Sorry , this might be long.
Dd is aged 14 and my oldest so I am trying to work out what I need to worry about and what's 'normal'.
Since the lockdown she spends about 80% of her time in her room playing online computer games (I check the laptop and we have security etc) and messaging on her phone. She says she loves being at home and would like to be home schooled long term..
The thing is she definitely has some sort of anxiety and I feel it's getting worse with the lockdown. She was self harming a few years ago and ended up under CAMHS for an assessment which lead to an ASD assessment. They said she has 'autistic traits' but not ASD.. She is aware of this although we rarely talk about it.
In all honesty I think she may well be on the spectrum as she has a number of issues :hates nosey environments , finds too much information on a page very difficult to process and hates certain touch. For example, she says she can still feel the touch of someone way after they have brushed passed her or if they tap her arm for attention.
I had her seen by an educational psychologist about a year ago as I thought she may be dyslexic as she couldn't copy from the board. But it turns out she has a processing speed of less than one percentile although I've never quite yet worked out what part that plays overall someone told me it may be part of ASD..
The main difficulty is socially. She had a terrible time making friends at primary school and said she used to feel panic before playing outside at playtime. However, since secondary school that has definitely picked up and she has a nice group of friends. Although , she seems unbothered by them. She rarely speaks to them ans seems to prioritise her online friends.
She got very tearful tonight and said she hates seeing people and it makes her feel stressed. I pointed out that she speaks to her online friends (a group of girls that play her online game but none she goes to school with) and she calls these her true friends. She says she likes the communication with them because it's not face to face.
. I just find it all a bit odd.
Then I realised that since lockdown she has only left the house to go to the park at the end of our road and she will only go when its almost dusk, so empty. She said she doesnt like seeing people at all and it makes her 'worry'. I tried to find our what she was worried about but she wouldn't say.
I know things are all a bit weird at the moment. But ,I can see this anxiety had been there for years but the lockdown is allowing it to grow in plain sight if that makes sense. She has cried on several occasions when I even probe a little bit which makes me concerned about what's going on.
I took her for art therapy a free years ago but that didn't help. Is it worth me looking into therapy of some sort ? Or should I just leave her to it as loads of teens are sat in their rooms playing online games ? Or should I try and shake things up a bit and force her to walk somewhere at other times where she may see people. Albeit 2m apart. I have tackled some of this in the past by setting small achievable goals. Like I have walked her to the shop and waited for her outside ( at one point she wouldn't even go into shops).
School wise she is ok. She says she has panics and has these waves of hotness that come over her if she has to do anything that makes her anxious like read out loud. But she doesnt verbalise any of it so she goes under the radar as it were.