Hitting the Wall in 7th Grade - Advice?

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Hello all,

I am the mom to a wonderful girl who was diagnosed with AS at 4 years old. She is bright, beautiful and an all around great person. She has really "flown under the radar" both academically (never had any special accomodations) and socially (always had a nice small group of friends). Now she is in 7th grade, 12 about to turn 13 and is really struggling socially. She gets her feelings hurt a lot, things that others might shrug off. She hates the dynamics of "you're my BFF one day, then next you're not", because she is loyal to a fault. All these shifting friendships really confuse her.

It saddens me to see my formerly cheerful, happy go lucky daughter, crying and unhappy a lot of the time. I totally realize that the middle school years are horrible for many, and that preteen angst and hormones play into it too.

Just wondering from any parents who have been there, done that, or any adults with AS who have survived these years - what advice would you have for me or her? Books, articles, strategies, anything? I just so desperately want her to like herself and embrace who she is, quirks and all. She just seems to care about what the "popular" girls think of her.

Sorry this got so long, and thanks in advance for any thoughts or suggestions.

My daughter, who was in a pretty supportive school throughout elementary and seemed to be functioning well (aside from being a challenge to discipline in our rather laid-back AP style), took a nose dive in middle school, too. Without having one teacher whose style she could adapt to and who could remind her of what was done in other subjects she couldn't keep things straight and had cognitive as well as social difficulties. She ended up being suspended over something we believe she did not do, and then again got in trouble because of unfounded rumours. Otherwise, since she was generally pleasant in school, she didn't receive any special supports... not a squeaky enough wheel, I guess. But--and here is the good news--starting high school has made a huge difference. She is now 14 and more than half-way through the first year of high school. I was so disappointed with the problems she was having in middle school that I made sure I got in touch with the resource teachers at her high school before she started there, and we are very lucky to have someone caring and helpful to work through the inevitable challenges. She is only modified in one subject, but the other teachers keep an eye on her and discuss any concerns with us. Most importantly, she told us that high school was fun within the first couple of days (which I thought she'd find disastrous--she got lost, missed one class completely, had no one to eat lunch with, etc.) and now feels so successful she says things like, "Remember when I wasn't smart?" I have been careful to encourage friends to come over and do what I can to make sure they have a good time, and we have developed a text system so that she can contact me quickly when she gets confused or anxious.
So in our case, things have become much easier and better over the past two years.
J.

I'm sad to say that middle school was the worst time of my life. I would have given anything to be homeschooled. Surviving high school was the second worst experience of my life and nothing there prepared me for life. I still have no friends. That is my insight. My daughter does okay in middle school but my son is struggling. I hope you find some answers.

Preteens was the worst because kids started to change and fall for peer pressure crap and trying to grow up fast and do "cool things" and I got left behind. Then I could no longer relate to kids my own age and we didn't have anything in common so I went for younger kids. Kids did the wishy washy crap with me too and it confused me. I was just literal. I was also emotional too and tender hearted. I was put on birth control so I would have a thicker skin. Hormones was also the problem too so that is what made me so sensitive. I was seeing a therapist by 5th grade and talking about my peer and friendship problems because my mom didn't know how to help me. It used to be I would always move on whenever something happened and the next day would be a new day for me but then my hormones changed and I couldn't get over it and it was never a new day anymore. Yeah even aspie kids are affected by puberty too and their hormones.

I wish I could go back and not care what anyone thinks or not care if I don't have friends and quit trying to fit in and be like everyone else. That is what I would tell myself if I went back in time. I would also tell myself to forget about the "friends" who are mean to me and don't stick up for me and let their own friends be mean to me and who are mean to me and then nice and mean again.

It got better in my early teens because I finally took that advice above and at age 15 I didn't care about friends anymore because we didn't have anything in common so they were boring so I preferred to be alone. I just quit trying to be normal and fit in and be myself more meaning not force myself to do things I don't like or not do things because other kids are doing it and forcing myself to socialize and be with people and I am bored and miserable and waiting for the situation to end.

I remember middle school. It was tough.

I see in the Women's Discussion that there are books now that would have helped me then.

As for me, I joined clubs that interested me, and got involved with theater. Theater kids tend to be more forgiving than most.

Middle school will be tough for both of you. From the bottom of my heart, I'm sorry, and if I could do anything to change that, I would. The thing is, everything is going to change on her- social codes will get more complex, she'll be attracted to someone and have even less clue of what to do about it than her NT friends, the nature of the academic work will change on her and she may find herself challenged in ways she wasn't before. Her hormones will go into action as her body changes. She'll be very stressed. She'll probably close herself off from you when she's feeling worst and needs you most.

All you can really do is give her books, make sure she doesn't fall behind in academics, and be there to support her. I think middle school is when I started being exposed to essays. I really didn't understand how to write one until I'd seen a bunch of well written examples. Then it clicked. English had always been one of my strong classes, so that was really scary for me. My in-school friends were mostly friends I had from clubs and theater. I had more out-of-school friends from horseback riding and temple than in-school friends in middle school.

HS may be better for her. It was for me. She just has to get there.

College was an entire world apart from HS. It was great.

Wow, thank you all so much for the amazing responses. So many good insights.

Postcards 57 - I appreciate you sharing your daughter's experience. So happy to hear she is doing well in high school. I, too, make a huge effort to have my daughters friends over, try to make sure they are having a good time, drive and pick them up from the mall, etc. I'm not sure if it helps or not, but it gives me something concrete to do. All the best to you and your daughter!

Aspiemama - I hear you - the middle school years were my worst too. Homeschooling is something I would consider. Not sure we are there yet, though. Plus....math! I can't even understand her homework!

League Girl - Sooo much of what you wrote just hits home. How you used to move on, every day a new day, then the hormones, emotions hit, and you can't move on. My daughter exactly. It's good to hear by 15 that you were beginning to have some self
acceptance. I hope my daughter reaches this point. I keep telling her these are the worst years, things will calm down, etc.

BetwixtBetween - You brought tears to my eyes when you wrote, "She'll probably close herself off from you when she's feeling her worst and needs you the most". This is where we are right now. I'm trying to walk that fine line of giving her the space she needs, and supporting her and being there for her. Every day I try to give her a huge, long hug and tell her how great she is. I think she both hates it (thinks I am a big dork), but appreciates it too, hopefully.

Again, thanks so much everyone for the great responses. I would love to hear more if anyone else has experiences to add.

This is difficult because my ASD child is a boy, and boys go through different phases than girls. I could have spoken endlessly on how to handle it for a 7th grade boy! My middle school child is my daughter, and for her its been smooth sailing, largely because she has a very nice social circle that mostly avoids those games.

But ... maybe my main advice for 7th grade boys will help for her, as well. When my son's social life became a disaster in 7th grade I gave him choices, meaning we looked at transferring schools and also at homeschooling. In the end, HE decided that a messy social life wasn't worth changing his school for, but just knowing he had a CHOICE empowered him to face the challenges every day.

I've been there and to echo everyone else, the teenage years, especially the younger teenager years, are a bad time for everyone regardless. I was incredibly sensitive, too. When I was in the seventh grade I would come home from school every day crying, things were so bad from the meltdowns and social stimulation. And the worse it was, the more I cut myself off from other people. At the time I didn't know I had AS; but changing schools and having a different environment worked for me (my previous school had been way competitive and intolerant of a lot of stuff). A good book to read, if you haven't already, is Rudy Simone's Aspergirls, which gives helpful advice to both women/girls on the spectrum and their parents and significant others--there's a chapter in there on puberty which seems so much like me that it's scary.

The good news is that we grow out of it for the most part--by the time I got to high school, Id outgrown many of my insecurities, which led to me growing as a person. And now I'm incredibly high function, with a career I love, at age 30. So there's hope for the future for your daughter, too! I hope things work out for you.

teenage years and high school are the worst, and there is little you can do...
i would try to get it into her head that the opinions of the so-called 'popular' girls doesn't matter jack, and perhaps sign her up for some extracurricular activities away from the clique, perhaps your daughter is interested in computers, music or chess, try out if she wants to join (or at least try out) those groups. usually the members of those are outside of the popular core, allowing her to make more stable and healthy friends to boost her self-esteem

Having been that girl, in my experience it was all downhill from 13. Let your daughter know I wasn't diagnosed, got no support, but somewhere around 14-16 I started to figure out how to navigate things on my own and things got progressively better in very tiny increments from that age forward.

Will she be going to a larger school at some point? What wound up saving me was high school - I finally found the "geek" table, and had friends who were presumably on the spectrum, too - we bonded and got each other through high school. In college, I was able to branch out farther - my high school friendships weren't very deep, but because college allows for following your interests, your social group tends to self-select, and I was able to find my "tribe."

How is the school responding to her situation? Have they offered testing and supports?

ETA: I think finding out-of-school activities for her, as someone mentioned previously, is a good idea. If she's at all interested in theater or the like, find a program she can attend that works with ALL kids (e.g. that doesn't depend on auditions.) If not, follow her interests...

Middle school exists because of the changes children of this age experience. Children develop an insight and understanding that is as difficult to adjust to as if they were becoming telepathic. If they were suddenly able to hear everyone's thoughts around them it would be overwhelming. After a few years, they would probably adjust to how to filter things out or have accumulated enough experience to deal with the onslaught of information.

If a child has to deal with the normal difficulty of a sudden increase of perception from which they have to figure out meaning, context, and certainty in addition to having a diverse neural sensory and processing skill set, it can be truly overwhelming.

For a child, a friend is the person playing next to you in a sand box. For an adult a "friend" is a person who has an emotional bond with you as a person. Middle school is the place where much of this transition is accomplished.

An AS child is usually going to have extra difficulty with this transition. It can help to explain to her that not only she, but all her classmates are going through this same transition so that a BFF one day may be an "enemy" the next. She does not have to chose sides or drop friends, she can remain loyal even if others do not. It can help to know that these emotional storms come and go, but that eventually most people grow out of them and move on with their lives. Either that or end up on the TV show Survivor.

The emotional vicissitudes of middle school can be sometimes mitigated by other social contacts such as with children in other families with whom you are friends, family such as cousins, or through church. Having school be the only social milieu can really magnify the unpleasant effects.

Did I post this here already (or find it here? ) I found this article to be a bit of a downer, but incredibly helpful in framing middle school and why it stinks in particular for kids on the spectrum: http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

That said, a bad middle school experience isn't a requirement: my son is actually doing significantly better in middle school than he did in elementary school. We lucked out (after a pretty bad elementary school experience) and have a terrific, responsive team focused on making sure his needs are met and a school that really works globally to teach kids how to be respectful and civil to one another (in fact, our worst problem is how my son treats other kids - kids right now are treating him fine.)

I wish I could help you, we mostly just lucked out. But it may be helpful to know that it's out there - and that changing the environment has a LOT to do with changing the experience.

I think you have posted it before, but I am glad you posted it again.

Do kids actually learn anything from this of value? I really want my kid to skip over this, which given his lack of socialization, may very well be what happens. Would he be missing anything? Right now I don't see unsupervised peer socialization happening for a long time.

Like I said, we are in a particularly excellent situation. We were thinking about 1/2 day homeschool or maybe outplacement as our plan B, but it turned out to be a great fit.

DS is learning a LOT socially (in fact, his teachers at conferences said he's almost talking too much socially, but not so much that they feel it's a problem.) He is finally learning to navigate banter (not perfectly) and social groups that change regularly. He's learned to navigate busy hallways and gym class which he now likes depending on the unit (they do a series of odd sports and activities that really help the outlier kids find something they like.) He's not doing so well with deep friendships, we're really struggling with TOM, negotiating skills and boundaries, but I'm pretty confident that will come - and he does have friends he sees on the weekend (he compartmentalizes school friends vs friends he sees outside of school - works for me.)

Contrast this kid to the one I was afraid wasn't going to make it through 4th grade alive.

All of that is due to the supportive environment at the school. They asked him to participate in the IEP meeting before the age where he's required to. When he's there, we all come up with issues to address, but they ask him what he thinks would help directly, and offer suggestions to him and not to us. They're willing to be flexible - for instance, we dropped the required foreign language and added in a study period - no problem. All of this helps DS manage his anxiety and that drives an awful lot of his negative behavior. Also, last year we had an "oops" that made it important for him to disclose his diagnosis - and I think lots of kids are pulling for him because they have a better understanding of who he is, so he's not just supported by staff. My only objection is that speech/social skills services are delivered as a group discussion to a group of kids on the spectrum - and nobody is meaner to kids on the spectrum than kids on the spectrum, sadly, particularly DS. We are working on that.

I miscommunicated, as per usual.

I meant to ask if there a productive reason for the Realpolitik of the middle school/Jr. High years? I know your son is doing well. Momsparky, but for the ones experiencing the "D Table experience" (in your link) or worse, is anything necessary gained from this? (I understand the causes, but I question if it has value)

I remember the whole thing as just being traumatic. I don't think I acquired anything in exchange. In hindsight I figured it out, (mostly) but I am wondering if this knowledge was worth the acquisition cost, and I am not sure it was. Yes, I am cynical, and wary in my social interactions, where I was once way too trusting; but I don't know if this stage helped me understand people. Is there a general consensus on whether this social jostling is a necessary experience?

I say this because, I think if I had to go back and do it all over again, knowing what would be in store for me, I could not do it, even with the knowledge I have now. I know that sounds asinine considering that I procreated, which also shows I had some dumb idea I could protect my son though my own parents could not protect me.

So, yeah, I am an idiot hoping to validate that protection is the right path.

I guess what I was trying to say is that there is value in a good system from what I can tell of what we've experienced so far. I'm not sure in the other case. I guess you kind of have to take it day by day. I'd love to get those two to four years of my life back, too.

I would add this one caution: I don't know if you read the New Yorker interview with Peter Lanza that came out today. One thing I did get from it: it was a unique situation in more ways than one. The one thing that I wish we could go back and change was the isolation of mother and son together. I wonder if it was a red flag that both of them were struggling with serious mental health issues (meaning some type of psychosis) at the same time, and that the breakdown was exacerbated by isolation.

I think it's a good option to remove your child from a stressful school situation if you can, but I think there is a point of diminishing returns when it comes to isolation, especially if that's a struggle for the parent. School does at the very least provide a structure for socializing. I think most parents who choose the homeschooling option do so with some kind of social plan in mind for both themselves and their kids, and I think that is critical.

For the record, this is all conjecture and opinion. I really do think the most important thing is being responsive to your child in the context of both who they are now and who they will be in the future, however that plays out. I also recognize that things can change in a moment, so just because we feel we've found the answer right now may not mean it's the answer in a week, or a month, or a year.