Telling grandparents, help

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So I have been trying to figure out if we should bother telling MIL about dd5's having AS.

Ordinarily it wouldn't be a huge decision, but MIL is a real pill. She is mean, nasty, delusional, a liar, a thief. She is on the whole an unpleasent human being. She's not nice to me, and blames me for everything that goes wrong. She thinks she has this magical relationship with dd5, that quite frankly doesn't actually exist. She tries to use dd5 for narcissitic supply and wants a sick enmeshed relationship with her (with no boundries) like she has with her own daughter. When she visits she tries to control every aspect of every interaction with dd5. She tries to do strange things like get dd5 to look at her vacation photos from switzerland. Most 5 year olds would have zero interest in it. DD5 completely ignores MIL. MIL, of course, takes it personally and blames me for "training" dd5 to "act like that". This magical relationship exists only in MILs head and in reality their relationship goes more like this:

Grandma arrives at the door.
DD5s ears perk and she trots to the door.
Grandma enters the house and says "Hullo DD5 your grandma is here! Give me a hug!"
DD5 says "Grandma! Give me your iPad!"
DD5 gets the ipad and tries to hide somewhere far, far away from grandma.
Grandma spends the visit trying to wrestle the ipad away from dd5 meanwhile talking over the ipad, getting between the ipad and dd5 and trying to make dd5 do things she doesn't want to. Don't get me wrong, shes not on the ipad the entire time, but even when she isn't she's pretty much ignoring grandma and grandmas constant peppering of pestery requests.
MEANWHILE grandma completely ignores dd2.5 who actually wants grandmas attention.
Usually during a visit MIL will pull some messed up stunt that falls into the "overly attatched girlfriend" category really. Like asking why we hate her, why we don't call her more, why we never visit etc... (background on that in a nutshell, she has been very mean to me over the years even going so far as to bad mouth me when I was pregnant saying the child wasn't my husbands, told me she was glad my mom is dead multiple times, accused me of abusing my daughter and even threatened to call cps and get a lawyer to take her away, she sends nasty emails, nasty texts, nasty voicemails and then pretends like they never happened etc.. etc..)

If I had my druthers, we would have no contact with her, but right now we let her visit 6 times a year, one weekend per visit. We don't visit her. We keep it on our turf so we stay in control and so she has to abide by some rules in our house.

Should we even bother telling her? I'm not SURE what her reaction will be there are various possibilities ranging from, "I have it too, only worse" (thats her favorite response to any declaration of a medical condition) to "It's YOUR fault" and the ever popular "no she doesn't" And of course she will tell everyone she knows *something" resembling the truth all blown out of proportion and with her twist on it ("Well, you know I always thought CWA did drugs when she was pregnant and this just PROVES it.")

The issue being if we don't tell her and she finds out later she will make us miserable for not telling her. REALLY miserable. Also I'm thinking maybe if we do tell her she might be nicer to dd5 at least because she isn't all that nice to her. She gets nasty when she stims, nasty when she zones out, nasty when she gets anxious. She tells her shes gross (used to have a stim that involved licking windows among a few others similar to that.)

Thoughts? Tell her? No? I'm on the edge of doing it because she keeps emailing me telling me that dd5 seems "sad" and "depressed" to her.

The big issue is that if we don't tell her

That sounds like a horrible situation. I am sorry you have to put up with that.

Is it possible to tell her something vague like "Our neurologist says DD has sensory issues"? Maybe you could gauge by her reaction to that information whether or not you really want to use the term Autism or Aspergers. That might allow you to put some boundaries on some things like being able to say, "the doctor told us to allow her to stim at home as long as she is not doing anything that is harmful". I would blame as much as possible on following doctor's orders, that way she might be less likely to blame you for it? If it turns out that she is able to handle that much information without making it about herself or accusing you of doing drugs or sleeping with the neighbor then maybe on a subsequent visit you could tell her the real dx. It isn't entirely uncommon for it to take a long time for people to figure out the real diagnosis so it wouldn't be stretching the truth too far perhaps.

Good luck.

If she's that nasty, I would hesitate to tell her. She might use the information to create hurt for DD5.

I have a question, though. What's a DD5?

dd5 = dear daughter who is 5 years old

it's just a quick way of not using her name while still specifying which kid.

That makes sense.

I think I've seen ds something on these forums. I assume that would be "Dear Son".

Please don't tell her. It is none of her business and she only sees your daughter about 6 times a year, anyway. It will just be easier on all of you. If and when she does find out, then just tell her that you didn't tell her because she does NOT have to know. EOS.

Grow a spine. I found mine really fast in the last few weeks. I made the mistake of telling a few so-called relatives about my son's "issues" thinking it would help his case. News flash - it didn't. It made a nasty situation even worse. Don't make the mistake that I made.

Good luck !

This is a very stressfull situation!
Personally I wont jump in with the diagnosis......

I have tried the last 16 months to confince my mom but at the end just gave up!
Troubled people struggle to see others pain...some times!

I would give neccesary info as needed.....bits and pieces!

Hang in there!

Well... I'd tell her. Obviously, she has some questions about DD5 too and maybe this will explain why sometimes she may seem sad or depressed (or wanting to get the hell away from MIL ). I say tell her because that is a big thing to try and hide. By telling her it may make her think about how she treats her, at least it should AND if it doesn't it then gives you a perfectly good reason to tell her to back off when she is being nasty or expecting DD to behave in a way that she wants her to or just overwhelming her with unwanted attention.
You know you didn't cause this by anything you ate, drank, watched, soaked in, read, smoked, snorted or injected whilst pregnant MIL sounds more than a little... unstable, so you can guess her reaction will probably be less than perfect, but I think she should know.

We have not told my in-laws for much the same reasons, although we think my FIL has been told by someone from DS's last school. It has resulted in nastier behavior than ever before. We still do not acknowledge anything being "wrong" for this reason.

Anyone who threatens you with CPS probably should not be given more info than necessary. Once you tell, you cannot un-tell it.

This is a pretty good point. It doesn't sound like she has given you any reason to trust that she will do anything but damage if she is "armed" with the whole story.

OMG thought mine was bad enough lol! I would be tempted not to tell her at all, leave some private and confidential letter with details of the diagnosis around for her to nose at then let her feel like a complete s**t for not being approachable enough for you to tell her like you would a normal MIL! But thats just me, Im bitter coz I dont like my own, maybe thats not the best advice!

I had trouble telling my MIL as she used to teach severely autistic children so does not acknowledge AS at all, she has traits herself so sees things black and white ie Autism = cant talk or communicate at all etc. I had to really shout at her coz she kept saying "she isnt autistic, shes lovely" as if you cant be both! Frankly our relationship wasnt great to start with and its not improved since telling her.

This is a nice article though, we emailed this. My husband accidentally said "pay close attention to the part where it says about understanding" then read it back and realised he was practically saying if you dont agree we wont see you anymore! SO now she just humours us but doesnt really agree.

Especially for Grandparents - Nancy Mucklow

I was going to post this, when I saw you'd already posted it. I gave this to my parents about a year ago, when we were almost certain our daughter was going to get a diagnosis of AS. They found it to be very helpful.

But, OP, I have a similar relationship with my MIL, the only difference being that I don't have any contact with her at all now. We had an argument a couple of years ago and she made it perfectly plain that she thought I was a poor parent and that I was not attempting to teach my daughter manners. In not so many words, she referred to my daughter as a spoiled brat. At the time, we did not know our daughter may have an ASD. We knew she was very difficult and I was very stressed every time I had to take her out anywhere or anyone came to visit. But, it was a few months after the argument before any notion that she may have an ASD appeared in my mind. Ironically, my husband's brother clearly has AS, but is clueless about it and undiagnosed. The whole argument erupted because of something 'thoughtless' he said. Furthermore, he has worse 'manners' than my then 4yr old. I feel sad for him, because I know he has this and it would probably benefit him to know too, but we don't speak to any of my husband's family. My MIL doesn't know anything about my daughter's assessment and subsequent diagnosis and is unlikely to ever hear about it.

Why are so many MILs like this, mine was ok (just ok) until we had children and when I was young enough to be like one of her "kids" but as soon as we bless them with grandchildren they start to judge us. Every time I see mine I go with an open mind ready to forget previous snide remarks and she just does it again and I come away upset again

I think people want validation for their own parenting choices. Hence the annoying "Mommy War" stuff I really cannot stand.

So, those type of grandparents want their children to raise the grandchildren in the same way the parents were raised to validate their own choices. They feel personally rejected and insulted when this does not happen and jump on any behavioral (or any other) issue that they can to point and say, "Aha! See what happens when you parent that way. You end up with (whatever they are kvetching about.)" It makes them feel better to think that if only you had done things their way, your kid would not be (whatever they are kvetching about.) Also, they think that somehow their nastiness will be persuasive and you will see the error of your ways and tow the parenting line.

They are rigid themselves (familiar trait to anyone?) and do not want to understand that each child is different, with different parenting needs and not everything is Mommy's (or Daddy's) fault.

JMO

Don't tell your MIL. She has no need to know.

DD5 needs to know, when she is old enough to understand the explanation. Then it will be up to her whether she wants to share with Grandma. To me, like any other medical diagnosis, I think this is private and so the child's choice whether to disclose. While they are too young to make that choice, I feel we as parents should be conservative about sharing. Family members who help to care for her would need to know, school would need to know, any new doctor/therapist/health carer should know, and that's about it as I see it.

Had to post this lol....

Mother In Law