My daughter may have aspies

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My 10 yr. old daughter really really hates going to the mall or anywhere where there will be crowds of people. She said she feels like everybody is looking at her and it makes her feel pressured.

Yesterday, we were in line at Sears and a lady behind us starts telling my daughter how she's gonna look so cute in one of the dresses we had. My daughter looked extremely nervous! My daughter's facial expression looked kind of weird. It was a cross between a fake smile and an annoyed look. When that lady left, I asked my daughter why did she look at the lady in that manner . My daughter said that she didn't mean to look at the lady that way (she said she was actually trying to smile). It embarrassed me a little because it looked as if my daughter was being rude to the lady but it was only my daughter's nerves getting the best of her!

My daughter doesn't seem to know how to take compliments either. When I tell her that she's beautiful or if I compliment her in any other way, she covers her face and trys to run away.

My sister says it's just a confidence issue. I think my daughter may have aspergers syndrome.

If anyone has any suggestions on how I can boost her confidence, I'm all open!!

Eye contact is a problem for her (and for me too). The reason why I hate looking people straight in their eyes is because I feel as though your eyes can tell people things about you that you may not want them to know. I'm a fairly private person.

Does this sound like Aspergers syndrome?

It could be Social-phobia. As for Aspe, apart the things you are telling there are other weird think? How does she think? She is annoyed by light/sounds? There are many things.

Hi Toya,

Welcome To



You have accurately described well over half the people here. There are tons of online resources for you to discover. This site can offer you the support and information you seek. You have found a gold mine of personal experiences here at WP. I do hope your daughter and yourself find the spectrum of autism to be positively informative and educationally hopeful. If you have not already,do a search on YouTube for children with aspergers. A video can be worth a million words.

I'll agree that it's probably social phobia.

Asperger's is way over-diagnosed, in that it's a "catch-all" diagnosis for anyone who is socially awkward.

I'm not saying she can't have Aspe. She probably have Sociophobia, many AS are sociophobic but not all the sociophobic are AS. I suggest you to crawl the forum or look at things like Aspie quiz or AQ test (there are some for child) and see what kind of behavior is Aspie like.

Thanks everyone!

From what you've said, it sounds a lot more like social anxiety to me than AS. Plenty of people besides aspies get nervous around people, or are just plain introverted.

It really doesn't seem all that strange to me to not know how to react when a totally stranger starts talking to you. I gotta say, I'm kinda confused that you were embarrassed that your daughter has a strange look on her face at that point. She wasn't actually rude to the person, she just didn't know how to react to some unexpected person she doesn't know at all talking to her. Isn't talking to strangers always difficult for kids? Maybe part of it was that she was afraid you were going to get mad at her for not knowing what to do? Even in things that seem really silly, kids can be really nervous about disappointing parents.

Yeah... Personality traits are inherited; you say you are a private person, so your daughter is most likely introverted as well.

I don't see out-and-out Asperger's here; I definitely see some social anxiety.

Social anxiety can be a life long problem, but it is one you can handle; at this age, the more safe social contact she has, the better. Adults and younger kids are often less threatening (younger kids because they'll look up to her, adults because they can be more forgiving because she's just a kid).

I don't have social anxiety, but I do have Asperger's. As a kid, I was obviously very odd, and tended to avoid social contact because I found it boring. If there was nothing else to do I would tend to lecture at somebody about my latest interest... Introversion itself isn't a recipe for social phobia. When I have friends they tend to be rather close; but I'm prone to losing interest and not keeping up friendships. I also got along best with adults and younger kids. Kids my own age tended to reject me outright, so once I got the point that they didn't want me (took 'til the fifth grade) I ignored them, too.

There are no apparent Aspergers traits (though Aspergers is still possible).

I suggest you work on her shyness (that is what I see) first. If her problems persist after that, you may want to consider other stuffs.

Increase her contact with her peers, get her to a group and prompt her to socialize. One important thing is don't show your nervousness around her when she can't respond appropriately. Don't call her 'shy' though, that is very counterproductive. Google 'overcome shyness in children' and you can get a lot of info on it.

As always, I will refer you to the diagnostic criteria. If she doesn't appear to have it when you read the criteria, she probably doesn't. If you read them and think she does, consider seeking a diagnosis.

I have an aspies sitting beside me, they are so annoying

It may just be social phobia/social anxiety. Does she also seem to take stuff literally, have trouble recognising facial expressions and has special interests/obsessions? If yes, then it is quite possible that she has Asperger's Syndrome.