I feel I should push her towards NT, but she ENJOYS computer

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Oh cr*p!

Our 8-year old daughter has some mild aspie-like traits, but there has not been any need for a diagnosis, as she is doing well academically and socially. Right now she is working through her dinosaur web sites, headphones on her ears and talking to herself. She has been deeply engaged and happy to do this for over an hour now, and will most likely not quit before she is told to come away. She is obviously learning loads, and having fun, and because the chair at that computer is kind of "dynamic", she hangs and climbs on it while working, so it's not even a still-sitting activity.

And I sit here, watching her over the rim of my computer screen and have this stupid bad conscience, because I let her "indulge" in aspie-like behavior. She had obviously been socially active with a couple of friends at school, and I heard her apologize to one of them (for a good reason and she did it rather well, what I could hear), so why oh why am I worrying that letting her choose her own activity in her alone time will somehow make her more of an aspie than she would "naturally" become.

ARGH!

Please someone, anyone, tell me I am being an idiot.

Athena

maybe install windows NT on her computer.

You should accept your daughter as she is. My mum learned that she must accept me the way that I am, when she learned things the hard way, when an abusive friend admitted me into the emergency section of my local hospital, for being obsessed with The Kinks. The only thing about me, that makes me feel right. I had to tell the hospital staff, that my obsession wasn't the problem, at all. I had to tell them, that my problem was that I had insomnia, at the time. I told my mum the whole story, the next day, and she told me not to hang out, with that troublemaker, anymore. My mum now accepts that I'm obsessed with The Kinks, to the point of being Mick Avory's clone. The two of us are a lot happier now, than we were, before that night, in the middle of October, because my mum has chosen to accept me, as I am, and accept the fact that she can't change me, or keep me from obsessing.

<waves garlic> Begone, thy foul messenger of the Dark Side!

It's a bit more complicated than that. Your answer made me realize that, so thanks!

Both her father, her big sister and I are geeks (and I have an ADHD diagnosis and am very happy with using Concerta). We all have been bullied at school, so now I feel stressed for the youngest one. I feel drawn between loving to see my daughter develop towards something that all other three family members have in common, and knowing that we all three have suffered from being "different".

I'm a total sucker for real experts - I love to hang out with people who have a passion and can speak eloquently and in detail about it. A part of me would love to share that also with my youngest, and a part would want to protect her from the social downsides of geekiness.

It's a bit like a very light skinned kid being born into a colored family - a part of me wants her to escape the "egghead ghetto" (if one can say there is such a place), and a part of me longs for her to be a part of my academic, theoretic, detailed and structured world.

Sigh...

well to be serious, it is well to let rivers carve their own course.
i was never interfered with by my parents, and i always was embroiled in experiments that were solitary.
i am not how you would like your daughter to turn out however because i am seriously affected, but i will say that if you trust that she has the right way of seeking what she wishes to explore, you should maybe allow her to attain her rightful place in her world.

if you alter the course of a natural river, then it will never be as healthy as it would have been if left to it's natural evolution.

i have no idea because i am not a parent and i will hit the submit key even though i am clueless as to what to say because i do not have kids.

all i will finally say is that if i had a child that was following their natural interests, then i would be happy to see that they develop in a way that was unhindered by external forces.
i would not be so happy if they were being influenced by other people, but if it is innate, then it is great.
the grand canyon happened because no one dammed it when it was being formed by it's own inevitable self regulated development.

if what she does is of her own accord and not due to influence by other people, then it is well to let her carve what she will become.

sorry i feel stupid about talking to parents because i never grew past child status myself.
bye

Athena, since you asked, you are being an idiot.

I mean that in the nicest possible way. But I do think you need to move on to another concern, as this is just your daughter being herself in a perfectly healthy way. The only unhealthy thing I read in your entire post, was your reference to letting her 'indulge' in aspie behaviours. I personally think it's unhealthy for a parent to view Aspie behaviours as 'indulgent'.

Just enjoy her

I had no idea such a program existed, but I sure don't want it!


The way you phrased your question made me cringe a bit ('"indulge" in aspie-like behavior' just sounds kind of insulting), but I think what you are driving at is how much to push her outside her comfort zone and how much to leave her be doing her own thing? I think this depends on the child. Most of us need to be pushed at least a little to learn and try new things (NT & AS), but we also need our downtime and to have our own tastes and choices respected. The balance between the two depends on the child's needs and temperament.

Is your daughter in a brick and mortar school? If so, she is already getting 7-8 hours of being pushed outside her comfort zone and intense social learning a day. That sounds like tonnes to me.

Our sons come home from school exhausted, physically, mentally and socially. They need to stim, draw, game, read, be quietly on their own and have the house quiet. They need to withdraw. They do not need to be pushed. They have already been pushing themselves all day long. And their "special interests" are things that we celebrate and support!

You said your daughter is "learning loads" on the computer and is happy. That sounds like a really good thing! Maybe sometime you could ask her to teach you about dinosaurs. This might be a way of engaging and getting some social practice that she would really enjoy.

As far as becoming "more of an aspie", it is when my sons are pushed too hard and under the most stress that they function less well...but they are always Aspies and we love them just as they are.

When I was a teenager I wanted to "escape my geekyness" so I started dressing up, putting on make-up so I'd be like the "normal girls." And instead of becoming more accepted or popular, I became obsessed with dressing up and putting on make-up, and I was still just as different and an outsider than when I was obsessed with history. I really wish that I'd spent those years being myself instead of trying to force myself into being someone I wasn't and could never be.

So why push your kid away from things she likes? I could understand if it was something harmful, but if it's just geeky and making her happy then why not let her pursue it? AS isn't something that disappears by denying one's interests or acting a certain way.

WONDERFUL post annotated alice. Just perfect.

I have to agree with the excellent post by Annotated Alice. The idea that we are somehow 'wrong' to be ourselves is distressing. Think about it, not only do we have to learn to be our Autistic selves and how the world works for us, we also have to strive to understand the world we were born into and how that world works for us. double chores, double tasks and we are the ones that the onus of all that work falls to . . . please, let us have some down time when we can just enjoy ourselves?

Merle

Thank you, that is a beautiful metaphor, and I needed it. I understand this truth of natural development in my heart, and "just" need to silence my worries about that she could have as hard a time as I have had as a geek. But then again, I did not have supportive parents, and that already is a big difference.



Goodness! You were a KID once, weren't you? In that sense, anyone with any memory is an expert on childhood, IMO.

Take care!

Athena

Ah yes, your daughter has found happiness in life. How horrible that someone should come by that.


For those of you who could not tell, that was sarcasm.

Thanks, Caitlin, it feels as if I actually needed that.



And another thanks for helping me realize that I all too often have a bad conscience when I engage in "spectrum" behaviors myself, and when I was watching my kid, I transferred that uncomfortable feeling onto her. I'm very thankful I said nothing to her just then.



At the moment she is sitting on the living room mat, building a "something" out of neodymium magnet spheres, after she ripped apart the spherical polyhedron she built together with her father and the oblique spherical cone she made by herself after that. I am enjoying it all immensely, and butting in myself at times, because I find the different sized "drops" one can build quite fascinating.

(If you got curious, point your browser towards NeoCube dot org or TheNeoCube dot com)

So all is well in the here and now, I just need to work on my own "I am a weirdo" fixation.

Athena

I would not say that you are an idiot, but I think that you are worrying over nothing. It sounds like your daughter is functioning just fine at school. There is nothing wrong with doing "geeky" things in her down time. She is probably a mix of NT with Aspie traits anyway, so I would just enjoy her for who she is.

I am pretty certain that I am NT because I am a very social and outgoing person. However, I can spend large amounts of time on my own and be perfectly content with that as well. My son is on the spectrum, and I do have concerns about how he is going to do academically and socially, but I am trying my best to let him be who he is and just try to help him adapt as much as he can to the world.

My advice is to just relax, it sounds like she is a wonderful and probably very intelligent little girl.

Yes indeed - thank you, Alice!



Actually, when she has discovered something new about one of her interests and surfaced from her immersion state, one has to duck, cover and hide not to hear about it. Selective, yet sympathetic and alert enough listening is one of the most important parenting skills one needs around her. Working on it, working on it...

Athena