Published on 12, July, 2020
My almost 4 year old daughter is on the autism pathway and struggles massively with people coming to our house. My daughter will go mute for a while and cling to me, she will then meltdown about every single thing and become very demanding, she will lash out and roll around on the floor for ages. My daughter also struggles to play with other children, she will play for a short while but the play quickly ends by her getting frustrated or angry. When our guests leave it takes my daughter a good couple of hours to regulate and she is left exhausted. I have found it is worse when it’s a child of her own age that is at our house.
Some thoughts from my experience child minding ADHD and autistic kids, but I am not a parent.
Is she expected to be on show the whole time, or can she follow her regular routine? Is there a safe place she can go before she gets overwhelmed to calm herself?
Does she have any choice in who comes, or in what they do when they come? Do the people visiting fit in with her routine, or are you expecting her to change without setting different expectations from a routine day? Does she choose toys visiting children can play with, rather than assuming she is happy to share everything (all toys will mean something different to her)?
Playing with other children was hell for me, I never understood what they were doing, their games had varying rules that favoured them, and I wanted to be on my own reading or drawing.