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Hello,
I have a daughter who is eight years old and recently diagnosed with asperger. I do not have a whole lot of experience of aspergers and I feel like I`m not coping very well. Since this is all very new to us, my daughter is still in a normal class at school but will move to a smaller group after the summer. One of her problems is that she is so negative and worries about everything and I find it difficult to know how to best support her.

When I pick her up from school she will only tell me bad things that has happened during the day, never a single positiv thing. Her teachers can see her play happily during the day but this is not what she herself remembers or feels. She feels that she is not beeing understood and that she does not understand others and she suffers from it off course. But she seems to turn little problems into big ones and usually when we do things together she will then too only remember the bad or difficult or troublesome things, even though she has seemed to enjoy herself earlier.

Does anybody recognise this and have some advise to me as how to support and help her?

Mine does the same thing. I just let him talk it out (sometimes for hours) and then he'll start to settle down and then my husband walks in the door and it starts all over again.

I did the exact same thing as a child/teen. (I am undiagnosed by the way.)
The way I got through it... I had a diary even though I wasn't the best at writing at the time. I would draw pictures and use stickers and even magazine clippings that would help me get my thoughts out on paper.

My Dad was never much of a talker, so unless it was a shared interest I never spoke with him. My Mom was always at work doing 'overtime'. So, I had to resort to the diary keeping.

Let your daughter know that you're there for her. I'm sure that helps her feel better knowing that she can at least vent her frustrations to you. I would also encourage the diary too- the reason I say this- it helps with learning how to express yourself and when you look back at it YEARS later and you don't even remember the incidents, you see how petty most of the stuff seemed. It helps being able to look back at what you actually wrote and see that it wasn't all that bad.

What I would do though- is ask her what made her smile that day? Or if she did well in class? Or if she enjoyed a particular activity... that way she'll think of the positives that happened without being told that she's a pessimist. (I was always told I was a pessimist)

Also, I'd try to do things that she finds enjoyable with her... that way you she'll be able to come to you to more than just talk. If you don't already do this with her- you should start trying from now. If you wait until she's a teen to start then she'll reject you.

my daughter was 5 1/2 when she was diagnosed. i am just now able to have a close relationship with her...and it was extremely hard.
just allow your little girl to get her thoughts out. what may seem wrong to you may be right to her...and whos to say it isn't? grace, my daughter, bottles everything, until a meltdown comes and you don't want that. i do know that grace has strategically learned very well waht is expected from her by others and she "performs" at school. she can carry on light conversations with others and that can be mistaken for a happy little time. tony atwood has a wonderful article on girls with AS...i cant remember the www right now.
when i read it i felt if i was reading about grace. your little one may be doing the same thing...performing her daily functions. that looks to others like every other kid at school and it could be very frustrating for her.
just a thought...

found the link...i think it may help...information is the biggest key in allowing your daughter to grow

http://www.aspergerfoundation.org.uk/in ... _girls.pdf

my son did this too...after awhile, he stopped complaining and we thought that things were better. they weren't.......he's much happier now~much bette rschool, and lots of therapy.........wish i had better advice for you....i will say, though, that teachers don't always know what's going on "behind the scenes" in their own classroom~our son would get picked on while wlaking to music class, during recess, in the bathroom~all those places bullys find a way to get to you.

Thank you all who has answered my request, I am very greatfull and it helps me to know that I do not stand alone in the world with these problems.

My daughter has always done this. For as long as I can remember. This combined with the other millions of things about her, led us to the anxiety disorders clinic, cuz she ALWAYS worried, held fast to the negatives, having the worst time letting bad experiences go, which eventually led us to believe that she really wasn't enjoying life, at all.

I clearly remember the days (as awful & embarrassing as it was at the time), when my daughters daycare opted to take pictures of her (when quite young) enjoying her day, having fun, interacting with the group...to prove that positves existed. You want to believe that your child wouldn't make up such awful experiences and not that I believe any of it was "made up" per se, however, I do believe that much of what she goes through each day is percieved much differently than you or I would see things.

I spend so much of my time trying to sort out if what my daughter says is actually as it happened or if it is how the experience left her feeling.

Sadly, alot of how she percieves different things, leaves her going out of her way to try & avoid being left with the same feelings because of the negative association attached and she refuses to do many things, ever again (whether it be taste a new food, have another burrito~cuz she spilt the last one, go back to dance class, sleepover at that friends house, speak to her teacher, etc)

The only thing I can suggest, which has helped for all of our sanity is...not only allow her a place to vent, but get to the root of it. Find the truth. Find the one negative, but focus on the 10 positives about the situation...

But truly, getting to the root and talking it out to a point where my daughter understands that although that is how a certain situation has left her feeling, that much of what happened was not intentional, was accidental, was a regular occurance and not made to single her out, was a rule that everyone must follow, not just her etc.

I cannot count how many times I have been left feeling like a complete @$$, embarrassed to no end, because I did not get to the bottom of it before going to the other person involved with a list of SEEMINGLY serious concerns.

Good thread, thanks for posting:)

Best Wishes,

Melissa

Dear Melissa,
I am completely overwhelmed by emotion, reading about your daughter feels like reading about mine. Sorting through everything my daughter tells me at the end off her schoolday or after spending time with a friend is not an easy task and has put me too in a few delicate situations. I also believe, like you, that these "fabrications" are not lies but how she acctually percieves things. My motherheart aches for her, that she has to go through this and not beeing able to fully understand how she feels is soo frustrating. I just want her to be happy!

This is all so new to me and to realise that there are others in the world who have the same problems is helpful but at the same time makes me so emotional. For a long time I have been believing that it was my fault that my daughter was acting this way, that I could not teach her properly or reassure her enough or something.

I also want to say thank you to "janwr" for sending that link. That was a really good article! What was said there about play for exemple is so much like my daughter it is almost scary. She has those discussions with her dolls mostly but also with imaginary friends or whatever is available, like her own fingers or the candles on the table etc. During these plays she very clearly relives things from life, or books or films.
I will have to read that and other things in this forum several more times for all the information to sink in and I want to take this opportunity to say thanks to all for making this forum so good and helpful to everybody who needs it.

Best wishes and have a good weekend.
Cecilia

For years I held in a lot of negative feelings about various stuff that happened in kindy, school, and university. Years later, I told mum and she said just forget about it. It is funny how it seemed worse well after the time than it did when it first happened.

I suspect I have a short term (and sometimes even medium term) memory retrieval problem. It was also discovered when I was diagnosed with Aspergers that I have chronic depression. I can certainly remember feeling depressed even when I was very little and it has been consistently in the background ever since.

My advice would be to let the little girl speak but gently try and bring in some positives from time to time. The worst thing to do would be to act judgemental. That's part of the reason I stayed silent for so long because when I tried to tell my teachers about bullying, it only made my get in trouble.