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Teenage daughter wants nothing to do with me

L

Leah

New Member
As I start to type this, I realize I will not be able to explain fully. DD was dxd with mild autism last December. She is 16. Just a month or two ago, she stopped talking to me unless she's complaining or wants something. I have another son, 20, who never did this. What I am wondering is of she will stop this and we can have some sort of relationship and whether I can do anything to change it. Or, should I just leave her alone. She has a therapist and she doesn't act this way with her dad. Thanks.
 
Suddenly reducing communication with a parent is not an autism thing, it is an individual+circumstances thing (although autism may factor into things in a significant way when you consider the reasons for it and how you might go about trying to increase communication).....many would argue it's just a normal teenager thing.

Best advice I can offer is to talk to her. Tell her directly what you have noticed about the patterns in her communication with you, tell her how you feel, ask her if there is a problem (like is she upset with you, does she find it difficult to talk to you, etc.), tell her you'd like to talk to her more -- to just talk about whatever things you'd like to talk about and explain why you'd like to talk more about those things.

If that sort of direct approach fails, you could try to find out about her interests and then try to interact with her around those interests.
 
Leah said:
She is 16. Just a month or two ago, she stopped talking to me unless she's complaining or wants something. I have another son, 20, who never did this. What I am wondering is of she will stop this and we can have some sort of relationship and whether I can do anything to change it. Or, should I just leave her alone. She has a therapist and she doesn't act this way with her dad.
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A relationship is any sort of nature. It’s just unfortunate for you that at this stage in her life this is how she is and I wouldn’t compare her to anyone else. Give her the time and space she needs and she will gravitate towards you in her own time. Forcing it won’t do much wonders. I’m sure she still loves you in her own way even though it may not show. This won’t last forever as people do change within time and puberty is hard on anyone.
 
I didn’t get along with my mother between the ages of 16 and 18 when i left home. It didn’t have anything to do with being an Aspie, it had more to do with discovering boys!
Also she just started therapy which stirs up emotions in anybody, so there is that, misplaced anger maybe?
For now be glad she isn’t yelling at you!
 
Leah l asked that question because of the situation where there is some parental alienation syndrome in a child. It often arises when the offending parent has a personality disorders.

I am not saying this is the case, just that this scenario needs to be kept in mind till it can be discounted because it has to be handled very carefully indeed if the child is not to be alienated more by the targeted parent and confronting them is not the way to go.
 
My NT sister was like this when she went through puberty. It eventually stopped, but it took her a long time.
 
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Thinking back on feelings I had towards parents growing up, I remember a period of being complaining
and unruly towards my mother when I was around 8-10.
That's younger than the teenager, but, I do remember it was a kind of resentment as I felt she was trying
to "mold" me to be what she wanted. Like a mini-her. And I was not a mini-her.
We had a lot of completely different views at that age.
I wasn't that way with my father either, because he wasn't around as much due to work and he never
tried to make me anything more than what I was.
He accepted me without trying to make me conform to any certain beliefs or ways of acting.

Don't know if there could be a feeling like this or not in your daughter's case.
Mom eventually saw I was not changing to fit someone else's ideals and I never went through
the typical puberty rebellions, thankfully.
 
Both myself and my NT sister went through phases like this when we were teenagers. I can't speak for my sister, but for me the behaviour really had nothing to do with my mum, I was just unhappy and my mum was a convenient target to share the misery with. The phase lasted... 2 years maybe? We both now get along great with mum, and I've apologised for being an awful teenager and making her life miserable. Do you have reason to think it's anything more than just a bratty teenaged phase? Teenaged girls are notorious for having bad relationships with their mums, but the great thing about bratty teenaged phases is that they're easily fixed by time, she'll grow up eventually.

Do you have contact with her therapist at all? If so it might be a good idea to just raise the issue with the therapist, see if they can subtly try to get to the bottom of it. But be aware that if your daughter thinks you're interfering she might not be happy about it. Otherwise just leaving her alone, giving her space and independence to figure things out for herself could be best.
 
Seems perhaps you are an enabler. In other words, you give in too quickly and thus, she sees you as easy bait. She also have very little respect for you and would go with you giving into her too easy.

I think that once you stop giving into her whims etc, that she may learn to respect you a bit more.
 
I raised four - two boys and two girls. My oldest son went 5 years not speaking to me. My younger son had the attitude that he would do what he wanted and I couldn't legally do a thing about it. My oldest daughter hated me. My youngest daughter - I was her best friend and she wanted to hang around me more than her own friends. I was the same mom to all of them. But now they are grown and they all like me again. :)
 
Leah said:
As I start to type this, I realize I will not be able to explain fully. DD was dxd with mild autism last December. She is 16. Just a month or two ago, she stopped talking to me unless she's complaining or wants something. I have another son, 20, who never did this. What I am wondering is of she will stop this and we can have some sort of relationship and whether I can do anything to change it. Or, should I just leave her alone. She has a therapist and she doesn't act this way with her dad. Thanks.
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I must ask, has she directly told you that she wants nothing to do with you; as that very well may be a wrongfully assumption if so. -- I am not gonna compare her to myself but I do the same thing to certain people in my life; I generally do not talk to my Brother and his Wife except on rare occasions; not that I don't "like them", but rather the opposite (I feel comfortable around them, in which cause I just don't feel like speaking at all for some reason "selective mutism").

- What I am trying to say is your Daughter is Autistic, it's not best to assume that her not talking to you is automatically because she doesn't like you; it can get very, very complex; a lot more so than Neurotypical Teenagers.
 
I think mom's also just tend to be easier targets - there is nothing threatening or intimidating about us
 
Hi Leah :)

welcome to af.png
 
I went through a time where I wasn't nice to my mom either. I would constantly snap at her and argue with her. She didn't do anything to deserve it, I was just in an irritable and careless stage in my life. She just happened to be an easy target. When I was told that it hurt her feelings I felt bad and started being nicer to my mom again. I was in my late preteens/early teens then.

It probably has nothing to do with you, she is just going through a period where "moms aren't cool and are nags". You could sit her down and tell her, "It makes me feel bad when you don't talk to me unless you want something. I want to know what is going on in your life." But you can't force her to seek you out, so if she chooses not to then that's on her.
 
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