Daughter with AS ~ tension in the house

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My daughter, who is 11, has AS. If anybody has any tips on curbing the attendant negative behaviors, bossiness, whining, etc. I would greatly appreciate the help! It has put quite a severe strain on our little family as my husband tends to get angry while I second guess every move I make with her. She is overly sensitive, claiming everyone is against her whenever she is corrected. She orders her younger brother around constantly and whines about everything. I love my daughter, she is smart, very fact oriented and can tell you every detail of every "House" episode she has ever watched. She is very loving, though tends to dwell in the past (we recently moved from Virginia to Arizona). How can I make her understand that correction is not attack? That her brother is NOT going to act as a doll for her, and that whining doesn't accomplish anything? Also, how can I help my husband be more patient with her? The tension around here is becoming unbearable. I don't want to fight with my husband, but I feel increasingly compelled to defend her behavior to him, even when I know the behavior is unacceptable, (bossing, screaming when her hair is brushed, whining).

Can't help much with the rest, but if you make a compromise about the hair with her (if she brushes it herself, you won't have to) that might work.

The bossiness will probably die out by itself. If I had to guess at a cause, it's probably because she feels she hasn't much control over her own life. If you give her some responsibility it may help.

Has your husband educated himself on AS? My son is only 5, but I know that sometimes I feel that my husband just does not totally understand AS, and therefore thinks my son is just being difficult just because he is a "bad" kid. I try to educate my husband a little at a time. I don't have a whole lot of advice, but I can tell you that I understand and feel your pain!

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Well lets see. When I was her age, I felt like a complete social outcast. My hormones were out of wack and i felt like the world was against me. My parents moved me away from the only friends I had ever known. I still get in a hissy if anyone corrects me.

Does she know the traits of AS? I feel like now since i know what I have, i can be on the watch for the times when i start getting a meltdown. I never realized what caused me to get so frustrated before, but now I do. It could have been as simple as an itchy tag on my shirt to make me want to start crying and punch a wall.... but now i know to watch out for that stuff.

I don't think that you can get past the part where she orders around her sibling or her being hurt over being corrected. Maybe tell her sibling to not listen to her when she orders them around.

I used to have my mom brush my hair, as well. I complained the whole time. Make her do her own hair. It will probably cause a bit of anxiety, because she is used to you doing it, but she will get over it. Start out on tuesdays and thursdays of her brushing it by herself. then move it to a few more times a week til she does it by herself.

maybe some solutions to your problem--
try to see what sets her off...and avoid it as much as possible. I get really irritated and annoyed if I havent eaten in a while.
Find a hobby for her. or rather.. let her discover a hobby to occupy her time... maybe some sport... let her go out with friends....

Sometimes you have to patiently rework the lesson a few million times. Stay matter of fact, stay calm, keep repeating the explanations as calmly as you can.

Part of the problem, I think, that you are layering normal preteen girl stuff on top of the AS. 11 year old girls are very insecure and, well, whine. I've got a 10 year old NT daughter and it is soooo difficult to deal with her because there are no logical triggers. She builds up all the stress and flips it out from the smallest thing. That is what tween girls do.

So ...

To the extent you have AS driven issues, you need to work on the core problems. School stress, sensory issues, etc. Mitigate what you can, help her develop processes for what you can't. This is always a needle in a haystack investigation, but it needs to be done.

To the extent you have AS driven issues, encouraging self-calming stims and behaviors will help. AS kids seem to respond well to having a physical repetitive activity. My son paces; some kids like trampolines or swings. Don't try to reign in all the odd chewing and touching when your daughter is at home; these are all things she NEEDS to do.

To the extent you have a tween girl, I confess the only solution I've found is to let her cry. Let it bubble over and go into a full on crying session. If you're daughter needs to whine tell it's fine ... in her room Etc. Encourage her to feel her emotions and express them, at appropriate times and in appropriate places. So much is surging in their bodies, sometimes they just need to let it go.

I think it's important to ask yourself first, what is it that she's communicating through this bossing, screaming and whining?

Concerning the screaming when her hair is brushed, many children with AS have hypersensitivity, and many have trouble with sensitive scalps. My mother finally gave up and cut my hair short because my hair tangled so frequently and having it brushed all the time was painful and unpleasant for both of us.

Whining and bossing, well it depends on what she's whining and bossing about. Is this normal whining and bossing, or does it relate back to something she is trying to communicate that she needs respected as someone with AS? If it's the latter, I'm not suggesting steps not be taken to correct the way she expressed herself, however, in doing so, I think it would be important not to disregard what it is she is trying to express.

Concerning her negative response to being corrected, I have to ask, how are you correcting her? I'm in a highly scientific and technical field and it's important that we be corrected when wrong, and correct others when they are wrong, however we usually approach this in a tactful way by saying "I believe...", "I think....", "Isn't it......?", "I think we should double check on that because...." or "I'm getting...." or "I got...." On occasion someone will say flat out the other person is wrong, however it's generally still done in a way such that it is understood not to be an attack on the person.

Well when it comes to AS and puberty and adolecence, AS will magnfify all the life stages and an adolesent girl with AS is a force to be reckoned with.

Husband: I recomend that you 2 go to couples therapy over this before it gets out of hand because AS teen daughters and fathers usually dont get along very well at all. To them, their little sweet girl becomes this pubesant she devil and dads have a hard time with their daughter becoming a woman. It is important that you two go to couples therapy to have a third person explain these things.

The taking everything as a critism: This is part of the magnification of AS on puberty. When I was that age, I was the same way. My hormones were going wacky which effected my sensory problems and my emotional nerves felt like they were on fire. Any time I was corrected...it just lit me up like a christmas tree and I would feel so persicuted. I felt like I could never do anything right and that I was always in trouble and when I was corrected it just reminded me of how imperfect I felt. You need to spend as much time praising her and rewarding her as you do correcting her. With her emotions so raw, she is going to be constantly blowing up, but give her very short punishments, and give her alot of praise so she does not feel constantly in trouble which is why she takes correction so harshly.
If her misbehavior get more attention than her good behavior, she is likely to develop oppositional defiant disorder which combined with AS will make her very difficult to handle.

Bossing brother around: the best thing you can do for that is teach your son to ignore her when she does that...cause and effect...if she gets no reaction from him then she will stop doing it. But in the meantime give her some control over her life which will also curb that behavior because she does that out of a need for control over her life.

Hair: get her to brush her own hair

Whinning: welcome to female puberty....here is a coffee cup and a tee-shirt. Because she has AS, this will be more exagerated...not much you can do about this. Moving at a time when there are so many changes going on with her bioloicaly may have put her into overload. AS folks dont respond to change very well at all. Try to keep as many things the same here as it was where you moved from...it will help ease the transition. Alot of her acting out may be further exagerated because of all this change in her life.

Back to husband: Your husband needs to know that him being overly critical of her and staying angry with her is going to damage her relationship with him. My father was that way with me, and I actually went 4 years in high school not talking to him at all, when we lived in the same house. His anger at her is only going to make her act out more. He also needs to spend time with her that is rewarding for her because she has all these hormones runing rampant and is going to act out, but his anger over something she feels she cannot understand why she acts out is only going to make her feel persicuted. But like I said couples therapy needs to be an order. Adolesant girls and angry dads are nothing new to therapists, but I cannot stress it enough, this is not an issue that you can fix yourself, but needs to be fixed.

other than that welcome to AS girly adolesence...welcome to the jungle of hormones gone amok.

Jojo

Hello, and welcome to Wrong Planet.

Since I don't first hand experience with your situation, I can't tell you exactly what is going on, but I can offer some advice.

1. Children tend to whine when they do not feel as though their complaints are being properly considered. For example:
Child: I dont want to do that
Parent: You have to do it
Child (whining): But I really don't want to
Parent: That's too bad, you have to
Child (more whinny): But I reeeally don't wanna.

The reason the child is whining here is because they are trying to get a point across, and they don't think that you are listening to them, or considering what they are saying. As the parent, you may understand the importance of certain things, and as such you understand why your child should do the things that she doesn't want to do. But you never bothered to explain to her why she should have to do it. You just give the order. When she complains, you don't bother to stop and explain it to her, you just immediately respond with something like, "you have to do it". And when you don't explain anything, or respond to your child's complaints with anything other then 'tough luck', then it isn't unreasonable for her to get the impression that you aren't listening. Because if you actually listened to her, then you wouldn't so quickly discount and ignore what she is saying.

So, try this: The next time she complains about something, tell her that you understand what she is saying. Tell her that you appreciate her viewpoint, and you know that things are not going the way that she wants. And then explain to her why things are not going the way that she wants. What important priorities are coming into play that override her desires. If you actually take time to respond to her complaints, and talk to her like an equal instead of just ignoring her complaints, then you will notice that the whining will dramatically decrease. I am not saying it will be an overnight solution, but actually listening to her, and responding to her when she complaints, will get you better results then just ignoring her; thus forcing her to repeat herself in an ever more whiny way in order to get your attention.

2. Could you please be a bit more descriptive about the bossiness? It could be that she is trying to play a game with her younger brother, but she is trying to do it on her terms and her terms only. Which of course isn't very effective. Or it could be that she doesn't like her younger brother, and is trying to get him to go away. Since these are very different cases, it would be helpful if you could provide more of a description, so that we can give proper advice.

3. As DW_a_mom says, young women tend to be self conscious and sensitive. But there may also be some problems with the way she is being corrected. Often times, the correction comes in the form of 'Here's what your doing wrong! And here's the punishment for it!' And when your parents and teachers do nothing but tell you everything that you are doing wrong, then it can definitely seem like an attack. Perhaps she would respond better to a mutual conversational setting. For example, if she is having a problem, talk about it with her over desert. Don't make it a conversation about how much she is failing, and how disappointed you are. Instead, make the conversation about becoming a better person, and learning to deal with your faults. The idea is to work WITH the child in identifying, and working on the problems, as opposed to cornering the child, and then telling them off for everything they are doing wrong.