Am I ignoring his twin's problems?

[DaisyProudfoot]

Hi,

 

I think my NT daughter is trying to tell me something. I mentioned this in the education thread but it was tied up with something to do with my AS son so may be better to do it as a stand alone problem.

 

Please bear in mind I'm new to all this so I'm asking advice before things get out of control.

 

I have five children (my AS son has a twin sister, and they are my third and fourth children - she's twin 1 and he's twin 2, as they say in the medical world, they are nine years old)

 

This is the problem: The form tutor dragged me into school this morning to complain to me about NT twin sister defacing school property and writing death threats to her previous best friend on the school step. She will now go "on report" and she's getting detention and her best friend's mum is being told. She wrote "*** MUST DIE" after they had a fight (apparently they've made up again according to tekker anyway).

 

My problem was I couldn't take it as seriously as the teacher (which was wrong I know) but teacher seems to think my NT daughter meant it, Like she's going to go in with a knife or something and do the dirty deed. I think she was just P****D off at her friend and vented her anger on the school step.

 

Is my daughter becoming the problem child? Am I neglecting his twin because of his problems? She's always been a bit of a trouble-maker but she's obviously getting worse but then she is nine and I reckon the old pre-pubescent hormones are probably starting anyway.

 

I will obviously discuss this incident with daughter tonight but is it common for parents to feel guilty about neglecting the emotions of their other children because they are so tied up with the ASD child? I believe one of the problems is that up until AS son's daignosis he was the naughty one and she was Golden Girl.

 

Daisy

[phasmid]

It could be a bit of the green-eyed monster. She could see her brothers dx as something that has pushed her to one side. This behaviour might well be a way of saying "Oi! I'm here too."

 

As a dad of twins and two others I know how much of a balancing act giving them all equal attention can be. Hang in there. Zemanski's advice of a book for siblings, to explain the issues, is a good idea. It is a big issue for the other children, and they may not understand what his dx means. They may also feel it is to raw a subject to discuss directly with you right now. Don't forget, she may be worried that she could be on the spectrum too - being his twin.

[Guest flutter]

i am lucky that my son, is older and has freedom to go and out and be away form home, but we got suport and eventual diag on the strength of him telling GP that his migrainse were form the stress of living with M

i wonder if this is a "look at me" situation, and maybe your daughter needs to time to herself, with you or someone important to her.

She may feel 2nd best, she may feel that she has to look after bruv, i dunno

but see if she needs some time?

take care

C x

[nightingales]

Hi,

Us too. I just assumed our younger (NT) son was fine -- confident, lively, loud, pretty much textbook child, everything that C wasn't. Then he got expelled from Beavers for appalling behaviour. Ooops.

 

I've spent the summer trying to get better acquainted with him, if that makes sense! True, he doesn't have C's inbuilt problems, but he does have:

stressed parents

broken nights

a brother who worries all the time about poisoning and the end of the world

embarrassment at school (his friends tease him about C's 'baby' behaviour)

restricted leisure because of places C won't go

and, of course...

homework

SATs

annoyingly cute hair (aaaah)

and an irritating little sister. Enough for one perfectly ordinary brat to deal with, I think.

 

Funnily enough, ten minutes a day to play Twister or peel carrots with him has worked wonders. Failing that (some days I have NO uninterrupted minutes), try tickling?

All the best!

Lins