AS girls and puberty

[puffin]

I was wondering if anyone had any good advice on how the subject of puberty should be handled with an AS girl. Although i read her the "Mummy laid an egg" book when she was about 6 - I thought that I would leave the facts of life stuff until she showed and interest herself and asked questions - but what if she doesn't? She is 9? and yet shows no interest in or understanding of boy -girl relationships - she is more interested in her cat and Harry Potter.

 

Does anyone have any tips or advice - or am I worrying too early?

[Gordie]

Personally (being a male Aspie, aged 24), I think you're worrying too early.

 

Your daughter is still young - let her continue to be a child as long as she wants to. There is plenty of time for her to grow up later in her life, when she's ready, and I think that will come all too soon, from a parental point-of-view.

 

I wasn't realistically interested in girls until I was around halfway through my teenage years, I would say. Annoyingly, a few girls were interested in me during my secondary school years, a feeling which was not reciprocated by me, due to my lack of interest in girls generally! I had to fight hard to fob them off sometimes!

 

But since I have had more of an interest in girls, there's been little-to-no interest in me from them. Sod's law, I guess.

 

James

[nautim]

Hi,

 

My oldest daughter is almost 11. We've looked at 'Hair in funny places', also by Babette Cole. It is really good and gets to the point where the boys and girls are interested in each other but doesn't go past that point!

 

I waited until I was seeing signs of puberty starting, then had a chat with her one evening about what changes she might see on her body, that went ok so I went onto discussing periods and what to do at school.

 

I have a copy of what I sent to the school as my explanation of what's happening somewhere if you are interested. It was fairly simplistic but accurate. She appeared to take my explanation in her stride, finding it all quite funny.

 

I have the fortunate/unfortunate role of doing sex ed at school with pupils but it's entirely different when the pupil is your own child somehow!

 

There are some good books around, including some on personal hygiene, which can be an issue at this time.

 

Regards

Nautim

[sylv]

My stepdaughter is nearly 13 years....developing womanhood and had her first crush on an adult...

 

As she is living with her Mum we didnt had that much influence at the whole situation, only the aggrevation when she came and wound everybody up...I have three boys 20, 19 and 9 years, so having a girl around was nice but also difficult in that stage...as well because my stepdaughter seems not to accept me anyway.

 

So I am really looking forward for more replies here too.....

 

 

Thanks for listening,

 

SylvXXX

[Kathryn]

Hi puffin,

 

As the parent of a 16 year old girl I'm interested in this one too.

 

I agree that there is no need to bombard your daughter with information she's not ready for, I think emotionally and socially girls with AS lag behind their NT peers. My daughter was similarly uninterested in the whole issue at that age. She said that she became bewildered when everybody in the junior school playground suddenly started giggling about sex. She knew the facts of life, as she was an avid reader of encyclopaedias - she just couldn't understand what the fuss was about. She was more interested in swopping Pokemon cards.

 

I think it's a good idea though to prepare her well in advance for periods and the other changes that will happen to her body so that she knows what to expect and is reassured that it's all normal.

 

A note of caution, be wary of literal interpretations! I thought I had done everything right in answering my daughter's questions about the female cycle fully and frankly. Recently, however, she confessed that the idea of her ovaries releasing an egg every month had worried her for ages when she was younger. The only "eggs" in her experience were those laid by chickens...

 

 

K