to parents with aspie girls..advice on certain situations

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i just think she tries to be defiant just because she knows she can

i can say no computer until you get your room clean or shower or whatever and she tries to plead or argue. then when she knows i wont give in she'll go to her room, close the door and play her piano

i'll be right back with info from yesterdays day

i'll try to keep this short
she's involved in 2 plays, one for her daycare/camp and one for church
well yesterday she was supposed to be at rehearsal at 6pm (at someones house/pool)

so she woke up late, wouldn't get out of bed, gave mom a difficult time. changing her outfits over and over,
wasting time staring in the mirror, at walls, playing with the baby etc. complaining because she didnt have the right bathing suit

so regardless, my wife got to work late again.

i picked her up from the daycare at 4, told her that plans have changed and rehearsal is at the church so she doesnt need a bathing suit. i told her you need to bathe and eat before you go, because once you get home it will be after 9pm and you have to go to bed. she said yes, i say do you promise to listen and do what we just agreed upon, once again she said yes.

she said she was upset because the rehearsal was moved from the house/pool to the church
but it gave her more time to find a decent bathing suit and she said she didnt deserve to go anyway because she gave mom a hard time in the morning and wasn't listening

i think great, she actually is understanding.

We get home and she doesnt want to shower, "can i have 5 minutes please"? her typical request
5 minutes turns into a half hour

regardless, for her to eat and shower, which should take 30 minutes, took 2 hours.
she was ready at 6:15 after i had to tell her over and over to get ready.

so she's ready and says can you take me to the church, i said no i can't because since you took so long, the baby just fell asleep and you have to wait for mom to get home in 10 minutes and then i'll take you.
she got angry and said you shouldn't have let the baby fall asleep, i'm going to wake him so we can go.

i said i dont think so, so she says leave the baby in the crib sleeping and take me. i dont think so.

so then she says i'm going to call mommy and you are going to be in trouble, as soon as she picks up the phone she sees mom pull up and says you are lucky she just got here. i said if you were ready when you were supposed to be, you would have been on time. but she never sees the problems she causes until it's way too late. she just needs someone to blame always!! !! !! !! !! !
if she were a normal kid, she would really deserve a slap.

Last edited by kosta on 24 Jul 2009, 7:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

Okay. I see several things that went wrong here. First was that you allowed her the 5 minutes. She won right there. When you let her be in control AFTER agreeing on something, you take your control away. I'm serious. I'm not blaming you for what transpired after that, but clearly none of it would have happened if she weren't allowed that original 5 minutes.

Also, it does take me 2 hrs to shower and eat.. It takes me 45 min to shower. I hated showering in high school because it took so long. Even now, if I don't have the 45 min to take a shower, I don't do it. It's true. Then to get ready and eat, yeah, it'd take me 2 hrs. (Hence another reason I like doing it in the afternoon. Much less likely to take "too long.")

I agree with the previous poster, you shouldn't have allowed the 5 mins. Once you set a rule DONT BREAK it yourself. These kids WANT you to stick to the rules, they just like to see how far they can get. Getting dressed may seem like an easy task for a nt child, not for an as child. You have to lay out the instructions when you make them do multiple things. Kids can get distracted very easily, especially kids with as. Again I know this sounds childish but let her now, step 1: take a shower, 15 mins, step 2: get dressed, step 3: pack your bathing suit. Help her out by laying out her clothes for her in a line, underwear, shirt, pants etc. Don't be mean or harsh but be firm and strict. Keep peeking on her throughout the project to make sure she's not getting distracted. Alot of kids with autism also have executive function disorder, look it up, it can explain a lot about your child. Of course if she gets distracted and is late, she will blame you. My son does it all the time. He blames me when he's in time out. I dont think he blames me for what happened. He blames me for how he's feeling at that moment. When an as child has planned something in their mind, and you tell them they can't do it because of this or that, it's a horrible feeling for them. It's part of their obsession of beginning something and having to finish it. Similar to her being on the computer and having to finish what she's doing. My son would have a COMPLETE meltdown.

As far as the rules go, make sure both of you don't break them. Make sure they are realistic, for every child it is different. If your child takes longer to shower or eat, begin getting ready hours ahead of time. I make sure I leave enough time for possible meltdowns or anything else that may come up before an appointment or school. Sometimes we are extremely early and sometimes we're right on time, but it's rare that we are late. I would never, never let them start using the computer or watching tv before doing anything important or time sensitive. With my nt daughter, I can say, "ok, it's time to go to the store, get ready." She would get ready in minutes without a question and she's only 3. With my son, everything takes strategic planning, he is not flexible and hates transitioning from one task to another.


My point is, you can't treat her like a NT child. She has a dx for a reason, there's certain things we have to do as parents to make their life easier to deal with. I'm not saying baby her or do everything for her, after all she's already a pre-teen. Just help her organize her life a little better. When my son was first dx, I thought I should let him do whatever he wants, he shouldn't have many rules because he has a "disability." I was so wrong. He needs MORE rules than the average child. But he also needs my help conforming to the rules. Sometimes you have to go through a time when you broke the rules and there was a consequence. I'm glad you told her she couldn't go church because she took too long, now she knows what the consequence are to being late. Next time you can reference how she felt this day to motivate her to be early. I'm sure she will remember. My son was also taking his sweet time getting ready for school. I told him we are not going anymore because he took too long, between fooling around and then having a meltdown, we were an hour late. Now he's so paranoid of being late or missing anything.

http://www.theraproducts.com/index.php? ... e9d800501d This is a website of products for autistic individuals. There's a section called "life skills" full of visual organizers, timers etc. We use a homemade calendar at home as well. You don't have to buy these products but it can give you an idea of what you can do to help them make day to day living less painful.

My sons changes his outfit over and over when a.) he is having lots of anxiety and b.) he is going into sensory overload and can't stand the feeling of even his most comfortable clothes on his skin. It has often made us late, and while this is frustrating, it is most definitely not his fault. He is not trying to waste our time or be defiant. He is struggling, and needs our patience and direction. Be a bit of a detective, and try to help your daughter figure out what is making her feel uncomfortable and/or anxious. Sometimes small changes can make a big difference (like a different type of underwear, or a calmer, quieter morning routine). The wandering around and staring at things sounds like executive dysfunction. Google the term. Read all you can about it and AS in general. It will help you understand your daughter better. Like someone else said, you have to keep checking in on her to keep her focused and on track, and visual aides like schedules and timers can really help.




Others already pointed out that the "5 minutes" probably wasn't a good idea. The change in schedule probably really disoriented her and upset her. At that point, she probably needed even more gentle, patient, hands on help to get what she needed to accomplished on time. The fact that she expressed remorse for "giving mom a hard time" shows that she does understand your expectations and wants to meet them. She is likely doing the best she can, even if it doesn't appear that way to you. It sounds like you need to modify your expectations and give her more/different types of support to meet them.



It may always take her much longer to get ready than an NT kid, and that is OK. Modify your expectations. You may always need to tell her to do things repeatedly. Providing extra support such as a visual schedule and a timer may help.



Good to let her experience the natural consequences of her actions (being slow=being late), but your comment about the slap really concerns me. You seem to be taking your daughter's AS behaviour as some sort of personal insult. It isn't. She can't help being who she is. Wonderful parts and challenging parts included. She just needs extra help and understanding, and a different kind of parenting. I have learned so much to change my own parenting style to better suit my kids needs, from being on Wrong Planet (although of course I still screw up often), lots of good advice here. And there are great books as well (Tony Attwood's "A Complete Guide to Aspergers Syndrome" is a great place to start). Good luck.

Like the other parents have said routine is HUGE. Ours is so set in place now that I hardly think about it, but the first couple of years of school were a nightmare. Now that the routine is firmly in place, it's nearly effortless.

At our house you can't play video games or watch TV in the morning until you are completely ready for school. That means shoes, backpack, and coat all on. Yes, it looks funny that they are sitting there like that, but it's the only way to get them to school on time.

After school, no electronics are allowed until homework is done. At five PM when Animal Planet's Most Extreme Countdown comes on, if the home work is not done, the TV does not go on. This didn't have to happen more than a few times before homework suddenly got a lot easier.

At 8:30PM there is a public service announcement that it is time to lay out the clothes for the next day, take melatonin, go to the bathroom, etc.

It's not perfect, but it is much, much, much better. It did take a few years to get that way, though. Every new thing implemented seems to take a year or so of mostly consistent routine.

If something is going beyond just normal resistance into a battle of the wills, that's when I start making a kid's life miserable. There are always chores that need done and little perks that can be withheld until the right thing is hit upon to gain compliance.

Usually, anyway. Sometimes you just have to keep trying stuff until something works. Ugh. Nobody tells you parenting is going to be this complicated!

Its so funny to read some of these comments (not that they aren't absolutely true) because, as a person, I like to think its "nice" to give in to my kids once in a while, especially on little things. But if you do that, 5 minutes really must be 5 minutes. And so on. And AS kids really do like their routine.

So ...

Just a story I think is funny, no practical advice at all.

Yesterday I was out with my NT daughter and her NT friend. They were talking about annoying neighbors. The little kids that moved in next door to us and stay up way too late and make way too much noise, in particular. My daughter's friend says, "their parents really need to learn how to enforce bedtime" and my daughter wholeheartedly agrees. My daughter who is always begging to stay up just a little latter, but is also just as quick to blame me if she's too tired in the morning. This concensus on how this is definitely a parent's job was interesting to me.

All kids are struggling for freedom and, yet, at the same time, totally aware that everything just as they want it all the time won't get them through all the things they have to do.

It's an interesting balance. Whether the kids are NT or AS.

But it definitely takes on its own unique color with AS.