosing. It is much "fairer" to spend £10 on a 2 year old and £20 on a 10 year old than to spend equal amounts because their needs/ wants are different. Equality/ fairness doesn't mean treating everyone te same but recognising their differences... and accepting sometimes you get it wrong.

A while ago I read a very interesting article on why we should explain to kids early on that life's NOT fair... that's why the clever little girl/ boy whose parents love them just as much as you love your kids and who are decent people has a nasty disease that will shorten her life... life is unfair so what matters is what we make of it... this isn't an argument in favour of conservatism but a recognition that railing against the indiscriminate unfairness of everything is a huge drain on emotional energy that might be better spent on other things eg finding cure for illness.

Maybe start to introduce your DD to philosophical ideas: if she's smart, introducing the idea of conceptualisation of ideas might fascinate her and then lead on to other areas. Sophie's World by Jostein gaardner (?) as a bedtime story might work or if it's too complex, the author has written another, simpler book whose name I've forgotten

I think I know what you mean charliecat. Got any examples?

The main reasons was her lack of social skills and empathy, she showed very little interest in her peers. She has always played quite well with her younger sister and is just recently trying to interact more with other children.

She also has lots a repetative play, and never really played with toys in the way that they were intended.

She also has an amazing memory, and she too also remembers things that i have long forgotten about.

I have to say that getting a diagnosis has been one of the best things we have done, i totally have no regrets. Without it she would have be labled a disruptive child. From chatting to adults with AS i know that most that werent diagnosed until adult life say that if they have know the reason for why they felt and acted the way they do it would have helped them.

She now has the understanding that she diserves. Staff at her school have been given training, therefore they are better able to support her. I have read just about every aritcle i can find about girls with AS (which isnt alot) as it presents its self very differantly in girls, most of the info online is mainly geared towards boys.

I am more than happy to chat about my DD, so feel free to ask away, after all she is my favorite subject.

I would love to read a book like that to her pofaced. I really enjoy those kind of books/films now but came late to it - not something my parents would have encouraged!

dd - Did you got to your course today?

me - yes

dd - where did you park?

me - down near the driving centre place

dd - did you go past the pound shop?

me - yes, what it is your after dd?(clicking that shes actually asking if i went to tescos which is opposite the pouns shop)

dd- oh nothing, did you spend any money today?

me - yep, DD! what are you after!

dd - did you get any pringles...

me - FGS!lol yes cant you just bloody ask that in the first place...

Her sense of humour may just be different or more sophisticated. At her age the absurd & the slapstick never appealed to me, nor did any stories containing animals that talked (like Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, when it comes to Peter snore & Rupert Bear was scarey cos his world made absolutely no sense) but I could find humour in a book or a word-play gag.

My DD did that too... and learnt the term non sequitir ver y early as a result... their brains aren't as "linear" at that age, they forget they need to articulate their thought processes from the beginiing... honestly, you aredescribing my now fantastic 11 year old.. Maturity, discussions with teachers, reading appropriate literature (ie developmental books for you, suitable books on friendship/ philosophy for her) and also maybe take it a bit easy .... in retrospect, I expected my eldest to be the way I had been at her age but she is much more like her dad... talk to MIL and your own parents to see if anyone in your generation was like that at her age and then see how they have turned out and talk to them

dd also seems to think i know what shes thinking and i have to tell he that i dont know what in her mind, i know SHE knows what shes thinking, but she has to tell me or write it down or theres no me of me knowing whats in her head. Thats it not visable.

That's great your dd is getting what she needs, twocutedarlings.

We have had problems in the past with dd being disruptive at school, but I haven't been called in since she was in reception! Back then she used to explode regularly at the other kids if they didn't do what she wanted/expected, and was also quite rude to teachers at times. You can still see this in her at times but she is learning to control it.

I think the first time I noticed her being fake and falsely nice was when dd2 was born (dd1 was almost 5 at the time). I didn't know how she was going to react and what we got was comments like "I love my little sister sooooooo much!" in a very high wobbly voice. I felt so sorry for her that she was saying what she felt was expected but she obviously didn't feel it wholeheartedly.

Have taught a few Aspergers' girls and they do present differently to boys. They also have many features in common with socially awkward, bright children, so it's difficult to get a diagnosis.

What did stand out was totally unsocial behaviour - like removing clothes in public or, if stressed, climbing the highest structure they could find - and they also the ability to completely shut off. They also uniformly liked structure and routines and would react v badly to that change, not just be a bit stressed or anxious but shut down/be aggressive.

They did, however, get verbal jokes, could interact, have friends, did not necessarily obsess over one thing, or line things up in rows, which actually are sometimes features of just bright, socially awkward kids.