Emotionally Needy Autistic Child

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My daughter is an awesome kid, and I love her dearly. She is also very emotionally needy. In my experience, this isn't necessarily the case with autistic children. I perhaps appeared needy, but only because my very basic needs were often not met (regular meals, getting picked up from school on time instead of an hour late, etc.). But my daughter's needs are met. While I'll be the first to tell you it isn't always easy to keep up with how much she needs (I'm not super affectionate, always been accused of being distant until I met and married an aspie), I think her needs go beyond the scope of typical. Maybe it's just little girls? My son isn't like this, he's practically indifferent to praise and you have to beg for a hug or kiss. My daughter wants praise for everything she does AND everything her brother does. It isn't enough to praise her for making her bed, doing a great cartwheel, making a cool indian costume in school for thanksgiving and coloring inside the lines, no. She also wants to be hugged whenever my son is hugged, praised for saying "mama" because he was praised for saying mama, and so on. She also is wetting her pants occasionally, and she's 4 years old and been trained for over a year with no accidents. With constant praise for keeping her pants dry, she doesn't do it. Stop constantly praising her and she does, so I know it's a ploy for attention. I've tried ramping up the praise in other areas, but it isn't enough. It's wearing me out.

Any suggestions?

My son appears this way too, I didn't. So, I doubt the gender difference. My son needs a lot of reassurance and I think it has a lot to do with not understanding what's coming next. Issues with predicting the future and transitions.

I wouldn't say, "I know it's a ploy for attention". She may be mistaking the praise for instruction. If she doesn't get the praise/instruction, she may not understand that it's expected to stay dry.
My son has accidents when he is completely stressed out. He's 7.

Have you written a social story about things that people are expected to do, without praise?
I will also add that it's normal for any kid to seemingly "regress" to infantile behavior when they are jealous or afraid of a younger sibling. Babies get praised for everything.

Yeah, my son is also four and he even demands praise when the cats or dog get praised. Or if I point out what someone else is doing he tries to copy and demand to be noticed too. Also constantly repeats actions that got him praise before. He is a really astute thinker and has a great sense of humour but an unsatiable need to be in the spotlight. Reckon he will go on stage one day, which will be a first for an Aspie I think!

Any insights from older aspies on this?

BTW, my user name "Boykie" was rejected as being already taken. How that happened I do not know as the "kie" is a suffix used in Afrikaans, here in South Africa, to denote diminutives or smallness. I just added it to the word "boy" which is, as you know, English, and I doubt anyone else would have used this combination

I am a diagnosed aspie and needed quite a lot of reassurance and praise (and still do). Much of the time I had/have no idea of what is going to happen next so that causes insecurity. Mum said I started to copy the baby's crying when my brother was born. I also didn't care for being told I was "too big" to be picked up when I hadn't even turned two.

2?? My son just got too big to be picked up.

Oh, by the time I was 7, I had four younger brothers. I think because I was the eldest, great things were expected of me and I didn't mature as fast as expected.

It sounds like you have two autistic children one older and thus functioning higher but starting to revert and one just beging to come out of themselves. If I had to guess your daughter is feeling jealous of the attention her brother is recieving and feels that maybe he is taking your attention away from her. This is common in young NT children as well the AS just seems to complicate the issue. What I'm getting is your son needs more help which you are giving him appropriatly but your daughter doesn't understand. I recommend you sit down with her and explain that you love her very much, are so proud of all her accomplishments and understand if she feels a bit left out with her brother getting new attention but that your trying to help him improve and be more like her. See if she wants to express any of her feelings about this and listen to her. Set up a time each week for just you and her to spend a few minuets doing something she loves and put a long term reward system of some kind in place. Hopefully this helps.

Yeah, this is a problem. Bigger since our son has been non-verbal until recently and he is being overly praised. He doesn't even pay mind to minor praise, you really have to go all out for him to engage. It's helping him talk, but it's making our 4 year old jealous no matter how much we try to praise her equally for her own achievements. The balance is tough.

You're right on target. As someone mentioned above, I was an older sibling who was dealt unrealistic demands and nowhere near adequate attention, affection or even the basics. And I wasn't needy, so imagine an NT kid in my parent's home As a result of that (and I was 6.5 when my sister arrived) I really try to make sure my older child knows how much she is loved, how proud I am of her and that she is praised for how special her accomplishments are. She seems to want all that PLUS what the little one gets, which makes it difficult. I don't want her to feel left out, and it makes me sad that she does. At the same time I need to teach her that she can't be praised every time anyone else is, that her accomplishments and needs are her own and those are special enough - spectacular even! I just don't seem to be able to get it right.

It might be that she's thinking, "Oh of course you're saying I'm great, you're my mom." That's kind of how I felt, until I was older and realized how greatful I should be to have parents who think even inconsequential things are a great acheivement. There are parents who could care less about their children. Maybe it's just, a lack of outside world comparison too.

Sometimes it takes young kids time to adjust to their jealosy issues which are completely natural, when your used to having all the attention its hard to accept that you have to share it with someone else. When I was born my sister hated me, she thought I was stealing her mom and dad. We became very close but it took a few years and she was NT. We still argue over a teddy bear though. It was a gift for me from my god-mother at my baptism and she still claims is hers. Now we jest over it and steal it back from each other so its more of a game now than a rivalry.

Hi! I have 2 boys, J 6 days off turning 9, and Chris 2 months off turning 18. Chris has always been extremely jealous of J. This can be frustrating and exhausting. Chris is a little better with the jealousy thing when I have him help me with J, obviously he is much older than your daughter, but perhaps you could ask her to help you teach your son some words etc because she is sooooo clever and her little brother loves her so so much. Then reward her for all her help.

Wow xxx just said mamma, yay good boy xxx fantastic ( hugs kisses)
you know xxx would have heard you saying mamma so he is learning to talk just like you. Yay I have two very clever kids.
This is just a simple example, but I think you can reward her and praise her, not for his efforts but for hers. Juggling is very hard work, but its not impossible. I'm sure your doing a fantastic job. Good luck.

Funny you mention that, I've just been trying the past couple of days to involve my daughter in this way. She and her brother have been close from day one, but now there seems to be a developing rivalry. I tried to think what was different, and realized that she was always the helper...and now that he is a toddler, she helps less. In the role of helper, she seems to just adore him like crazy. I think it makes her feel more "grown up" and proud. I'll try that with the words. It really might encourage my son to talk more too.

First thought - are you positive it's a mental game? She is only four. Has a doctor checked her out?

If it all does still all point to that and she is not severely autistic: it sounds like she's training you well, Siuan. Kids are exceptionally good at doing that, even at four years of age. Wetting her pants when she doesn't get what she wants goes in the "unacceptable behavior" column on my list. If she trains you this well at 4 years old and you can't get her in check, you'd better invest in a lot of prozac for yourself for when she turns 13. I don't envy you this one.

Every kid is going to have an accident now and then, and your daughter is only four. Again, I would hope you can clearly see if this is just an "accident" or is a deliberate behavior. If you are positive it's a deliberate thing, you can either ignore it and hope the behavior extinguishes (do NOTHING to reward or acknowledge it) or take some steps to make it not worth her while to continue it.

With my daughter, I tended to ignore unwanted behavior that was minor and to let her know what was expected of her very clearly. That worked for mine, but might not for yours. Each kid is different, and mine is a very high-functioning Aspie, not Autistic.

If the child peed her pants as a way to control our interactions, I'd have her go wash up and change her clothes alone. As often as it took. No dramatics, no "why did you do this" showdowns, just extreme calm and completely consistent reactions. No other notice taken of it. DEFINITELY no hugs or praise for any of it - she would be told what was expected of her as a matter of course and that she was expected to do that now that she is a big girl.

If it became so odious (or took longer than I wanted to deal with - more than a couple of weeks), I'd move it into the "well, if you're not a big enough girl to go to the toilet when you need to, then I guess you're not big enough to {fill in the blank with something she likes here}. Then follow through calmly and impassively with the consequence each and every time. I would hold off on this one as long as I could, though, as it can turn into a mini-war if things go badly.

But you've got to take the control back - she'll need for you to be in control later on. Whatever you decide to do, remember to tailor it to whatever mental level she's flying at - if she's a typical 4 year old, she's got an attention span in the range of about 10 minutes for a lesson, tops.

On the other things - kids do need to hear a "well done" for most things. You needn't gush on endlessly over a project, but a pat on the back or a simple "well done" for something accomplished is really pretty much a necessity. To little people the things they do are sometimes pretty big in their eyes even though we think they're nothing at all. And there's no such thing as too many hugs, even if they're for things her brother does.

Good luck! (Really!)

Nan, what you said reminded me of how I was as a child. I didn't pee myself to get attention. However, I was good at using mind games against my parents to get what I want. Like, when you say "I said so!" I'd keep saying, "That's not a reason!". Stuff like that, lol. I know what you mean by mini-wars, cause as I remember when I was younger I tended to cause a good deal of them myself. Took me awhile to learn what "Choose your battles" meant.

I'm not like that now, but it's kind of funny remembering the trouble I gave my parents when I was a kid. I'm sure they don't think so though, lol.

I agree with much of what you're saying here, except that I've lost control. What I've learned since my original post is that she is pulling her pants down but not her undrwear when she uses the restroom. We talked about it. We also have a "star chart" system for rewarding positive behavior (specifically, things that need worked on because they're challenging or new). For example, if she makes her bed all by herself in the morning, she get's a star sticker. If she helps clean up the toys with her brother, a star. She has the opportunity to earn about 4 per day, more for special occasion things. When it's full, she gets to choose a treat (trip to DQ, an outfit for her Build A Bear). The charts are big and take a few months to fill. She loves the stars and the treat, so it works out great. I talked to her and said that if she stays dry and acts like a big girl, she'll earn a star for every 2 days she stays dry. So far, so good.

As for her wanting praise for her brother's accomplishments, we're trying to involve her in helping teach him. She likes this. He's a HFA child with speech delay, so his words (one the rare occasions when he uses them) are indeed an accomplishment.