I don't know what to say to Dd3.

[Ineed2]

Dd3 is as far as she is concerned perfect. She is completely oblivious to her issues. This is probably my fault because we just try to get through each day as it comes and don't harp on about bad behaviour, irrational fears and inabilities to do things such as share, use cutlery or wear anything with buttons on it.[Afew of her issues]
We try to focus on the positive.
However this is now causing me a huge headache when we go to appointments. She is totally convinced that she does not need to be there. Even going so far as shouting across a waiting room " Don't expect me to come back here, there's nothing wrong with me"

The paed told her the other day that she is going to get someone to help her with her handwrting, she is absolutly furious and said to me yesterday that she doesn't want anyone going into school to see her.
The SALT has been in once and Dd3 ignored her and didn't acknowledge that she knew her.

Yesterday Dd2 old me that Dd3 had asked her why I am worried about her, when theres nothing wrong with her. I said to Dd2 that there may not be anything wrong with her and that we don't know unless we get a dx. Dd2 gave me a look and said " there blatenly is Mum"

We had an awful evening at a halloween do last night, we have been lots of times before but everything frightened Dd3 and we nearly lost her.

I just don't knw what to do, I don't want to damage her self esteem by making her think there is something wrong with her, but without a dx what can I say to her. Thisis a nightmare and I think its all going to explode in my face.[hsad].
Sorry this is long and rambling but I need help!!

How old is she?

Oh Ineed2 I can see how worrying this is for you but your post really made me smile.

She sounds like a right character and if you can just crack the 'in denial' thing she sounds like she'll be the type to have the determination to 'prove you all wrong' and make a huge success of her life!!

Honestly, she sounds great!

I don't suppose this will work, but could you use that to get her to perform i.e. 'why don't you prove them wrong then and they'll go away!?'

I don't really have any advice as such but just wanted to say don't be so hard on yourself.

You've have taken a positive approach with the best of intentions. I think you need to get some advice from support groups or experts with experience of children in a similar situation. Sorry I don't know any to recommend.

Lifeinagoldfishbowl...[love the name].. she is 8.

Stark... thankx, she is a right character, thats one way of describing her, she is funny and lovely but very hard work. She has some serious determination. [hgrin].

One of my concerns is as she gets older, girls can be so cruel and they home in on any quirks.
Yes I could try to get her to prove them wrong, but at the moment I am trying so hard to prove that I am right about her possible ASD.
What we really need is the strategies to help her deal with things which are difficult for her but without a dx we can't access the support .

Jadey1 I am trying to access support groups but am finding it difficult without a dx.

Most of my support comes from the MN folks, I am soo glad to have found you.

dd2 is the same age. as far as she is concerned everything is fine and dandy, she just cant make friends.

so the stuff the school have been doing is all to help her make 'friends' as far as she is concerened.

handwriting, hmmm dd2 doesnt hold a pencil correctly (holds it with her whole fist) but we tried those special grip wotsits but didnt seem to help. so as long as her handwriting is legiable i am not going to push it iyswim.

i am the ultra-laid back mum who doesnt seem to get phased according to others, but the way i see it, if dd2 is happy, why rock the boat. dd2 hit a depressive patch earlier this year, work slid, she lost her 'sparkle' hence why we now have things in place.

oh, and she has possible ASD as well.

Have you read the Luke Jackson 'Geeks, Freak and' (can't remember the rest of it sorry). He's an Aspie teen and has written about ASD from his point of view.

I was advised to tell my DS that his brain was wired 'differently'

I don't think he's at the stage for that yet (he's 6)- though he knows he's different to other children.

Like you, we do whatever gets us through the day and we always big him up as much as possible but he still has a downer on himself.

I guess they either come across as super confident or battling low esteem.

All part of the rollercoaster....
[hsad]

Misdee, yep she has so many issues going on, she is a very complex person. I would like to just leave her and see what happens but she often doesn't want to go to school or comes home very upset and tense about her day. The trouble is if anyone other than close family asks her about school she just says it's fine.
When she is upset she is very dificult to manage and now that she is getting big I can't just scoop her up and get on with stuff.
The handwriting issues have come to light lately because the children are being taught to join. She has learnt to squash her letters together so it looks like they are joined. Although she anonced to me yesterday that she is not going to join her letters because it is boring.

She gets very down during term time and I see such a difference in her in the hols when she can be herself and not have to work so hard at fitting in.

One of the things the SALT said is that her emotional language is poor and I guess this is why it is so hard to talk to her about her issues.
If she doesn't want to hear something she just puts her fingers in her ears. This makes it very difficult to talk to her as you can magine [hhmm].

Spinkle.. yes I have read that. It is a good book, I have read his Mum's book too.

As for being super confident or battling low self esteem, she seems to do both of these depending on the situation. .

will the school help without a dx?

dd2 doesnt have one atm, but her school has been great which has obviously helped. they have set her in a social skills group, has stuff with the senco etc.

No not really, I have had to fight really hard to get them to believe anything I say. The salt asked them to set up a social skills group but they haven't done it. I have considered moving her but at the moment Dd3 is resigned to going most days and they have good routines and tight structure which suits her so I don't really know what to do.

Oh that is hard, Ineed2.

DD1 is almost 5, and she is starting to notice that some things are hard for her, but then she has lots of physical issues as well as cognitive ones.

I always approach it with "well, some boys and girls find x, y, z, hard and you find a, b, c, hard, so we get help with those."

But if your DD has got to 8 without realising, then it is a hard place to start with.

Could she cope with a gentle discussion of whether she is 'happy' and if not, what makes her 'unhappy'? Or a discussion of what x is good at, and what DD is good at? Then you could try and expand it to 'everyone finds something hard...

ah thats a bit pants with regards to the school

is dd3 desperatly unhappy at school? is there any afterschool clubs that interest her? i try to get dd2 involved in lots of schooly activities, and she is v v v happy she has been choosen for the choir so helps keep her focused iyswim. if she didnt want to get involved in schooly things that i know she would be harder to engage.

Lougle... yes it's hard at the moment and I am letting it get me down sometimes, It is strange isn't it that she is sooo bright and yet she cannot/will not see that most children her age don't have raging tantrums in public or can't wear anything with buttons or are frightened of hand driers.
I am hoping that now we have been referred to a psychiartrist at camhs he or she might be able to find out a bit more about what she is thinking.

We play a game with emoticon type faces where we pick one and try to describe something that makes us feel like this. She is willing to do it but is not really able to apply it to herself.
We also tell each other one thing that has made us happy and one thing that has made us sad each evening at bedtime [well most evenings].

The other day she was telling us how she is the fastest runner in the class, this is totally not the case in fact she flails and trips more than she runs. But how can she think she is the fastest, I don't understand any more this is way out of my comfort zone!! .

misdee... At the moment I would say she is not desperately unhappy as she has been going without too much fuss. She has joined a couple of clubs, one was knitting which was a disaster as they had noone who could teach her as she is a leftie. The other is craft club which she seems to quite enjoy.But that has finished now. She would love choir as she already sings in a choir and is very good but sadly they don't have a school choir. I think the next term will swing from good to bad, she loves the xmas production but hates it when others don't learn their lines or when the routine is mucked up.
Hey ho just need to get on with it and wait for the next appointment. When we know who she has been referred to I will ring and ask for a cancellation.

ineed2, she may well be the fastest runner in her class. dd2 is clumsey to the point of comical. she scares me daily by falling etc. but when they did a fun run recently she was the only girl in her class (yr 3) she place 3rd in their groups.

she came 7th out of the girls in yrs 3-6 for cross country just missing out a place on the team. but they said that next year she should make it onto the team.

i was as her physio at age 3 said she probably wouldnt be athletic due to her loose muscle tone, and clumseyness.

No seriously misdee I have actually seen her trying to keep up with the others running up the road from school, She doesn't even come close.

Not saying it needs to affect her future sporting life, Dd1 had the strangest run when she was little and went on to play county netball and rounders for england[hshock].

Who knows what the future holds for Dd3 it just seemed odd that she thinks she is the fastest.

Wll done to your Dd for doing so well.[hsmile].

Indeed2- your dd3 sounds lovely, she sounds like my dd1, dd1 has AS and was diagnosed when she was 4, she knows she has AS (we told her just after her 5th birthday), i guess its harder if you dont have a dx. Dd1 gets very upset because she can't run very fast and struggles to make friends, other than that she see's herself as normal. I explain to dd1 that she struggles to make friends as she see's things differently from most people. Dd1 was 'Mary'last year in the school play and she got anoyed with the others for forgetting their lines, several children were off ill for the rehersal so because dd1 knew everyones words she managed to step in and fill in for the people who were ill .

Dd1 thinks she is the best at everything but she's far from the best at most things.

Aahhh she sounds lovely too marne, Dd3 was Mary at preschool and mrs claus last year, year 2. She could probably do everyones part if she wanted to. Maybe she will be one of those actors that does one woman shows?

She is lovely, although she has gone very quiet this afternoon and didn't want her tea, I think she is worried about going back to school[hsad].

Dd1 is worried about going back to school too , she said she gets nervous the night before the first day back and is refusing to go to sleep.

I'm not a Mum, so don't know exactly what you're going through, but I have worked with kids with sn for 5 years (pretty much since I graduated) and my DP's niece is 5 with ASD.

As far as i'm concerned, "wrong" is the wrong word to use - it has too many links with "bad" and "naughty". DP disagrees (we had this conversation in the car earlier about his niece!) but maybe it would be easier for your DD to accept if you used the word different as Spinkle suggested?

For example, with the handwriting grip, tell her that the way she does it is different to everyone else/most other people and that writing would be easier if she did it like others in her class.

DP and his sis (DN's mum) have noticed that I never say she or her brother are naughty, but they (especially him as he is NT) are being naughty, which focuses on the behaviour - concious decision - not the person.

Please yell if I'm wrong, as i say I'm not a mum and I get to go home at the end of my shift, which you guys don't. Massive respect {hug}

Yeah purple we never say "wrong" to her or "naughty", I see what you are saying I just used wrong as a word to help me with the post.
It was actually Dd3 herself who said "Theres nothing wrong with me" at the clinic which I agreed with.
Thanx anyway.

Marne she is worried about school she told me at bedtime and said she had a tummy ache too.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply you did :(

I was trying (and failing lol) to make my point about using different vocabulary to help explain stuff.

At one school I worked at, whenever there was an agressive incident, we did a lifespace interview afterwards with the student. Some of these got quite unusual - I drew cartoon strips with/for a couple of students, and once did the whole thing by "hangman" passing a sheet of paper under the student's bedroom door because he refused to come out! I had to guess the letter to make the word of the emotion he was feeling, took for-blinkin-ever but worked lol. I also had a keyboy who would write to me in code. Trouble was he was waaaaaaaay cleverer than me and it took me a week and 6 clues to get it! After a couple of years of this making-it-up-as-iwent-along type stuff, I finally got Social Stories training.

Sorry, I'm rambling again. Hope some of my random ideas help?

LOL at the codes purple,
don't worry you didn't offend me any ideas are helpful. A friend tried to teach me to write social stories but I am not very good at them. I have downloaded a couple off the web and they are really helpful.
Dd3 seems to get the message when we use them.[hsmile].

IIRC, social stories are pretty individual anyway - if your dd gets the point, then its all cool :)

I used to have the knack - same way as I had the knack for spouting all the b*llo$ks speak the governement need for an NVQ3 - if I can help at all :) Probably not much use though as I don't know her

Thanx for the kind offer .