When our fae was first diagnosed I was warned by many people that she would not like cuddles or being touched at all. I was told this by well meaning people full of sympathy. If I was able to raise a single eyebrow at that I would have, as it was I just smiled sardonically and nodded. My daughter has a lot in common with a python: She likes to grab onto you and Not. Let. Go. There have been times that I have been concerned about my ability to breathe when she has latched onto my neck.
In fact, our daughter is not standoffish at all. We have the opposite problem. She is hyper-affectionate to everyone. She doles out hugs and kisses like they are going out of fashion, she high-fives everyone from the shopping trolley as we walk around the supermarket and will latch onto random parents (and grandparents) at soft play and encourage them to join in. Leading to often awkward conversations where we try to explain delicately that octogenarians generally are neither necessarily willing nor able to crawl through tunnels or dive into ball pits.
She has also been known to dive bomb any available adult already in said ball pits, and on one notable occasion hugged an electrician as he arrived at our house. This was of great surprise to him and chagrin to us, as he was only coming back to fix the mess he made by flooding the kitchen the day before. None of this really worries her though. (For future reference if your electrician needs to know in a hurry where the stopcock is. it’s not a good sign!)
Her latest favorite targets are the teachers and LSAs at her school. She has used this to great advantage to ingratiate herself with all staff that work there. It turns out that the secret to success in school is to be non-verbal and hug a lot. Being small & blonde with big blue eyes probably helps, but mostly it’s not speaking and hugging.
So where am I going with all this? Autism is a condition that was first studied and predominantly diagnosed in boys: this is a statement of fact. It turns out, it can present very differently in girls, also a statement of fact. It turns out that girls can, and often unknowingly will, ‘mask’ their symptoms better – probably fact, but I can’t find reliable sources to hand on this, just a lot of anecdotal evidence. So, just because your fae doesn’t “tick the boxes” for Autism (and especially if they’re a girl) it doesn’t mean they are not on the spectrum. It is a spectrum and it can present very differently in girls to boys.
Finally, what I have noticed is that how my daughter’s autism affects her is changing with her age: she has recently become very sensitive to noise and school is now exhausting her in a way it never used to. She stims more, and needs more downtime. You need to be flexible with your approach as age can, and for us does, play a factor in her behavior.
Raising the Modern Fae 