I need some advice

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My daughter has social anxiety and is very fearful of attention being put on her. Last Christmas she had somewhat of a breakthrough and was able to go onstage during the holiday program. She was proud of herself but it scared her quite a lot. Since then she gave an oral presentation to her class and I am told she did quite well. They are doing a graduation program tomorrow night and want her to go onstage and read aloud. She is very insistent she DOES NOT want to do it, and now she wants to skip the whole event. I asked her teacher for an exemption but she (and the head of the school) are insistent that my daughter do it for a grade. This has put enormous pressure on my daughter she is very proud of her good grades and does not want to take a zero. Even still, she still insists she would rather begrudgingly take the zero than read the sheet.

I am flip flopping between saying curse the school and let her skip the program and urging her to try it as it might be "good for her". What do you think? I think her teacher thinks I am somewhat "holding her back" from trying it but I know how something as simple as this could cause embarassment if she falls apart in front of the whle school, parents, teachers, etc. (this has happened before and caused lasting issues) Am I being an overly protective mama? Would you encourage your 8 year old child with AS to "feel the fear and do it anyway"? There is a chance she could do fine and it would be a milestone for overcoming her fears, but if she cannot rely on me to "protect" her...... Ah, am I overthinking this????

I need to bounce this off some people who get it. Thanks for any advice.

I was like that as a child and growing up (still am like this). I quit ballet in kindergarten because I did not want to do the recital on a stage in front of all the parents. Later I took dance lessons that were more focused on movement and enjoying learning how to move creatively rather than recitals.

When it came time for my college graduation ceremony, my degree area happened to be the first to go across the stage. I happened to be at the front of my group of other education majors, and no one wanted to stand at the front of the line and be the first of the first! SO I went first. Granted, I didn't have to speak or read, but I did have to be the first of the first, in front of all those people, and shake hands and not fall down or disgrace myself. My parents were so proud and surprised.

In my opinion there is no reason to try to force your daughter to face that fear at eight years old. Good luck with the school.

I would be concerned that you will cause her to backslide if you take her too far out of her comfort zone. Think of climbing a ladder, the next rung is just a short reach (a little tolerable discomfort), but if you tried to reach three rungs up you may fall or not be able to reach.

Maybe tomorrow, you can take her to the stage when no one else is in the room, let her talk out loud on the stage (with the microphone if they have it) and see whether it is too much. If you can find a compromise, I say go for it. If the other adults will not be compromising, then don't force her. Pushing someone into the deep end of the pool usually does not teach them to swim. It just reinforces the fear.

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/phobia_ ... atment.htm

Eureka-C has a good point and good suggestion. IT may be worth a shot to try a "dry run" and see if that reduces her anxiety any.

I have had similar deliberations about my son. There are times he does things that I think he won't be able to do and he does them well and seems comfortable. Then its just like you said, he flat out refuses to do something that APPEARS TO ME to be similar and I am left scratching my head trying to figure out what is different. After some difficult times when I have pushed him, I have learned to follow his lead. If he REALLY doesn't want to do something of this nature, I am going to listen to him.

Are the teachers making other kids do something similar as they are asking your DD to do for a grade? If this is just singling her out because they think she OUGHT to be able to do it, I would hope that they would listen to you if you tell them how deeply troubling this is for her. I mean, they have seen her over the course of this school year, they should recognize that her anxiety can be a very real obstacle for her. I hope they realize that even though a person can show progress overcoming this type of obstacle it doesn't mean that the anxiety has suddenly disappeared. It sounds like she has made so much progress this year. I personally think that progress should be acknowledged and protected.

This is such a tough call, I really feel your pain. I did push DS this year to do a competition, but I didn't last year. I happened to have made the right choice (he was fine once he got up there, and I think he's glad he did it) but I could easily have messed up.

I will say this: I knew he was capable, wasn't going to mess up and was going to do well (which wasn't the case the last year) and I'd worked with him for a significant length of time scripting how he was supposed to act in the competition. His protestations were also sounding a bit thin, almost perfunctory.

To me, this is the most, most difficult part of parenting a kid on the spectrum, because - at least with my son - if I don't do a little pushing or nudging, he'll never try anything. If I push too much, he falls apart. I rarely get terribly good insight into which way I'm going - and, frankly, teachers are no help at all in that regard; they are just as all over the board with their expectations.

Ultimately, the decision is up to you and you have to trust your judgement. You know your child; your teachers only know a small percentage of what you know.

Thanks. They are making the whole class do this (she has a small class). I am going to see how it goes tonight but not force her to do anything. I don't understand why part of a 3rd grade curriculum would be addressing the whole school.

As a child who went through social anxiety myself I wouldn't make her do it, especially if it's in front of the whole school. I don't know your child myself but if I was made to be put in that situation I would have probably frozen up or stuttered my words or lost my breath. It was torture for me to do things in front of the class. Doing certain things like group presentations and things like that should be encouraged but I wouldn't make her go up on stage alone if she doesn't want to. I remember doing stuff like that would make me physically sick.

Just wanted to let you all know that she did get up on stage and said 2 lines. Milestone! Amazing!

I didn't force her and I gave her an out but I did offer huge incentive for doing it. She did it-and did an AMAZING job! Perfectly articulated her lines!

She was scared but proud of herself.

Thank you all for your advice!

BRAVO, Bravo
thank you for sharing that.

Terrific! Congratulations to both of you!

I've found that bribery is a really important parenting tool for my son, much more so than for other kids. I was dead-set against it in the beginning, before I knew I was dealing with autism - but I've come completely around. I've found it really helps.

I used to have huge problems with this too...for example, giving presentations in front of the class. I'd force myself to go first to get it over with.

Worth noting I eventually got over it, I worked as a teacher and was the lead singer in a band.