Sigh

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This is just an anxiety vent. Typpies certainly wouldn't understand and I'm not even sure how many moms of auties would either. Blech...sometimes we (me and my kids) don't fit anywhere. Too typical to hang with the autism crowd and too atypical to hang with the NT crowd. Sometimes I feel like we have our own little brand of atypical.

So, my daughter is at a 7 yr old birthday party.

By herself.

You see, this makes me want to vomit, but she asked me to leave when she saw the other parents leaving, so how can I not?

She is OK to be left 70% of the time. Which seems like a lot. Until you realize 30% is like a third, which means 1/3 of the time, she needs me there to avert some kind of happening ranging from small misunderstanding to major meltdown. So, really, what's a mom to do? Risk sheltering her too much the 70% of the time she is fine? Or expose her the vulnerabilities of the other 30%?

The party is half way over and no one has called, so I am hoping this is going to result in the high of a nice success. I get almost giddy when she is able to do something on her own without support. On the other hand, there is still almost an hour left in which I could get a phone call with a frantic mom on the phone who doesn't know what to do because my daughter is hysterical. Or, I could pick her up at the end of the party to find that she has alienated all of her friends with her controlling behavior.

Does it ever get any easier?

Survived. She did not do all of the party activities, but the birthday girl's mom said she was polite and pleasant the whole party.

She did appear to get into a little tiff with one of the bossy girls (according to my daughter) but I think that is to be expected since my daughter is also one of the bossy girls. Can't really complain when they have the same issue as their typical peers! LOL!

Whew.

Glad it all worked out.

Aw glad she enjoyed the party and there were no glitches afterall

I have similar worries (Im NT but 4yo daughter is AS) at playgroups and Im nervous for her first year at proper school in September. I see other children laughing at her behind her back when she gets over enthusiatic with simple creative tasks at play groups, other kids instinctively know what to do and do it as intended, my daughter takes all the materials on offer and makes a huge complicated construction that takes ages to do then starts to incorporate more ingredients to hand such as soap, water, tissues, anythign within reach. Other kids have long finished and just seem to find her odd. Meanwhile all the adults are crowding round her wowing at her marvelous creation lol! My little girl is totally oblivious of the other kids during all of this. I worry she will alienate the others as they are jealous of her attention from adults and also find her weird. At the moment I am with her all the time but soon she will be on her own and left to her own devices!

It's hard, but experiences like that will only help her grow.

I'm really worried about this with mine. I had stopped most of my freaking out by the time... wait, no. My parents had to pick me up from a few parties. I must have freaked out even though I don't remember. Weird, but I can't think of why else I would have needed to be picked up. And then they eventually stopped letting me go to a lot of parties. Arg.

Back on task, I'm really worred about this with mine too. She has had some epic meltdowns, but they are becoming less frequent, thank goodness, but I'm worried we will see an uptick again when she starts Kindergarten.

It does get better. They learn and they grow up. Amazing, isn't it? I remember all those feelings, but at 15 my son knows his moods and what he can handle 99 percent of the time, so I'm out of the decision process and out of the worry. If he says he is fine, I know he is fine.

There was a lot of rough road between then and now, and so much digging in and investing we all had to do, but you stay focused and do what you have to do each step of the way. Pay attention to your child and trust your instincts. Don't be afraid to make your community your team. And so on. I have so many people I feel so very grateful to at this point. It is good when you cross that threshold from "I believe my child will be OK because he is smart et al" to ""I KNOW he's going to be OK." Not that there are ever any guarantees, but there aren't with anyone.

Be ready for some rougher road between now and then, though. There is a lot of two steps forward, 1 1/2 steps back. Just never stop believing that investing in your child will be worth it.

Meanwhile, you hang by that phone ready to swoop in, properly prep everyone you leave your child with, and so on.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 14 Aug 2012, 10:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks, DW a mom, It is very helpful to get a reminder every now and then that, yes, this can be done.

You know, we moved recently and I think that has added to my stress. In her old school, all the parents "knew" about her. They had seen her with a 1:1 for 2 years of school. So they knew something was up with her. So without telling anyone anything, everyone knew. And everyone was so universally proud of her and protective of her. Because they saw her go from the little girl who hardly knew how to say a word to the girl in her class with the biggest vocabulary. We were all proud of her, you know?

But now that we have moved, people don't know. So sometimes she ends up looking rather bratty and I am afraid of what people think. Part of me wants to tell them she has mild autism, but part of me doesn't want to say anything. Not because I am embarrassed or anything like that. It's because I just want people to see her for her, not as a label. Yet I feel without that label, there is too much left open to interpretation and that interpretation can be a negative one.

So, twice now I have just taken a deep breath and told another mother that she has autism, but that she is pretty much like the other girls in her class. Both of the moms so far have been very supportive and accepting. You are right that in some ways it takes the whole community. What a dream that would be if we could only count on the whole community, right?

I've always told parents and adults who will be supervising my child (play dates, coaches, etc) about my son's diagnosis, but not anyone else. It wasn't necessary; our community is so pro-diversity, that kids weren't allowed to make a deal out of any child having personality quirks, bossiness included. There was always someone to help kids navigate and accept each other.

Ive wondered about this myself, whether to tell people or not. I worry it may embarrass her later on and she may grow up wishing I hadnt told people. But at the same time telling people takes the pressure off and you feel less judged. When shes having a meltdown and other parents on the school run see it, Im nervous about how to handle it. If they dont know they may think why is that woman not dragging that brat home and giving her a good telling off. Instead I feel like I come accross as a weak Mum by seemingly pandaring to it. I know my Mother in Law has always said she just needs a "firm hand" grrrrrr!

I'm so glad the party went well!

I just read this article on the NYT about parenting and "spoiling." http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/1 ... d=fb-share

Rather than being frustrated like I usually am at these articles, I found a certain amount of peace in their finding: "but there are some skills you learn from growing up with limits and the opportunity to experience frustration."

While it seems on the outside (and sometimes on the inside) that I am pandering to my son and smoothing out all frustrations, this article made me realize that he manages significantly more frustration than your average kid because of his difference. Our job as parents isn't to make all his frustrations go away - but to keep the frustration to a manageable level, so he doesn't just give up (which he very nearly did before we had a diagnosis.)

We did get through his own birthday party recently without a major meltdown, and with only one or two mishaps. I was able to let them play video games without hovering (OK, I was listening carefully from two rooms away as I made the dinner, etc.)

YES! My parents gave me lots of room to learn and make mistakes. It's part of growing up.

I comment the OP for letting her daughter go to the party alone. I wonder if she continues to grow and experience if the 70/30 might get smaller.

Thank you, and I hope so!

I was very lucky in the my daughter's ABA therapist from Early Intervention who then went on to be her 1:1 her first two years of school, was an excellent teacher for me. She taught me that my daughter needed to be allowed to fail in ways appropriate to her emerging skill levels. That was tough for me because I had been the kind of parent that averted all possible mishaps. The trick is having the courage to let go when you need to let go and the foresight to see when stepping in is best.

This is it, right? This is the line...finding the appropriate ratio of failure/success so that they keep growing and stretching and don't give up. This is what keeps me up at night.

Well, what makes it hard is you never know if you did the right thing or not until after. And those times that you didn't take the risk and should have, well...you may never know that you didn't do the right thing.