Scared of failure to launch

[bendmeoverbackwards]

Dd3 is 17. Had a lot of problems throughout secondary school, ASD diagnosis, anxiety, erratic school attendance. She did ok in her GCSEs last summer but not enough for her school’s sixth form. Alternative school didn’t work out and she has been at home for most of this year.

We have now found a college where she has visited with me and seems happy to start in September (she wants to do A levels and has rejected any suggestion of alternative courses).

I am a worrier and can catastrophise and starting to worry that she will fail to launch into adulthood. She is quite immature emotionally and I just hope she will catch up.

What can I do now to prevent this happening? She is very dependent on me and I’m trying to say no to some things she asks of me.

On the plus side, she’s leaning to drive and has done a bit of babysitting.

17 is still quite young - be patient with her.

Encourage her to study subjects she is really interested in.
Learning to drive is good!
Encourage her to get a part time job (hospitality or retail are good options for developing skills) and to manage her money.
Encourage her to pursue hobbies and interests and have a social life with friends.

Basically, encourage independence. It's a skill that needs to be learned.

She does want a job and I help her to look for suitable ones on Indeed etc. But it only goes so far, she asks for my help, I of course agree then we don’t get any further.

Look for signs in shop windows for jobs. Even high street chains do this.

Her learning to drive is awesome.

Separation is hard. My best advice is to find something for yourself that you want to do and stick to it. Show her it's okay with you for her to go off and explore because you have x, y, z in your life that you'd still do even when she comes home. Resist the urge to rescue!

Is her Dad around? Could he help her with job applications?

Similar here with DS17. College place booked for September but nothing on right now. We've looked for a job, not even getting interviews.
He's started some volunteering work in an area he is interested in and this is helping. He heads off and comes back and I try not to ask him too much about it, so it's kind of his thing.
It's baby steps - he has something to do 3 days a week now (not all day, just a few hours) but I am hoping it will build his self worth again, which took a huge knock at Sixth Form.

@EarthlyNightshade that sounds encouraging. What do you do about money, give him any?

Dd generally gets an allowance to cover clothes, going out etc. But we’ve started to make this conditional as she’s been getting quite entitled. I know she’s struggling but we still want her to learn that money has to be earnt. And if we give her her (generous) allowance, she won’t be motivated to find a job.

DS gets some pocket money, like his younger sibling. He has enough for a very basic social life and he gets the odd bit more if he helps in the garden, etc.
I used to give him extra money if he was doing something like cinema, meal out, but now that always comes with a lecture about how important it is that he earns his own money, so he hardly dares ask!
It's up and down, sometimes I worry more than other times.
I worry about enabling a lazy lifestyle and am also inclined to think he'll never shake it off, but then at other times I just think that this is not really how he would have chosen to be right now and hope that the next year brings better things for him.
It's hard going through it though for everyone involved.

@EarthlyNightshade may I ask how much pocket money you give him?

Hi Bend knowing a lot of the background I would say she is still really young. She has time to figure her life out and even if the A levels don't work out for her it isn't the end. She will find her feet and a job. She could volunteer somewhere hopefully in a field that interests her and might help her be a bit more motivated. Even if you remove everything she has been through over the last few years she does sound like a typical 17 year old; a bit lost. It is hard for her to be the youngest and she sees what she could be doing.

My best friend's DD has autism and ended up living in supported accommodation from 18-21 where there were staff to ensure she was paying her bills etc. She had a part time job and benefit top up which saw her learn to be independent of her parents, learned to use the skills her parents taught her re shopping and cooking. Her parents were still heavily involved but this was a stepping stone away from being at home and always getting her parents to solve issues.

I would say give your DD time and yourself, if she were 27 then this would be a different story. Be kind to yourself, she has a home and a soft place to land, supportive parents who are trying to help her, opportunities with college and she is 17.

Is it really such a big deal?

my friend at work is in his 50’s. He’s a doctor, holds down a senior job. He’s lovely.

however he’s never moved out 🤷‍♀️ still lives with his mum, and sorts all her care out since his dad died. Never really had any serious girlfriends or boyfriends, just happy living with his parents.

obviously I wish my dc to live happy lives, whatever that looks like. If they chose not to move out, I don’t think I’d be too devastated. As long as there was some level of independence, able to look after themselves, hold down some sort of job etc, I can think of worse.

don’t get too worked up about it.

I did say I was a catastrophiser! 😂

I suppose I feel that my job as a parent is to raise independent adults who can function without me.

Dd does say she wants to get married and have her own family. I know 17 is still young and there is plenty of time for her to mature. It’s just the constant worry about her that’s so hard.

I have worked with a lot of autistic teenagers and have found that they do take longer to mature than average. I would expect an autistic 17 year old who has coped in mainstream education to have the emotional maturity of maybe a 14 or 15 year old but of course it does vary. Some teens I have worked with seem emotionally even younger than this. However I would also say that most of them do get there in the end, it just takes a little bit longer!

Would it help to anticipate that your daughter will take longer to launch than some but this is to be expected with an autistic young adult. Typically I think they may take until age 25 to be as emotionally mature as maybe a more neurotypical 18 to 20 year old.

I could have written your post but worrying about my sister in law (DH’s younger sister). She was diagnosed with ASD at 18 after struggling in her first year of uni - no one had realised just how much her parents were supporting her to live life until they weren’t.

She ended up back at home and was a bit of a perpetual student for a while doing bits and pieces of degrees here and there.
Eventually graduated but still lived at home and needed her mum to support her lots - took a while to find a job but after a couple of internships sourced through initiatives getting autistic graduates into employment found her first ever job (at the age of 24).

Still needed lots of support from her mum with life skills and things like getting up for work / getting regular meals.

The need for support slowly got lower over the course of a couple of years - first SiL coped successfully with her parents going on holiday without her and only called us a couple of times needing our help with things (there was a sink blockage that she couldn’t work out how to fix, and she had a horrendous experience one day with a bus driver on the way to work), previously within a couple of days her anxiety would be so intense one of us would need to go and stay or she’d come and stay with us.

Then she decided she wanted to move out as the main jobs in her chosen career path were in London. Built up to this over several months by lodging with different family members for a few days a week. Finally found a flat share with an old school friend, and now at the age of 28 is living pretty much independently and successfully in London, working a good job and having more of a social life than ever before.

She still calls her mum a lot - and my in laws do still help a lot with life admin but the progress in 10 years has been astronomical.

SiL couldn’t get a bus and now gets two buses and a tube to work every day. She found the mental load of cooking and eating intolerable, now she has a recipe book collection and has found what she likes to eat (very spicy food, oddly).

I saw something online that really helped me and DH reframe things for ourselves - I don’t know how accurate it is so it might be completely wrong - but it said that if you take off 1/4 of the age of an autistic adult, that’s their rough level of maturity you should expect. So SiL is now 28, but a 1/4 of her age is 7 years which means she’s actually about as mature (in some ways) as a 21 year old. That feels about right tbh. (Of course in other ways she’s been way advanced for as long as I’ve known her).

Dd generally gets an allowance to cover clothes, going out etc. But we’ve started to make this conditional as she’s been getting quite entitled. I know she’s struggling but we still want her to learn that money has to be earnt. And if we give her her (generous) allowance, she won’t be motivated to find a job.

Well we're piss poor so that's not really an option!

She was getting money for clothes and make up but not an awful lot. It turns out that she really, really likes money so this has been a motivating factor.

DS got his first job by volunteering in a local charity shop so he had retail experience. He then got a bitter job after seeing a sign in town saying a new place was opening up and wanted staff.

Has she tried much volunteering and is it in her CV? Has she tried handing out her CV and asking friends if there are any jobs going where they work? A lot of DD's friends seem to have found work like this.

I would say it's too early feel that everything is doomed. She is only 17 and is ND. It may take her a while to devise what she wants to do.

Is she taking A'Levels with a path in mind or is she just going to study subjects that she enjoys.

Our DD has a particular career in mind but didn't want to stay at school or go to Uni. She's done a course at the local college to do with that career and from there has secured an apprenticeship.

@robinshields that’s fantastic about your SIL, really inspiring. I think you’re right about the age theory, dd is definitely more like 13/14. It’s just frustrating to see her peers studying, getting on with their lives etc. I know I shouldn’t compare but it’s hard not to sometimes.