Hello all, I am new to the forum & was after some advice about my 8.5 year old daughter. Sorry, this might be long, and a bit “stream of consciousness”!
She struggles to communicate with people, often saying “I don’t know” when she does. It’s difficult to have a conversation with her & she will often change what she’s talking about mid conversation or get louder & louder until she’s the only person that can be heard. She very often interrupts people when they’re speaking.
She finds it difficult to keep friends. She had a lovely group of friends that she made at playgroup/nursery, but over the years she has lost most of them as she ignores them and often seems to feel very superior & grown up in comparison. She is quite open about the fact she doesn’t want any friends anymore & has no interest whatsoever in making new ones. For some reason she also doesn’t like it that anybody else in the family has friends either.
She really struggles to see other people’s points of view. She is frequently dismissive, but even when she appears to agree with somebody it’s easy to see she’s thinking “you’re wrong”.
We’ve been aware for some years now that she doesn’t have the best co-ordination. For example, she can’t ride a bike. The one time we convinced her to try she could either peddle or use the handle bars but not both simultaneously & after about five feet got off & has refused to try since. She also cannot use a knife & fork simultaneously.
She is exceptionally good at reading & was easily best in her year group – reading quickly became something of an obsession with her.
She’s very funny about being touched & has never been cuddly, even as a baby. She goes very stiff whenever people are near her & whilst she will hug certain people she clearly finds it difficult having somebody being close to her. She even goes very tense when having her hair brushed.
She seems very immature for her age. We do not feel as if we can trust her to do things that we would trust her younger siblings to do. She has also said and done quite inappropriate things over the years as well as being violent & rude, especially towards myself & her younger siblings. In the last year she has also become extremely destructive around the house. She has broken the doors on the entertainment unit, as well as kitchen cupboards and numerous door handles.
The thing we struggle to wrap our heads around is that she appears to have the ability to control her behaviour to some degree. For example if we get a one-off visitor they would not know anything is wrong. However, when people come regularly she would somehow lose the ability to mask her behaviour. She also seems to lie compulsively and steals food, often in the middle of the night despite having had dinner.
I was in regular contact with the health visitor when she was younger & would meet regularly with her to go over the problems we were having, she referred us to child & family therapy but they really weren’t any use at all & couldn’t see what the problem was as she’s so good at switching it on & off!
The odd thing is that she seems to want to be centre of attention at all times & when she doesn’t get to be centre of attention she tantrums in a way I’d expect from my two year old.
Does any of this sound like behaviour on the spectrum, to anyone?
Help! Running out of ideas about what to do!
