13 year old daughter just diagnosed with mild ASD

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Triplemoon - Rofl! Did I give you the impression she wanted to talk about the incident after it's over..... She definitely does not want to discuss it. I'm just more persistent and adamant about it than she is! Lol! Maybe it would be easier to get her to recognize the physical things she does before a blow up as the precursor. My daughter starts to show her agitation by looking at he ground, turning and twisting in circles, pinching, grabbing someone else's forearm and squeezing or squeezing my hand or thumb. Then I know we need to step away, take a break for a second, and give her some breathing room. If I don't respond and react and it escalates, then it's bad. One particularly bad time, when I wasn't paying attention, and let it escalate before intervening it took 3 hours for her to calm down. Try to see if your daughter has any "tells". If you can recognize them and step away with her for a minute and diffuse it, you won't have the big bomb to deal with. I have it a lot easier than you do, because I am a single mom with only one child. An 8 year old.... Not a TEEN girl with hormones. Even neurotypical teen girls can seem like the girl from the exorcist. I only have one person that requires my attention. Not so easy to for a mom of three like you. I am by no means an expert in anything, I just know what works for us and hope maybe it will help you. Now you just have to figure out what works for you and your daughter. But you will eventually get it sorted out. As hard as we try to raise our kids right, and do everything right, the kids will still think we did it all wrong! Just try not to take it too seriously.

I love Boomomma's responses.

I've had to deal with most of this. One piece of advice I received is to deal with each child alone, not in front of each other. Not that it will be easy, but try to approach each one from their perspective. To your NT, show understanding of her difficulties of dealing with her twin, and then teach, help, and hold her accountable for improvement for next time. As she sees her Aspie twin improve by getting the help she needs, your NT will step up to the plate more.

Ideas for your Aspie,: One idea a counselor gave me was to have my son list things he could do to let off steam. I threw in a few more ideas. We wrote them on strips and put them in a basket. He was to pull a strip and do it next time he was upset. This may work for her. Now, this was highly beneficial for us, but my son never pulled a strip and did what said. Instead, I would push the basket to him every time I thought he was getting upset. This helped train him to catch himself getting upset without me using words. It also gave him the responsibility to think of what might distract him from his current problem, and step away from it in some way. I didn't care that it wasn't an idea from the basket. Anyway, he improved greatly in just a few weeks. He was damaging property and hurting his sister before I tried this.

Secondly, find ways to talk to your Aspie daughter without being direct. Look up social stories on the internet. Most are geared toward younger kids, but learn the concept. I have used stuffed animals to set up a social story. My son totally gets that I'm trying to teach him something he doesn't want to hear, but he appreciates that I do it indirectly.

I hope these help or give you some ideas.

Boomamma, I am glad to see that I am not the only one with a daughter who can be upset for hours on end if you don't keep her calm. I used to have that years ago too and we had no idea why she would do this. I realize now that she often gets angry, but the meltdowns last less than 10 minutes usually, so I am thankful that we are all figuring out how to cope better.

Aann - I do try to talk to my girls separately and let them give me their point of view. I know it is hard for both of them. I don't think my daughter would want to pull out strops out of a basket - she would be more likely to throw the basket of strips everywhere. When she is highly agitated, she just wants to throw things.

By the way I am not a parent. I am a young female adult who has been called high-functioning several times. Regardless, I require intensive supports in several major areas. What I have read and recommend from similar experience myself, is:

As autistics often have delayed development, one autistic suggested herself that wherever your child is developmentally in a major area (communicating needs for one example, at a 5 year old level), start from the specific developmental age of the child in that area. If your child has receptive language understanding at say 10 year old level, start from there. Tailor learning at your child's developmental age in each area.

I agree very much with Lumi. We have run into so many problems with the school starting with grade-level expectations of behavior instead of starting from where our son was.

Lumi - that is so true about working with autistics at their developmental level - I really try to do this. I just find it hard to figure out when to help more and when to expect more because I find she uses her ASD diagnosis to get me to do things for her and before she was more independent. I am trying to figure out if she has regressed because she is having trouble or she knows that I am trying to help her and she expects more from me now. I want to help her, but I don't want to help her too much.

ASD mommy - the school does that with my daughter too - they see a 13 year old and they don't realize that she can act 3 on her worst days. She is just so able to express herself verbally on good days that they expect too much for her I find.

What I would do is try to give her some incentive to at least go back to doing the things she is capable of. Does she need more confidence? Is she afraid of something? Would praise or even Yu-Gi-Oh cards work? She maybe rusty, so it may take a little but for her to get back to wear she was. Once you can get get consistently doing those things, you can best assess low-hanging fruit opportunities for improvement that can give her more confidence.

I have observed from the anecdotal stories on this board that being newly diagnosed in the teen years can cause different kinds of problems than at other times. Young children accept it b/c they are young. Adults often think of it as finally getting a long needed explanation. Teens are under the most pressure to conform that they will ever experience, and a diagnosis often makes them feel especially defective and alternately fight it b/c they want to fit in or start to give up.