As first time parents, and living away from extended family, we just assumed that DD was a difficult child and the same as lots of DCs. We knew she had reflux, but sleep problems, anger problems, sensory problems, not making friends and not engaging with others - all those small things didn't add up to 1 big thing for us until the crèche suggested (at age 4.5) that she might be on the spectrum and we should consider getting that checked out. As she did read early, was good on numbers/letters/colours etc, loved water and running and climbing, and seemed to hit her milestones generally.
That first conversation - as part of her general 6 monthly review meeting, and done so nicely in fairness to the crèche - was a killer. And then we could see so much once we looked with that mindset of - maybe it wasn't just us having a hard time, maybe she is actually a DC having problems.
But we can celebrate lots of positives - and always have been able to. Yes there are hard things to deal with, but actually knowing about her DX, and learning about different things that we can try for different things, means that we approach it positively - and there is a lovely little girl within DD who comes bouncing out sometimes and just takes your breath away in a good way. Which makes up for a lot of the tears and frustrations that we have felt at times.
DD has a lovely laugh, and a smile that lights up the room when she does use it. She loves to help, and we can now get her to make a meal (she's 11) or big parts of it. When she first started coming home alone (getting home 10 minutes ahead of me after school - rather than staying longer in afterschool club where there was some serious bullying going on) she set the table for dinner the first night unasked, and has continued doing that since September!
She is extremely sporty, she has pulled back from more team sports (which is not totally surprising - social skills things rather than the sports skills), but she loves running long distances (school did 1km run daily in January, and she adored that!) and also sails as often as she can get on the water. She gives great hugs. She has a fantastic grasp of maths, all sorts of maths concepts and regularly twists us up in knots these days. And she loves being a "buddy" in school - where Y5 pupils get matched to a Reception pupil, to support on their introduction to school and have some fun (games, crafts etc) for the 2 years of Y5 and Y6 until the bigger buddies go to secondary - the older pupils organize it, and there tend to be great bonds built, and even DD is really enjoying that.
The hard part, as parents, is trying to remember those good things. On the bad days when you are just muddling through, or on the formal meeting days with school or professionals where you tend to focus on the negatives (as the things to work on) and often gloss (usually unintentionally) over the positives and things that HAVE IMPROVED. Or the days when you are having a bad day yourself (about work, relationship, DCs, money, the weather - anything at all) and really just want to be able to have it about just you for a change - but you have to slap on a positive face and deal with whatever DD is facing as well.