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Positive Improvement

Renewed's picture

Submitted by Renewed on Mon, 01/03/2022 - 7:51pm

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Adult Stepchildren

DH and I had a talk shortly after I made my last post. He has been having SD help around here. She's been out shoveling and pretty much cleans up after every meal. I suggested she cut an avocado before dinner tonight and after first saying she'd never cut an avocado in her life, she did it.

She mostly stays in her room but does whatever he asks her to do and he has been having her do some sort of helping every single day.

With more than a week of it and it's remaining consistent, I'm finding that my own irritation is going away. I'm also seeing that I can't really help her grow up if I'm always gritting my teeth around her.

Hopefully as my own irritation diminishes, we can be on an upward cycle where I can also suggest in *kind* ways some of the things she needs to do to grow up.

 

JRI's picture

Submitted by JRI on Mon, 01/03/2022 - 8:40pm

Sounds better!

tog redux's picture

Submitted by tog redux on Tue, 01/04/2022 - 6:09am

I'm glad your DH could hear your concerns, that's half the battle. Hopefully he can see that pushing his daughter to learn life skills is good for her, and even with autism, she's perfectly capable of learning them. I'm sure he can find Autism  support groups for parents, online or in person, they have sprung up everywhere. 

caninelover's picture

Submitted by caninelover on Tue, 01/04/2022 - 10:26am

that the improvement continues!

CLove's picture

Submitted by CLove on Tue, 01/04/2022 - 10:49am

And set the table?

Sorry - but any improvement is good. MY SD15 - she rarely offers to help out and will stay all day in her room only coming out to eat and poke her head out to ask "whats for dinner?"

So, I hope that the improvement continues!

Renewed's picture

Submitted by Renewed on Wed, 01/05/2022 - 12:03am

Yes, I hope we can reach a point where she helps with the cooking. She's almost 22. He does call her down many nights to set the table and as long as she's helping with something, and I'm not cleaning up after her, I'm fine. But for her own sake, she should be able to do something other than microwave a TV dinner. My daughters were making entire Thanksgiving dinners at her age.

Regardless, I did find that I could nicely mention tonight that the silverware was all mixed up. There are two sets kept in two different drawers that she'd been mixing together. Not that big a deal, really. But she hadn't realized and I trust it'll be put away correctly now. 

She's now putting her dishes in the dishwasher and helping clean up after every meal. I also realized that some of her time up in her bedroom is working on a major application for a pretty big-deal job/internship before graduate school.

I'm feeling much better about things.