What sort of supports do you wish you had had ?

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Or what sort of supports helped you the most in upper elementary and middle school ?

How did you deal with mean girls aka the alpha female from grades 4 through 8 (and beyond) ?

Also, is there anything that you wish that your parents had done (or not done) to help you, especially during middle school (and through puberty and menarche and hormones) ?

Help ! !

A sudden growth spurt that made me bigger and stronger than the bullies around me.

By finding sneaky ways to embarrass her in front of the other alphas and betas.

I wish they had not tried to control my social life so much by prohibiting me from having friends - especially female friends - until after high school graduation. I wish that the had not dressed me in hand-me-downs for the first 16 years of my life. I wish that they had got for me the counseling and tutoring that the teachers recommended. I wish that they had taken more of an interest in my scholastic development than just telling me to do my homework. I wish that they had dealt with their own personal problems before trying to deal with mine. I wish that they had neither smoked nor drank alcohol while I lived with them. I wish that they had not experimented on me with folk remedies and drug samples, and instead got for me the tests and treatments that I needed. I wish that there had been someone I could have reported the beatings and abuses to - someone who would have believed me and acted to protect me.

There wasn't a middle school, the mean girls and boys from elementary went to other (profession-oriented)educations.
Support? I would be put in charge of lower grade-classes in elementary, if need arose.
At home I would be put in charge of the shop, chores, my brothers, replacing staff during vacations. Later we'd had to work summerholidays while staff was on vacation, those days saw meltdowns from dad halfway and we'd be sent out for the afternoon.
Support? Trials and the silent treatment, to throw me out saying I wrecked their marriage, problem-me was the only thing they had in common after f****** around. <<We, or I, didn't mind that, we'd be amused by sillyness of adults, but that you need a scapegoat to fix things, applaus!

No one supported me, I was a wreck during middle school. My parents barely knew anything and by the time they did, they couldn't do anything about it.

I went home, hated myself, cried, and then dropped out of high school at 15 and finished through a home school programme.

I wish my parents had taken me to a psychologist when I asked them to at 17, but my father refused because he said there was 'nothing wrong with her'. My mother was the shittiest support and treated me like garbage, I don't even have a relationship with her any more, but I wish she had been caring, like I thought moms were supposed to be.

This probably isn't the kind of answer you are looking for HisMom but ideally I should have been put in a music conservatory or something similar for gifted children. I shouldn't have been in public school, it just wasn't a good environment for me. I went to private school a few years, it was better in some ways but worse in others. Both public and private were too dumbed down and boring for me.

Someone should have noticed that I had problems with auditory processing and memory and concentration. Instead it was assumed because I was gifted that everything was easy for me. Someone should have noticed and had me tested for learning disorders and ADHD and other kinds of neurological problems. That would have been asking for the moon because no one even noticed that I was near sighted until way too late. There was way too much ignorance and neglect in my childhood.

Mean girls weren't the problem for me, there were a few and some mean boys too, but it was the mean adults who were the real problem. One thing I remember is there is always a mean adult letting the mean child get away with things or even encouraging them. People are judgmental of what they don't understand. The best thing my parents could have done was to accept me like I was and stand up for me to other people who didn't.

I never felt like anyone accepted me. People were always trying to change me into something different than what I was. Counseling at school was no help because it was just more of that. I needed to understand what I was neurologically wired to be but no one helped me with that. I just got a lot of psychobabble. Instead of talking about emotional BS I needed more outlets for my creativity and talents and my natural flair for the dramatic. It seemed more like people wanted to suppress that though.

I think life sucks for most kids around puberty, and that's just normal, but some parents freak out and think they have to fix their kid immediately with medication or therapy or religion or who knows what. If you try too hard to fix things it does the opposite of what you intend, it just gives a child the message that there must be something horribly wrong with them.

The book Aspergirls may help both of you.

As for wish i had..

....

Don't make me feel like crap and look at me like i'm a loser because i'm not popular. Don't push me to be popular, outgoing, or other things i'm not.

Help me find and develop my positive qualities instead of always focusing on my negative.

Remember that i take things literally and, pre-teen still take what you say as if you have some book of facts.

Respect my space and understand that just because i don't want to be touched by you is not a rejection of you. I will be closer and initiate contact with trust and you giving me space i need. i will withdraw further and be set up for horrible future relationships if you instead touch me whenever you please and i have no rights to my body as an entity.

Remember i am not you. I notice and sense things you don't..but that doesn't mean they don't exist, it just means we don't have the same sensors. Do not invalidate me because of this.

I also don't see things you do and may be very dense about that which is most obvious to you. Despite my being a smartypants, this isn't on purpose and i'm not being intentionally obstinate.

I may read and do math at many years beyond my peers, but i am also quite behind them in other realms. This is compounded as despite my perceived bluntness, i am sensitive. And as above, can feel things..like disdain emanating off you, even if you don't say it.

When you ask if i like something and i say 'no', don't take it personally. I thought, since you asked, you wanted to know. It has nothing to do with a conscious, mean act, nor my not liking something simply because you do, nor my being defiant. I truly, simply, didn't like it. I thought that was okay.

I am and will continue to learn through watching and often being shamed by my peers. However, a lot of this will be mechanical and done as an outsider trying to assimilate. e.g. note to self: when someone i knows dies, and someone tells me "i'm sorry" don't reply "why? you didn't kill him.". ..... note to self: i guess I'm supposed to say " thank you". Do this in the future.

Remember that even as i grow, though i may seem better at getting along, a lot is things i've learned, as above. That doesn't mean anything new though now comes naturally; it too will be bumpy.

Know that i don't see or know that everyone else doesn't have these struggles. As far as i know, everyone is learning these things along the way, i just clearly am a failure at it. That makes me feel even worse about myself.

Encourage me, gently, to learn things that will clearly cause me future issues, or severe mocking..such as remembering to brush my teeth. Even if it's done via a game or something so i don't realize it's a lesson, it will help implement the habits and save me some of the pain.
Don't try to protect me from all shaming though, it is better to have you as a safety net and be beat by others than feel beat by you too.

Remind me of the good things about me and encourage me to share with you my falls such that you can again remind me that different is not bad, helping me gain confidence and freedom to embrace and be who i am. Mildly, subtly help redirect me when it's really needed, but always give me somewhere supportive to turn as without that, i have nothing.
No matter what though, during those experiences, don't try to push on me the bully's point of view and don't look at me as a disappointment.

Don't broadly try to change me and don't diminish my joy, nor push me to express it differently. If i get really happy about something and have to clap my hands or bounce my fists when i do, so what? If you take that away, you will extinguish my limited joy, and it's really all i have.

Understand that many of these things that come naturally to others, don't to me, and doing them can be quite draining. Simply waking up in the morning and being inundated by my non-stop brain, and then spending my day learning what's in the school books on top of how to be a human, all while trying to avoid being mocked. I can get overwhelmed and can use help learning ways to decompress.

Don't push me to like what my peers do, nor discourage or shun my special interests. At the same time, you don't have to fake interest in them. You be you and i'll be me. If you do fake such things to bond, i'l pick up on it right away and i will feel awkward and more distant from you.

If my special interest is crossing over though into an obsession that causes me distress - that is, i do it because i have to, not because i thrive on it, i may need some help.

For my future benefit, softly helping me find less obvious ways of relieving stress in public is okay. But if i'm at home, that's my safe place and if i need to rock, who cares? I need to. Nothing else works the same.

I often can't spontaneously get words out right, Especially if i'm upset. The words are in there, but so is a lot of information and filtering which to send out to get across what i'm trying to say while not sending out the others that are related...it can become a convoluted mess.
I may need to write my feelings and at times, i may need to write to you when i'm upset in order to properly explain. This isn't me trying to control the conversation, make it one-sided, nor be manipulatiuve. it's genuinely the Only way i can get the words out right.

Remember that you aren't perfect either. Don't make me the designated crazy of the family. Own and work on your issues too.

Help me learn things i don't like by explaining their logical benefit. My contempt of mundane "small talk" won't change because "it's what people do". I will however try to learn it if i understand that for many people, it is a prerequisite of meaningful conversation. And, as that's what i prefer, i'll have more opportunities to do so by learning how to first discuss the weather.


I may be different, but i'm not defective. Love and accept me for who i am, quirks and all.

Thank you all. I hope more people respond and give me their feedback. Information / knowledge is power ... for my kids !

I was thinking about editing what I wrote as it came out as a past tense letter to them, which is a bit more personal than I like to share.
Adding to the greater post though, as mentioned, the Aspergirls book might help as it talks about things like periods which for me weren't a Big deal, but are for some.

Overall, there are now some public alternative schools that weren't around when I was young. The ones that let you learn more of your interests and teach based on how you learn instead of one size fits all plus big classrooms, as well as learning at your level - higher or lower than peers, would've been a blessing. Like another poster, I too dropped out.

There also though is a lot to be said (as has been repeated by posters here) for parental acceptance.

I think that having one safe spot and acceptance and encouragement from the ones we need it most (parents)..I think, regardless of schools and peer bullies, that ultimate support may well be a Major factor in which of us develop multiple comorbid conditions and end up on forums to socialize vs those of us who end up carving our own path in the world and are out there living it.

1) What sort of supports do you wish you had had?

A remote control door-closer, because people were always opening the door at the bottom of the stairs while I was trying to sleep and the TV was always too loud for my highly sensitive hearing. Also, it would have been really nice if there were books or classes on things like body language and making conversation.


2) Or what sort of supports helped you the most in upper elementary and middle school ?

Joining the cross country and track teams so I didn't have to take gym class, and was kind of accepted as cool, or at least somebody not to automatically pick on.


3) How did you deal with mean girls aka the alpha female from grades 4 through 8 (and beyond) ?

Are you kidding? I still have to deal with mean girls. Does it ever end? If they're in a position of power over me, like at work, I literally do a whole lot of praying. If it's in a more social setting, I speak my mind and let the chips fall where they may.


4) Also, is there anything that you wish that your parents had done (or not done) to help you, especially during middle school (and through puberty and menarche and hormones) ?

I'm not really sure what more they could have done. They fought for me so I was able to study Latin instead of Home Economics, which was a really good thing, seeing as how foreign languages are something I've used in pretty much every job I've ever had.

Excellent posts, 100000fireflies!

Awww. Thank you!

I like the idea of body language or conversation books or classes.

I took a class on non-verbal communication in college. It would have been nice to have access to something like that when younger (though it of course requires looking At people to do, so i rarely utilize it in real life). I then recently took one of those online tests of 'what is this person feeling?' based on 3second video clips, and did well (over 90% right). Watching my thoughts while taking it, it was interesting to see that i was applying lessons from that class.

I didn't really get any support despite being diagnosed. The one thing that made my life worthwhile was people who treated me like a human being. Those people are hard to find when a lot of people know about my label.



They didn't really exist to me. I was pretty shy and they never noticed me and I didn't notice them. The popular people I did notice were pretty nice to everyone.



I wish they would have tested me for way more things including ADHD. A lot of people think an autism label is enough. IT IS NOT. Sure ADHD and OCD are comorbids, but not everyone who's autistic has those conditions. The teachers liked to blame my ADHD symptoms on "problems with change" or "no abstract thinking". Another thing that would have helped me out would be to put me with regular people and ADHD/learning disabled people instead of the room for autistic people.