Anonymous wrote:What do you do, as a parent, when you find yourself frustrated with your child's personality? I know this is my problem, not my DD's. She is who she is, but I am struggling with accepting her and at the same time, straddling the line between pushing her in certain ways and letting her be her. She is a sweet funny 10 year old girl, but she does not seem to be the least bit curious about the world around her, does not engage much in school (she tells me all the time that she hates school but wishes she liked it), is a little introverted around friends so she's not out there seeking to play with neighborhood kids, never wants to read or draw or create anything, just wants to play on a screen. I can understand the introversion (I was pretty introverted as a kid, and very sensitive to boot), but it drive me crazy to see her not want to engage in ANYTHING. We've taken all screens away from both her and her brother b/c things were getting out of hand. We were very lenient with screentime over the winter and had to go cold turkey but that's a different issue. But now when I tell her to go do something else, she just sits on the couch staring into space unless her younger brother begs her to come outside and play basketball. She has no empathy as far as I can tell (she begs me to let her watch CNN b/c it's "fun," needless to say we don't let her, and I gave her a long talk about how other people's misfortune is tragic and not fun in the least), has no interest in anything really.

I'm wracking my brain to think of ways that I can encourage her to be more curious, as well as to find activities that would suit her personality (i.e. taking her to the indoor rock climbing gym instead of pushing her to do girls on the run, which she refuses to do, although she does seem to like soccer), as well as find some volunteer activities for us as a family to build her empathy. But at the same time, I wonder, am I doing this for her or for me? Am I trying to turn her into someone she's not? Is this just normal kid stuff? It's hard, b/c my son is the opposite. He's curious about everything, loves school, loves playing with friends, total extrovert, out on his bike until it's too dark or cold, etc. I have trained myself (literally) not to compare them, but I worry also that DD is comparing herself to DS and I want her to have something, ANYTHING, to grab on to as her "thing" so that she can feel good and confident about herself. And yes, so that I can stop being so anxious about her. But I guess my main question is, is my anxiety warranted, and if not, how do I deal with it so that it doesn't affect her? I don't want to project my baggage on to her, but at the same time if there are ways I can push her a little, I want to try.

Did any of this make sense? I feel like I'm rambling.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whoa, I cannot believe some of the comments on this thread! Daydreaming is unacceptable. Zero screen time is the only way to proceed. It's very likely "something" and likely ADHD.

I don't understand why you have taken away all video game time. Have you seen all the girl programmers and gamers? Maybe that IS her thing.

Agree that if she likes cooking you could follow it up.

Daydreaming as troublesome? That is PRECISELY how some creatives work. I was/am a huge daydreamer as is one of my sons, who also loves video games. I will suggest to him that after a time he needs to write those down (as do I) as that is the only way to move your ideas forward.

I didn't read closely enough to see how she was lacking empathy, but are you sure?

Also be very careful when trying to "diagnose" or "correct" your kid. We were concerned about school fit for our son that I mentioned, and we had him do the WISC. His scores came back horrible and the psychologist tried to convince us that he had ADHD. We were shocked, this was not our son. We spoke to his teacher and a counselor and they, too, were shocked and then went through all the benchmarks and confirmed that he was fine. He had also scored 99% on the school's standardized tests the week prior (after the WISC score stated would indicate he couldn't keep up with classwork). I'm not saying that your daughter doesn't have ADHD, but if you do get any kind of analysis, I would get a second and third opinion.

Finally, I'm going to end how you started....that a lot of it is your problem. Could it just be that this really is about you? I'm not saying you can't nudge your kid, or change how your family spends time. I even know how it can be difficult when your kid is not how like you or how you envisioned. But the title of your post is, "Need help with my attitude..." not "My daughter is addicted to video games and might have ADHD." I think that's telling. GL!

Very concerning post right there!
PP, your comprehension of special needs is astoundingly misinformed and this will, possibly, affect your son.

People with ADHD can be highly intelligent and perform extremely well because they have developed coping strategies. However, if and when they hit their threshold beyond which they cannot multitask, it all goes south. This often happens in high school when kids are really stressed juggling everything. It happened to me. My IQ is in the gifted range, but I can't multitask, have slow processing speed and procrastinate terribly. Plus the daydreaming! Nobody knew about inattentive ADHD back then, and my poor executive function skills in high school and undergrad precluded me from getting into the career path that I really wanted. I ended up in grad school in a different field, so it wasn't catastrophic, but still... some meds would perhaps have changed my life, literally.

People with ADHD are usually very creative. But they need to develop management skills to control their daydreaming and other habits. No one is saying daydreaming is bad! We are saying that it is a symptom of a brain that might need particular organizational help and impulse control. Right now the label is "ADHD" , but mental health research is in overdrive and it well be called something else in another decade.

Just keep an eye out, PP, for your son's sake.

Anonymous wrote:Whoa, I cannot believe some of the comments on this thread! Daydreaming is unacceptable. Zero screen time is the only way to proceed. It's very likely "something" and likely ADHD.

I don't understand why you have taken away all video game time. Have you seen all the girl programmers and gamers? Maybe that IS her thing.

Agree that if she likes cooking you could follow it up.

Daydreaming as troublesome? That is PRECISELY how some creatives work. I was/am a huge daydreamer as is one of my sons, who also loves video games. I will suggest to him that after a time he needs to write those down (as do I) as that is the only way to move your ideas forward.

I didn't read closely enough to see how she was lacking empathy, but are you sure?

Also be very careful when trying to "diagnose" or "correct" your kid. We were concerned about school fit for our son that I mentioned, and we had him do the WISC. His scores came back horrible and the psychologist tried to convince us that he had ADHD. We were shocked, this was not our son. We spoke to his teacher and a counselor and they, too, were shocked and then went through all the benchmarks and confirmed that he was fine. He had also scored 99% on the school's standardized tests the week prior (after the WISC score stated would indicate he couldn't keep up with classwork). I'm not saying that your daughter doesn't have ADHD, but if you do get any kind of analysis, I would get a second and third opinion.

Finally, I'm going to end how you started....that a lot of it is your problem. Could it just be that this really is about you? I'm not saying you can't nudge your kid, or change how your family spends time. I even know how it can be difficult when your kid is not how like you or how you envisioned. But the title of your post is, "Need help with my attitude..." not "My daughter is addicted to video games and might have ADHD." I think that's telling. GL!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, what you write about your DDs interest in CNN and lack of empathy reminds me about my older brother's daughter. Although there were a few things she said and did that concerned me, otherwise, she seemed like a happy and healthy girl. As a teenager, though, she became increasingly fixated on true crime shows. She'd sit and watch them all day during vacation. When she came to visit me in DC, she begged to go to the Holocaust museum. She'd been in a bad mood throughout the visit, but that changed at the museum. She literally skipped through the museum, beaming the whole time. Bad mood returned afterward, but she was happy during the time we were in the museum.

You won't be surprised to know she received diagnoses of very serious PD once she was old enough for official diagnoses.

I only know the limited amount of information you provide here, but here's my input, fwiw: be very proactive in working to support your DD's development of empathy. Get her involved in volunteer activities that don't have her just sitting on the sterile sidelines of human experience. Serving people in soup kitchens might be a good experience for her. I would even recommend therapy with a really well-recommended therapist, in addition to other appropriate interventions.

I wish we could turn back time to when my niece was 10 or 11 so that we could implement intensive measures to prevent what happened with her. Based on my research about this kind of approach, I think it's possible we could have turned things around.

PD?

Anonymous wrote:OP, what you write about your DDs interest in CNN and lack of empathy reminds me about my older brother's daughter. Although there were a few things she said and did that concerned me, otherwise, she seemed like a happy and healthy girl. As a teenager, though, she became increasingly fixated on true crime shows. She'd sit and watch them all day during vacation. When she came to visit me in DC, she begged to go to the Holocaust museum. She'd been in a bad mood throughout the visit, but that changed at the museum. She literally skipped through the museum, beaming the whole time. Bad mood returned afterward, but she was happy during the time we were in the museum.

You won't be surprised to know she received diagnoses of very serious PD once she was old enough for official diagnoses.

I only know the limited amount of information you provide here, but here's my input, fwiw: be very proactive in working to support your DD's development of empathy. Get her involved in volunteer activities that don't have her just sitting on the sterile sidelines of human experience. Serving people in soup kitchens might be a good experience for her. I would even recommend therapy with a really well-recommended therapist, in addition to other appropriate interventions.

I wish we could turn back time to when my niece was 10 or 11 so that we could implement intensive measures to prevent what happened with her. Based on my research about this kind of approach, I think it's possible we could have turned things around.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, kuddos to you for trying to figure out what's going on. A couple of things:

1. don't be so suspicious of her TV news interest. I was exactly like that. Remember Jones Town? Iran Hostage? I was 8-10 when both of those events happened and my parents could not drag me away from the TV. I'm now a documentary filmmaker. At about this time in development, kids start to understand the concept that bad things can and do happen. She's probably trying to grapple with that. For what it's worth, I'm an extremely empathetic person. Probably to a fault.

2. My husband, who is very smart, has ADHD and was not diagnosed until he was 52, probably because he was smart enough to do work arounds in school and thus fool his teachers. His mother still does not believe the diagnosis! Anyway, ADHD also looks very different in girls, and many teachers, given its higher prevalence in boys, are usually familiar with the more classic male symptoms. So just because teachers haven't said anything doesn't mean you shouldn't have her evaluated.

3. Often a genetic predisposition for anxiety and depression means that you may start to see symptoms slightly earlier than the general population. Often that is pre-adolescence, as the hormones begin to change, especially in girls. So, I don't think you're being paranoid.

4. Please do not believe that you are either born creative or not. Such a load of crap!!! Creativity is expansive and is not just crafts; it's how you approach problem solving, how you interact with people, how you substitute one ingredient for another in a recipe. It requires effort and, most importantly, practice in the process of doing. So just begin small with something you know she has a kernel of interest in. How about taking her to the Newseum? And when you're there, notice what excites her. If it's gruesome, and she's not out back killing animals (!), explore some aspect of that. Just ask questions. I remember my dad asking me about Jonestown massacre, "How do you think he got those people to live in the jungle?" I don't think he meant it as a creative thinking exercise, but it was the first time I had ever really consciously wondered why people do the things they do. Try to stop criticizing her and figure out a way to reach her on her terms.

Good luck!

OP here. I lied, I can't stop checking this thread. Anyway, thank you for this, and especially for the last sentence. This is the kind of tough love I need to hear and I appreciate it. I do criticize her and I hate myself for it. The PP who suggested I go to therapy for this, I hear you. I've think both my DH and I need to do that b/c we're not approaching her on her terms and I don't want to damage her. I can already see the potential for it. But again, it's hard to know when to encourage, when encouragement goes over the line to pushing, and when to hang back.

Also, not sure if I mentioned this above, while we likes to play basketball in our driveway, she's adamant that she doesn't want to play on a team. She does do soccer, willingly. I can't push her to do anything, to be honest, she's pretty stubborn. I want to say that she has a lot of amazing qualities that I really admire. She knows her mind, is not afraid to challenge me, and loves loves loves playing with our dog (so no worries here that she's going to go in the alley and torture animals after seeing gruesome stuff at the newseum). I guess it's just human nature to worry about the negative stuff and not prioritize the positive stuff.