Hi all, I was wondering if my DD sounds like any of yours whom may have a diagnosis.
She’s 6 and in year 2. She’s loving and friendly and sociable, but also can be quite shy and a definite people pleaser. She works hard and is relatively academic. She’s been at two schools now and no teacher has ever raised any concerns.
Most of the time at home I have no concerns, but at least weekly there are moments that make me think she must have a neurodiversity. At first I thought autism, but I’ve read a bit about inattentive ADHD in girls and perhaps it’s that.
The thing is, she definitely doesn’t have a lot of the common signs of autism. No intense interests, no repetitive behaviours, no issues with changes to routine, very few sensory issues. I don’t think she has any social problems either. I think she is interacting naturally with others and isn’t just copying behaviour. She is however a pushover and I think part of her lack of social issues is she just goes along with whatever anyone else wants to do at the expense of what she might like.
What she does have is anxiety, a drive for perfectionism (real upset if she gets anything wrong), and definite PDA type behaviours, but these only come out in relation to school work.
I’ll give a few examples:
Sometimes she reads beautifully, quickly with no fuss and no issues. Other times she’ll fixate on some grammar being wrong in a book and can’t get past it, or get irrationally mad at me for saying well done if she gets a tricky word right, and then equally mad the next time I don’t congratulate her. Sometimes she’ll just refuse to carry on reading and make up elaborate excuses as to why she can’t continue. She panics if a book has a lot of words on a page, even if all of the words are really easy.
We had to home school for a few days recently and she just couldn’t cope with us asking her to do the work the school set. She’s bright, it was easy, but the ask just caused her stress and after a massive meltdown she deliberately wrote one very defiant sentence. She doesn’t behave like this at school, just gets on with it no fuss.
She wanted to write her Christmas cards in register order and was upset with herself when she missed someone and had to write them out of order.
She has a strong sense of what is right and wrong. There’s always a right or wrong way, there’s no similar scenario where a different approach could be used.
She has struggled recently sitting next to a child who as far as I can tell is just the complete opposite of her (fidgety, a bit bossy, and shouts out). She’s not has issues sitting next to anyone before no matter their personality, but perhaps she’s getting less able to cope?
She’s always been a great sleeper but in the last week or so she’s been really anxious about getting to sleep, can’t sleep even if really tired. Says nothing is worrying her other than worrying she’ll be awake all night.
Coinciding with this she’s been saying she doesn’t want to go to school, saying she has tummy aches. I’m seeing her teacher tomorrow who has said she hasn’t seen any friendship issues but sometimes she is choosing to play alone.
I’m wondering if she is masking and this is the wheels starting to fall off. I think I should probably raise my concerns with the teacher, but I don’t want to sow a seed in her head that she is neurodiverse when there is nothing there. Perhaps she’s just anxious like her mum! 95% of the time my DD shows no signs, and then suddenly she’ll do or say something and my DH and I will look at each other and be just so sure she is.
DH and I are neurotypical but I suspect neurodivergence (diagnosed and undiagnosed) in the wider family. The trouble is the more I read the more people I’m diagnosing! But you’re only neurodiverse if your symptoms have an impact on your day to day life right, and I’m not sure my daughter’s do, but perhaps that’s because she’s masking so well 🤷🏻♀️.