• Replies 4 replies
  • Subscribers 25 subscribers
  • Views 1224 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Anna ' s extreme struggles with social situations

anna2007

Hi...I am a parent of a beautiful 8yrs old girl who is currently in the looooong process of being diagnosed (my best bet is Aspergers...but then I am only a parent.....and up to this point not really being heard, sadly enough). Anna is happy at home....free to be herself....free to do whatever her current obsessions are (switching between minecraft...roblox...animal jam...sims is the latest one)........

Given her freedom at home, we don't have any major difficulties  (well less than we use to have)....Eating not great...sleeping not great.....her best friend is her younger sister who although only 6yrs old can work with her better than anyone else, but who we have to protect at times vigorously (especially when Anna hits out of impulsivity) and also give her that one on one to help her cope.

Our major ongoing trouble is at school (up to last year it was home).Anna has days, sometimes even weeks when everything seems to be sailing ok. She is not too bothered about school, but when the going is good she is quite happy to go (but always would rather prefer not to go if she was presented with the choice).

However, from time to time there is a problem. It always is with a specific child...'she is mean to me'...'she made faces at me'....and it goes on and on.......So I as a parent try to come up with her with strategies to cope 'ok....If she does this tell her you don't want to play if she is not being nice'....'or just walk away'....'don't join the play if you s always end up arguing'...'play with someone else'....

During the process of this it is really hard to teased out when someone is actually being mean to her or when Anna is misreading the signals....and at the same time reassuring her that no matter what is going on...I believe her :-( :-( :-( :-(.

Her P4 teacher is not very supportive  (let the children sort it out themselves)....so I went to the vice principal and finally met with someone who is hearing me....I have suggested if we can start with providing Anna with a 'safe person'....a very gentle teacher who she knows from p2....This should start next week. Anna will go to her on weekly basis to have a chat.

As for anything else I am stuck.....The thing is Anna is very sensitive and the slightest wrong thing one of her friends does she takes very seriously and it keeps growing in her head....by now a month later the current girl who Anna struggles with is a complete monster :-(.

Two months ago it was someone else....few months earlier yet someone else. 

So, I am lost....as a mum I don't know what else to do rather than talk about the school day....discuss her feelings...try to get her see their side (impossible ).....Help her to find strategies to cope.....etc....i am lost.....really really lost.

Anyone out there who would be willing to comment and perhaps direct me to some practical solutions...........and is anyone seeing just like me a child with Aspergers or am I loosing it?

Any help would be wholeheartedly appreciated.

Kind regards mum x 

  • You're welcome.  Places like this one have helped me enormously to deal with difficulties that living the autistic life has thrown at me, it feels only right to help other people in kind, and always lovely to hear that it is appreciated.

    Knowledge is power, as they say; and I've found that asking the advice of people who are 'walking the walk' has helped me much, much more than the opinions of the scientists and "experts".

  • Hi,

    Thank you very much for your kind reply...It really touched my heart that you took the time to do so :-).Will take it all on board and if I may educate myself more from your other comments...as they say nothing like when it comes from someone who is walking the walk :-). Thank you 

  • Welcome,

    I'm not a parent myself, but trying to cast my mind back to being an autistic kid at school, I think you are right to be concerned.

    If course, it is prudent to ensure that there is no bullying taking place - I sincerely hope that isn't the case, and the rest of my post assumes that it isn't.  It is good that the school are now prepared to take some action to help you both at last.

    Thinking of situations like this when I was a kid, I think there are a couple of things that might be going on.

    Firstly, us autistic folk can be stubborn as hell.  More correctly, it's called perseverance - we find it hard to change from one subject of thought to another.  And once we have decided how we feel about something, our opinions can be very hard to shift.

    Secondly, we often don't see grey areas well - everyone is either on our side or not on our side, there is no middle ground!

    So when your daughter sees a social interaction that she doesn't comprehend, or hasn't encountered before, she might have already primed herself to see the worst -  it confirms what she already believes (not unique to autistic folk, of course!)  It's that natural human fear of the unknown - "magnified" by autistic traits which can make reading social cues more difficult  The "evidence" that the other person is bad grows, because events we don't understand automatically go in the "scary" category.

    You are quite right to encourage her to keep an open mind when interpreting the people around her - don't stop, it is advice that will make sense to her as she matures.  However, if you sense that she is spending a lot of time at home fretting about it, you also need to make sure she can and does get a break from ruminating about it.

    Breaking the "loop" of the same thought going round in our heads is the first step to keeping perseveration in check - whatever activites you can find that she finds really engrossing, but have a natural time limit.  The less "primed" she is to see her classmates' mysterious actions as threatening,the less likely it is to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    Another useful idea might be to use drawings, dolls or puppets to help her to describe what she is experiencing.  If she's having trouble reading social cues, it's likely that she finds it difficult to articulate what has happened exactly - you can't give names to things that you don't know you're missing.  But, if it's upsetting her, then I'd guess she is observing what's going on quite closely - an alternative way to describe it might help you to understand her viewpoint better, and allow her to calmly let go of some frustration.

    Best wishes.

  • I would say keep doing what your doing,we have just had this with my son and another child, they clash, i have heard nothing but this boys name for months on end, havespoke to school about it several times, they say its nothing.

    Touch wood my son has a newlittle friend now and i havent heard this other childs name for a week, so perhaps see if school can pair your child up with someoneto play with?