Can I be a good enough mother?

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I already feel limited in a lot of ways as a mother. I get overloaded from touch stimulation, so when my daughter is constantly pulling on me, climbing on me, and touching me for literally hours, I end up melting down sometimes and having to retreat and stim and calm back down.

My daughter is a toddler now and she's getting to the point where she's really learning to talk to and play with other kids. I was reading an article today that was shared by a parenting resource that I really respect and the opening paragraph was:

"Of all the skills we encourage our children to develop, social intelligence may be the most essential for predicting a fulfilling, successful life. It’s also the aspect of development parents influence most profoundly, and it’s crucial that we’re aware of that, because our every word, move and gesture are being studied…We’re the ones under the microscope, modeling everything we do and say. And surely this is the best motivation in the universe to be our most gracious, socially adaptive selves, and to heal old wounds by doing it “better” than it was done for us."

When I read that, I just deflated. Social intelligence can't really be the most essential skill for achieving a successful, happy life, right? It's the one thing I can't give her because it's the one skill that I will never really have. If I shared my knowledge of it-- all interactive personality charts, memorized discourse and defined responses-- then it would make no sense to her. Most people's brains don't work that way-- they learn social intelligence differently than I do.

How am I supposed to teach my daughter things that I can't even figure out myself? I don't want her to be like me socially. I don't want her to learn from how I interact (or don't) with people. I want her to watch NT people around her and base her learning on them. I just feel like an incomplete and unprepared parent. I feel like I can't give my daughter something that she needs.

For those of you who are parents, how have you dealt with this? How do you teach your child social interaction when you struggle so much with it yourself? I don't want to teach her my bad habits.

Hey, maybe I'm not allowed to post here but I think you better take another look at your own signature because Carl Sagan was probably talking about YOU.
If you care about being a good mom then you're way ahead of most of them. Trust me.

It is in my opinion.

Kids emulate everyone not just the mother. Perhaps you could have an NT relative spend some time with your kid over a long period of time (grandmas tend to be great for this!) so they have someone to pick up these skills from?

1401b-- Thank you, I appreciate the kind words. I've been overwhelmed lately already, trying to adjust all of our routines and deal with my daughter missing my husband badly. It's made her clinginess even worse, so I get sensory overload more often. I'm doing my best, but it's very difficult not to see my challenges as really prominent right now.

Dantac-- We're a military family, so we don't live near any family members. My husband is NT, but he's deployed. My good friend here is NT, but her and her husband and daughter all just moved to Hawaii this weekend. My husband transferred to this ship mid-deployment, so I don't know any of the wives on his ship to connect with them. It's really just the two of us for now.

And see, I don't have very good social skills (though they're certainly not TERRIBLE), but I'm generally very happy with my life. I do get down on myself when I mess up socially, especially when it's a problem that I've already adapted my behavior for in the past, but other than those occasional incidents, I'm very happy.

I'm just worried that she'll be less happy in her life because I am her mother. I worry that a different mother could better teach her social fluency and so could teach her to be more successful in life. And I mean, I have so many other skills that I can teach her-- analytical thought processes, professionalism, the joy of being an autodidact, critical thinking, healthy skepticism, compassion, and integrity. Those things are my strengths. I don't know. I just worry because they aren't the typical "mom lessons". I'm hoping that over time, my husband can take care of the social fluency aspect.

Kids learn social skills from their play dates and from school. Just take your kid to play groups and have her go to preschool. Also is your husband NT, she will learn from him too.

You aren't less than others, Bearsandsyrup. And I think the key is to teach your child to be tolerant of herself and others. Not the specific social skills, although that would be nice. But if you can role model staying calm and having a positive attitude, her natural skills for dealing with others can take her a really long way.

I think our job as parents, is to help our children be receptive, so that they can learn from whatever good teachers come along. We don't have to do everything ourselves. And we can't. It's fine that others help with the details along the way, and they will. Just show her you believe in herself, that's important at her age, and the social rules are clearer parenting infants and toddlers, which should help.

It must be hard for both of you, missing your husband. I think that experience transcends the social intelligence piece. If you can you get support from other parents or agencies, it may help some.

I desperately want children one day, but I worry about my AS limiting my ability to be a great mom. I think I will be an awesome mom in most respects, but they say one of the most important things you cab do to build up your baby's brain is talk to them constantly. This will be very difficult for me. Not only because it doesn't come naturally for me to talk constantly, but because if I get tired or try to force it the eccentricities in my speech become more apparent.

I do sing constantly so I wonder if that will make up for my difficulty with speaking.

But there is no such thing as a perfect parent. And your limitations will not necessarily affect them. My mom is learning disabled and has an IQ of just over 80. But she was an awesome mother who loved me and always encouraged my curiosity and love of learning. Her own limitations didn't affect me or my brother, she raised two very gifted people.

I think my brother may be a genius too, he use to design jets, including the internal systems, when we were kids and one online IQ test indicated my IQ was just over 150. Her limitations didn't limit us and I am sure your child won't be limited by yours.

As far as I understood, the stuff about talking to the baby is to train its senses for language, to engage it to try to express words or sounds themselves, and so on. When it comes to the practical stuff, like mentioning a spoon to be a spoon and so on, I dont think there will be so much troubles. Most Aspies at least do talk, when there is a sense behind it, its that need for gossiping they miss. And when it comes to that, I think that typical audios will do just fine as well. So for simply listening to someone using a certain language an audio book, will do as well I think.

I cannot tell you exactly why, but at least around here, singing is said to be a very good thing in educating your kid, dont know exactly why, but kindergarten and groundschool teachers think very positive about it.

Sign her up for classes or preschool. (I find that easier than constantly making play dates when I really don't want to and have anxiety over asking someone. If it's paid for, I will go so as to not waste our money.)

I think beyond being a perfect specimen of social graces (which no parent is, anyway), show your daughter bravery, motivation, and that any skill can be learned with practice. Try, try again, fail, try again...modeling that skill will transfer over into other aspects of development as well.

On overstimulation, I'm with you. It sucks. If your daughter is a toddler, you do have less touch coming soon. My husband also travels and I sometimes feel like I can never really avoid being touched too much. It just changes who I hurt. ...but it does get better. I am honest with my family about my need for space, and we find ways to meet everyone's needs.