I've had 3 very huge disappointments with my daughter, apart from dealing with the Aspergers, in general. These instances were disappointing because had I known more about Aspergers, I could have made different choices. Not only that, but had I known my daughter had Aspergers at the time, what it was or how to deal with it, a lot of my parenting choices might have been different. I was not very well informed. In fact, no one I was around seemed to be all that informed. Her doctor prescribed medicine, based on trial and error. The school staff did not know instantly how to deal with my child, based on a diagnosis. Every child is different. Even though person A and person B may have the same label, that means nothing! A boy with Aspergers may be more mathematic and scientific, whereas a girl with Aspergers may be more into art and/or animals, such as my daughter. On the other hand, none of this may be true. Maybe a person gets the label simply because they are awkward socially and don't pick up on body language or visual queues, human empathy, etc. At any rate, I made some decisions that I have felt bad about, knowing what I know now. Being ignorant of my daughter's condition, though, who could blame me?
In the first grade, when my daughter was having all the trouble at school, I was trying to find the right motivation to get her to behave. She had a birthday party coming up, and I had invited several people from her class to come. Her behavior at school was not improving at all, and I had decided that she should not be allowed to have a birthday party, if her behavior didn't improve. Well, it never improved, so I had to call all of the parents and let them know that the party was cancelled. Sadly, that was the only opportunity to have her a "normal" birthday party because the year after that, she was placed with the special needs kids and really didn't have any friends among them. Had I known that following through and taking away the birthday party privilege wouldn't have motivated her because of her condition, maybe she could have had that "normal" party. I remember her teacher being saddened that it was taken away, so I often wondered if it was the right decision. (And what I mean by a "normal" birthday party is one where you invite your child's classmates to the house, the skating rink, Chuck E Cheese, etc., have cake and ice cream and open gifts. My daughter never had one of those.)
The best birthday parties my daughter has had have been in years recent. In 7th grade, my daughter finally had a friend, who was introduced to her by the school. So, for 6 years, she did not have a real friend. That's a very long time to be so isolated, especially for a kid, and to not have a birthday party with other kids. Instead what we would do is just have the family go out or have a cake at home and open gifts. When my son started getting old enough to have parties, though, there was a stark, actually quite horrid contrast.
At the age of 3, we had my son's first birthday party at Chuck E Cheese and invited the kids from the daycare. I felt terrible for my daughter for not having similar parties, but at the same time would tell myself that, unfortunately, that's the way it was. She didn't have friends, was disadvantaged, and didn't have the privileges my son and others had. It was somewhat humiliating, and I was embittered towards certain people because of it.
I was embittered because of the neighbor lady's daughter, who treated my daughter with contempt for being different. I liked my neighbor but because her daughter could not accept and be a friend to my daughter, I had a very hard time wanting to associate with her mom. Not only that, there was a girl down the street, who would play with my daughter at times. Her mom would only allot her daughter an hour to play with my daughter. On top of that, her daughter was everything I secretly wished my daughter to be, popular, a girl scout, smart, well-mannered, confident, a soccer player, etc. Not only that, but the girl never came to our house to see my daughter. Not only was it an insult to my daughter, but it was such an insult to me. Because of my daughter's Aspergers, I don't think it ever hurt her feelings. I always felt like that little girl's mom felt she was just being nice and doing me a favor by letting her daughter play with mine, and yeah, she was. It's a horrible situation to have to be in though. I understood perfectly why she wouldn't want her daughter to be around mine. My daughter was obnoxious, a wild child, and very self centered.-- If you're around someone with Aspergers for long, for the most part, you will learn rather quickly that their interests are very finite. They may want to talk about cars or animals or whatever, and they won't find at all what you have to say to be interesting. They will incessantly drone on and on about stuff that they like and care about, which makes it very hard to have a dialogue with them, unless you are just as obsessed with the same subject matter. So, my daughter really didn't have any friends.
Actually, there was a girl, who lived on the same part of town, that she was friends with outside of school for one weekend, and I never allowed that girl over again. It was an awful experience. It was when my son was still an infant, and I had to watch this girl like a hawk around him. She'd pick him up and bounce him, even though I told her repeatedly "no". She had special needs too, by the way. She also would be bossy towards my daughter and wanted to tell me how to make oatmeal. I couldn't just make oatmeal. It had to be a certain way. There was also baggage brought in by her adoptive mom, which didn't help foster this new friendship at all. Her mom was negative about my daughter from the get go and just told me we'd observe our kids and if their habits started negatively rubbing off on the other, we'd keep them separate. My daughter was at her house for a while, and she had company over and called me to pick the girls up because she basically wanted them out of her hair. Then, her daughter over at my house kept insisting she needed medicine, which ok. I have a daughter, who takes medicine, so no big deal, although I would have preferred her mom had given it to me before I left her house. So, I go to get it, and her mom tells me her daughter was making up stories and not to listen to her. The drama went on and on, so I just decided I had enough drama with my own daughter and that I didn't need theirs to carry on along with mine. So, for a long time, my daughter and son shared my son's friends as playmates and that was fine. Count your blessings, really! It was nice they had someone to play with and were happy.
So, in 7th grade, my daughter had a friend. Then, shortly thereafter, we moved but stayed in the same school district, so my daughter maintained this friend until here recent. They didn't hang around each other all that often and maybe got together about once every few months. Sadly, for this birthday, they are no longer friends, but after the rough beginnings and knowing how fickle human nature can be from my own experiences, I just accept it and move on.
What's really been a saving grace, along with the one friend my daughter had, for birthdays was family members, who got together with us, close friends, and the wonderful kids and parents in our new neighborhood, who have been very supportive of our entire family and especially my daughter. The best kind of people in the world, as far as I'm concerned, are those, who will accept you and your offspring, defects and all. I have little use for others.
More later...
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