I was wondering if any of you could help me. I don't want to be dishonest or hide anything from anyone so I will tell you right now what my job is - I am on maternity leave from an LA where I am a case officer for the SEN team. (I write statements etc.). I know some of you on here have had truly appalling experiences with LAs which horrify me tbh. It's a really horrible job, and one which I went into very nieve, I had no idea the statementing process was so difficult for parents, and have no intention of staying in this field. The reason I'm telling you this because although I have knowledge of SEN from my teaching days and from my job now, this is me as a mum writing. But inevitably my knowledge of the "system" is going to colour my judegement and I feel I should be honest about this from the start... phew got that bit out of the way.
I have a nearly eight year old DD1 and a four month old DD2. I've always worried about DD1, but having DD2 has begun to confirm a few things for me and I would really appreciate your views on this.
As a baby she never really engaged. Being my first I didn't really know what was normal and what wasn't but DD2 is just so different. She makes eye contact and smiles and laughs and I just don't remember DD1 being like that at all.
As a toddler she didn't really play with toys, and even now has loads of things like Barbies and Sylvanian Families she has never touched. She spends ALL her time either playing the piano, just making up tunes, (she's very good) or dancing to music (again, she's very good). She was a very late talker - she was well past her third birthday when she would speak in short sentences. However she sounds very articulate now. This is great until you listen to the content of what she says, and then you realise it's very muddled. She is in Year 3 now, and last term they were looking at the Egyptians. She wanted to take in the piece of volcanic rock we have, and eventually established that they were doing pyramids that week - she was confused between the two. She often makes up words for things, and does things like call lorries "trollies" and on the rare occasion she plays "schools" in her bedroom I hear her using lots of made up words, so much so that it sounds like a baby babbling. She has no friends at school, but seems to spend all her time falling out with the other girls. She frequently tells me she hates school because no-one likes her. However if you ask her who her best friends are she will name three girls at our church who are in their early teens and who are really not interested in her, but she follows them round obsesively, compeletly ignoring children of her own age.
She has real problems empathising with anyone, has real trouble falling asleep and despite having a really solid bedtime routine is frequently still awake in bed at 10.30, worrying about things. I have often wondered about her being on the spectrum, but there are some things that don't fit - she is very disorganised for example. My DH has always resisted any kind of advice or dx as he doesn't want her to have a label. I understand that but feel that the older she gets the more difficult she finds life. In 18 months she will be off to Middle School, which is the system we have round here. I'm already worried as the middle school she would go to is like a mini secondary school.
I know that many of you are facing much MUCH worse than this, but I wondered if any of you had a daughter that sounded a little like this, and what, if anything, you have done to help her. Most of the time she is a happy child, which is the most important thing, but she gets so worried about life and it seems to be gettin worse.
Thanks in advance.