Can we talk about empathy?

[lougle]

I am trying to order my thoughts and I'm confused by this.

Sometimes, DD2 will show a little empathy. For example, if I say something self-deprecating such as 'Sorry about that, I'm a terrible mother...', she will say 'No you're not! You're the best Mum in the whole world...'

But generally, she just doesn't seem to get it at all. Today, DD1 fell a full flight of stairs, top to bottom, hitting a small suitcase on the way down, then crashing into a wall (at BIL/SIL's house).

DD1's cousin made her a playdough smiley face to cheer her up. DD3 approached us and cuddled DD1 tenderly. DD2 carried on regardless. When I finally said 'DD2, DD1 has really hurt herself', she just shrugged her shoulders and said 'I know.' then carried on doing what she was doing.

It seems so cold. I tell myself that she must not realise, but I don't think I really understand why. I don't understand why she doesn't show empathy towards people unless there is a very obvious 'this is what you should do in this situation.'

That's fascinating, PolterGoose. Thanks for the links.

You could, of course, turn everything on its head and complain that supposedly "NT" people are actually lacking in empathy - they lack empathy for autistic people. How very self-centred of them!

Thanks for those, Poltergoose.

zzzzz " For us that is normal. It's fine because it works in our family and we have not been disabled by it. So your dd might stick out like a sore thumb in your family but still be in the realms of nt."

I might well be over-sensitive right now, but I read that and it implies, to me, that I come across as 'dissatisfied' with DD2 and her character, rather than concerned about her in a wider sense?

I love DD2. Just the way she is. All of her. But, I see how she reacts to situations, how children react to her (even if they go on to behave very kindly and caringly, I can see that momentary '????' going across their faces), how screwed up she gets by simple situations. I see that she currently only has teeny tiny demands on her out of school and it completely fries her.

I'm not imagining it. Our carer for DD1 came briefly this afternoon (we cancelled the session because DD1 wasn't up to it). I told her about Poltergoose's idea of DD2 doing St John's Ambulance. She said to me (well out of earshot of any children, I hasten to add) 'well I can't see that working at all!'

"A goldfish in a shoal of goldfish looks like any other fish, put it in a trout pond and it no only looks magical but is the target of every heron in the area."

Thank you for having the grace to explain yourself and not take my sensitivity as attack, zzzzz

The thing is...I don't know who I am, either. You describe me when you describe your DD2. I was the child who had the IQ (measured as) of an 8 year old at 3 (I had a speech delay, which was judged to be a result of trying to learn Malay as well as English). I was the child who would stay in and wash the paint pots, rather than go out to play at break time. I was the child who found friendships so very hard, well, forever. I was the child who was anxious and was seeing a psychologist by the age of 8 because of my low self-esteem (school prompted the referral).

So I shouldn't be surprised, right? Yet there is a big difference. I was the child who everything academically came so easily to, that I was doing 'maths investigations' while everyone else was doing the times tables tests -there was no point in me doing them. I got 100% every time.

DD2 is the child who is struggling to grasp the very basics of maths. Struggling to write in a sentence. Struggling to cope with going to school. Struggling to cope with friendships.

I saw her diary entry for this time last month yesterday (she was showing me something else she'd written). It said 'I fined it hard to fined frends.' Isn't that just sad? She does something odd then she says 'I'm weird .' We always say 'you're not weird, DD2, you're lovely.' But what she does is 'strange' and not at all typical. It's so hard to describe.

(Keeping the aside, aside - Dad had a married status contract in Oil and Gas in Brunei. I was there from age 2-4)

I agree, Polter but I feel that I'm between a rock and a hard place. DD2 is so literal and so naive, that she'll go straight into school and say 'Mum says I'm weird.'

I do talk to her about everyone finding different things tricky, etc., and I do gently bring conversation around to these things like:

DD2 tells a joke, but clearly doesn't understand it. I say 'Do you understand that joke, DD2?' 'No.' 'Hmm...well, a joke is only really funny if you understand it. This joke means x,y, z. Some people find it hard to understand jokes and don't find them funny even if they do understand why it's meant to be funny...'

If I go down the line of 'it's ok to be different' so overtly, then when she goes into school saying 'Mum says I'm different' the school is going to think I'm manipulating her.

They already think I've told DD2 that she's a 'fidget bum' because when I said the OT was ordering a cushion because DD2 was a 'fidget bum' the SENCO said 'yes, DD2 told the OT that, not the other way round!' and the SALT said 'Oh, well she's got that from somewhere hasn't she?'

The implication was very clear that they think I've told DD2 she's fidgety, which is why she's told the OT that. DD2 insists that the OT asked her if she was a fidget bum.

Thanks Polter. It doesn't feel like she's very lucky, but I'll take your encouragement and thank you for it.

She's lucked out in the gene pool, really. A mother who is so socially awkward that she went to a birthday party on Saturday and asked DH if she could leave after ages, which turned out to be 20 minutes and a father who is similar but also has decidedly ASD traits (IMO).

Did I ever tell you about the time that DD2 tripped over something and landed her face into the doorway? DH carried on cleaning the girls' teeth because that's the job he started . He said afterwards that he was totally ashamed, but he finds it hard to stop a job halfway through and thought he'd deal with DD2 once the teeth were clean.

Did I ever tell you about the time that I collapsed in the hallway and when I came round, I mumbled to DH 'I'll be fine, just get me a pillow.' and he did, then went to bed! I woke up the next morning, fully clothed in bed. He told me about it and I had to have a looong conversation about not trusting someone who is incapacitated to make a judgement about their own health

Or the time that I inhaled some food substance, coughing like nobody's business and trying to slap my own back and he just kept eating? I had to explain, afterwards, that if I sound like I'm dying I might well be and his job is to get up and slap me on the back. Now, he does it without fail.

Poor child DD2

DS3 is the most naturally empathetic of my DC, yet he is the one with the ASD diagnosis. He has an innate ability to feel emotions in other people and gets terribly upset if someone is angry or sad etc. He senses when I am stressed and says things like "I want you to be happy again mum" and if he winds up his older brothers and they have a go at him, he will be distraught that he has made them cross. He will also apologise profusely if he thinks he has done something to upset somebody (which is very atypical for a 5 year old!).

However, I have had to teach DS1 (who has many Aspie traits) the correct way to respond if people are hurt, upset etc because these things are not instinctive to him. Ds2 is very socially aware but just uses empathy for his own ends which worries me more.

To be honest though, I do think a lot of empathetic responses are learned. I have certainly learned a lot of 'correct' ways to show empathy as an adult. I remember going to a friend' s house at 16 and her asking whether I wanted a drink. I remember wondering why she was offering me a drink and then it kind of dawned on me that that is what you do when friends come round. Even now (many years later) when I ask visitors if they would like a drink I still feel like a fraud because actually I don't really care whether they want a drink or not - I just know it's what's expected.

@ rabbit stew.... do you mean your son's aspergers (sp) diagnosis was taken off when he was 8? So he had a misdiagnosis

adrianna1 - Yes, I do. The diagnosis never sat right for me - he had loads of traits commonly associated with aspergers but not required for a diagnosis, and the most important central bit was the least obvious thing for him, so it seemed wrong to diagnose him with something that could take or leave his biggest issues, but made a big thing out of things I felt were caused more by the peripheral issues than being an issue in their own right.

I remember having discussions with the paediatrician and clinical psychologist at the time, asking how you could tell the difference between autistic-like behaviours caused by anxiety and anxiety caused by an autistic spectrum disorder... and as we found ways around the biggest causes of his anxiety, it became more and more obvious that I was right, because the glaring social issues began to drop away. It really isn't abnormal, after all, for a deeply anxious person to find ways to comfort themselves, or to go out of their way to avoid anxiety triggers, and not every anxious person is an autistic person.

It may all be part of a continuum, but until clinicians start taking the supposedly "peripheral" issues more seriously, instead of focusing on the social behaviour as though that can actually be understood in isolation from someone's visual perception, motor skills, muscle tone, self-help skills, levels of fatigue, etc, all of which affect a person's emotional state and therefore social development... then they are going to be doing a huge disservice to a lot of children, who will not receive help they really need but will be offered help that they don't really need, because it's help they wouldn't need at all if someone bothered to deal with their other issues, first... It's not as if we expect other children to develop social and emotional maturity before they've achieved a reasonable level of physical maturity and confidence, and thus a reasonable sense of security of self.

Just posting n haste to get this on my threads. There is so much which resonates. Am on hops at the moment, but will steal a minute after children's bedtime to return.

Ok, so here goes.

lougle (you know what I'm going to say...) once more your dd2 is a twin of my dd2. right down to the examples you use (best/worst mum; birthday cakes made which were right at the time going on known info, but are wrong retrospectively; emapthy over other people being hurt, etc)

The bits about posters finding their children are quite similar to how they were at school also resonates. I was the slightly odd child too. THe advanced, too mature for my own good, child. THe one who found it hard to make friends.

All things i see in dd2. BUT. I do not remember the absolute confusion she seems to feel. I do not remember feeling as 'on the outside' as I think she does. I don't remember not understanding my peers to the same degree as she does. And so, while on the one hand I could think 'well, it turned out ok for me', which it did, boradly speaking, on the other hand, I did not face the same degree of confusion and helplessness that she is facing. ANd so I find it hard ot think it will 'just' even out and turn out ok for her.

I had to at the social skills/offering a drink to guests bit too. THis is me! I am a shocker for offering drinks - if I am not thirstly/hungry then I genuinely forget to offer anyone else something. I know I have been taken as rude many times before now for failure to do so, but that's just how I am. I amd always completely as to why someone would not ask for a drink if they wanted one! (to be fair, I have trained nearly all of my friends now - they go and get one if they want one!)

"All things i see in dd2. BUT. I do not remember the absolute confusion she seems to feel. I do not remember feeling as 'on the outside' as I think she does. I don't remember not understanding my peers to the same degree as she does. And so, while on the one hand I could think 'well, it turned out ok for me', which it did, boradly speaking, on the other hand, I did not face the same degree of confusion and helplessness that she is facing. ANd so I find it hard ot think it will 'just' even out and turn out ok for her. "

YES YES and YES!!!!

I remember feeling utter confusion as to why my friend wanted to play with her stupid barbie's all the time - they were useless plastic dolls. I remember feeling insecure and on the edge in terms of friendships - I was never a popular person. But I also remember that for the most part, although I hated school, I hated it for very rational reasons (bored, understretched, if I asked for harder work I just got more work, etc).