Hand flapping?

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My eldest daughter (12 1/2 years old) has been a hand flapper her entire life and tbh I never thought of it as an autistic trait, despite knowing that it's a stereotypical one.

Family see it as cute quirk, a remnant of her childhood but the more I thought about it, the more I wondered. She does it all the time, the only time she doesn't is when angry but any other time, when she's watching TV, listening to people talk, playing a game, drawing, just everyday things I notice that one or both hands move occasionally. It gets more exaggerated when she's excited but she still subtly moves her hands more often than not. She is unaware that she does it, it's usually others who point it out to her. She can't control it.

She has had other kids at school ask her why her hands move. She asks if she will still do it when she's grown up or if there is a way she can learn to stop doing it.

Am I reading too much into it?

She has other quirks but I don't know if that's just her being an awkward kid or not.

I'm aware that girls present differently from boys. Her brother was diagnosed two years ago and he's never done the hand thing. His stim is eye related. He will blink a lot, squint, rub his eyes, that sort of thing when agitated, anxious or uncomfortable.

Everyone is different.
For me, I've maybe done hand flapping a grand total of two or three times in my whole life.

So here's another example.
I used to rock in the back seat of the car when I was a child.
Finally, it got to the point where the entire car would shake while my father was driving it, because of me.
One day, he turned around and pointed out the fact that my rocking in the back seat was distracting him
and was a potential safety issue.
That ended my rocking in the back seat of the car.
I never did it again.
I should say that my father was someone I always loved and respected,
and he didn't say what he did in anger,
he only pointed out the facts.

On another occasion, I was doing some stim or other at home.
My dad calmly said,
"If you do that in public, you won't have any friends."
So I stopped doing the stim.

I am still quite fidgety, I simply make more of an effort to
not do repetitive/nervous actions in public that will be seen as weird.

Anyways, "normal" people stim all the time ...
twirling their hair, cracking their knuckles, tapping a desk with a pen or pencil, etc.

...

I don't know how long I've done hand-flapping for. I did not realise I was doing it until less than a year ago. I actually thought that I didn't hand-flap (having read about it as a sign or ASD/common stim), but suddenly realised that I do. If I'd been doing it for years, I didn't notice it at all.

It might be helpful for you to point out to your daughter when she is flapping her hands. This could help to train her to monitor and be aware of her own hand-flapping so that she can stop it if she wants. You could also ask her to look at her hands every so often to see if she is hand-flapping or not.

I believe that it should be personal choice whether a person stims or not in public. Whilst you can educate her on the disadvantages of stimming (hand-flapping) in public (stigma etc.), she should be able to choose if it's something she wants to stop doing. Regardless, it would probably be helpful if she learns to recognise whether she is hand-flapping or not.

I've been a hand-flapper my whole life. I am always unaware that I am doing it and my mother will point it out. I tend to flap most when excited or anxious and I do it a lot when I try to walk or run. I am also a back-and-forth rocker. I guess I stim a lot but had never been aware of it or what stims are until I joined this site.

As long as it's not disrupting people or hurting her, there's no reason she should stop. Even allistic people do similar things: twirling hair, bouncing legs, playing with jewelry. I flap my hands sometimes, especially when I'm excited or overwhelmed. One time I broke my wrist and tried to flap my hands. That was not my brightest moment. :/

My opinion is that repeatedly pointing out her hand flapping is likely to cause distress, and could cause her to stop flapping and start doing something more serious, like cutting or eating too much, to manage her emotional state. Pointing out our stims does not stop them. It makes us ashamed of them.

I would consider the possibility that she has aspergers, but also ADHD or turettes syndrome. All of these tend to run in the same families, and you said that her brother is affected. Generally, with ASD we feel like we have control of these things but choose to do it because it feels good, or stops the bad feelings.

She's young and she might not know the difference between saying "I don't feel like I have control of it" and really being simply used to doing it as a habit. ADHD and ASD can make people feel the need to move. It's a habit, but it's based in their need to move. You could stop her, but that need will still be there. And she'll have to do something to make up for not flapping anymore.

If she is experiencing turettes syndrome, she literally does not have a choice. Turrettes creates a compulsion that is very exhausting to not perform.

Too many young girls with ASD find out that their natural coping mechanisms make them look odd, so they stop them. Then they end up developing co-morbid disorders as it becomes increasingly difficult to manage the stress.

I appreciate all of the feedback.

I had no intention of trying to get her to stop the hand stim, she has always done it and it doesn't bother any of us. I was simply curious as to whether the reason behind it might be linked to being on the spectrum or if it was just a habit she didn't grow out of.

Since she doesn't notice that she does it, she isn't bothered by it day to day until someone she isn't close to points it out and makes her self conscious of it.

I had always viewed her as NT growing up (at least compared to her brother) but the older she gets the more her differences to other girls her age seem apparent to me or perhaps I am overthinking it all.

For example, she has this strange laugh. She kind of barks out a loud HA, that is overly loud - like uncomfortably loud and then a few more hahaha before it turns into something more like a 'normal' laugh. She is also VERY literal. She doesn't get a lot of humour and I have to explain a lot of things to her that I feel kids her age would understand - she then dismisses things as stupid because she doesn't get why it is funny. She has always struggled to make friends and keep them. She was bullied in the past and has been called weird and odd by other kids. She is a very self conscious, anxious kid and often gets defensive or verbally aggressive when she is overwhelmed emotionally.

Honestly, I see a lot of myself in her and that's what worries me. I spent me entire life being called weird (mostly by my own family) because of the way I am and I wish smoeone could have explained to me why I was like this. I am, however, painfully aware of how difficult it is to get a assessed even when you have blatant austistic traits so I know how much harder it would to get a girl who has managed to go this far without intervention from professionals and did seemingly ok at school.

I was three years old when I began hand flapping . Only since that was back in the 80's the neurologist my parents took me to had not heard of Asperger syndrome , so he said that he felt that it was likely Tourette syndrome . I actually feel fortunate that he sort of did misdiagnose me , as I still wasn't prescribed any mind altering medication , and as my hand flapping was deemed to be a motor tic , and therefore out of my hands , I was not subjected to any unwanted applied behavior analysis , the way I very well might have if I were born a decade or so later . I feel that in my experience the intolerant negative reinforced socialization of having mean girls verbally bully me by taunting me with the epithet of "ret*d" did effect my eventual suppression of hand flapping in public . I think that a good substitute for hand flapping , if and when one wants to suppress the behavior is fist clenching . Also it helps to relieve pent up muscular tension through such activity as jogging . Now tics on the other hand , whether vocal or motor , are automatic , and subconscious . So unlike stims they are not at all voluntary , and must inevitably present themselves one way or another . Your son's symptoms , in contrast to his sister , seems to have a motor tic in his face http://tourette-syndrome-now-what.blogspot.com/2005/12/tics-stims-and-stereotypies-tourettes.html , http://www.autismdailynewscast.com/autism-and-co-occurring-conditions-tourettes-syndrome/9466/laurel-joss/ . For more info on stimming , , https://www.verywell.com/what-is-stimming-in-autism-260034 .

Flapping is my big stim. I tend to do it only when I'm excited though and not as much as I used to. I seem to have grown out of it a bit.