u/Savings-Blueberry732

I’m in my feels tonight and I just need to vent and get this out so that I feel better.

My 11 yo daughter is Level 1, so smart, so creative, so talkative and loves to be around people.

However- people do not love to be around her. Mainly her peers. She is loud, has big emotions and struggles social/emotionally. She stims by swinging and scripting her favorite shows (my little ponies, etc). but inserts her peers names into the characters places. She does this on the playground at school and I know it alienates her from her peers.

We live in a small community. She’s gone to school with the same 60ish kids in her grade since preK. She’s not athletic so she does not participate in sports. She’s does theater but struggles with social/emotional aspects of that as well.

She thinks EVERYONE is her best friend. No one thinks of her as a friend. Even her “friends” that we try to invite over never invite her anywhere. Her “BFF” (her words) has been her bff since 2nd grade and she’s never ONCE been invited to her house. We’ve taken this friend to concerts, out of town, she’s stayed the night, had play dates, etc. and never once been reciprocated. This friend didn’t even invite her to her birthday party.

We walked up to the ice cream stand tonight and this particular friend is there with 3 other classmates. Another group of girls from her class were there as well, altogether. And I just instantly got so mad that she doesn’t get to belong. It breaks my heart, it makes me cry and it makes me so irrationally angry.

Junior high is rough and it’s worse when you don’t fit in. I just want so badly for her to be included occasionally, for her to be invited. Gone are the days when the whole class gets invited to a birthday. She hasn’t been invited to a birthday party in 2 years. Her girl peers are into makeup and hair and TikTok and mine doesn’t care about any of that (I won’t let her have TikTok or a phone). She loves to play with toys, stuffed animals and is very into My Little Ponies.

How do I get over this? How do I not take it so personally? It upsets her too but I don’t think she knows the extent in which she is left out- I do because I see it on her classmates parents’ Facebook posts.

I just wish she had ONE person who chose her. 😭

Thanks for letting me vent and just get my emotions out. I always feel like we are living on this bridge between neurotypical and ASD. And it feels very lonely. I don’t have anyone to talk to who is in my same situation.

Flying from IND TO Las Vegas and arriving at 8:10am, connecting flight to San Diego departs at 9:05am. Would it benefit me to let the FA know we have a short connection time? 2 adults and one child.

It’s much worse on the way back- arrive in Las Vegas at 9:35am and connecting flight to IND departs at 10:15am.

This is our first time flying SWA wirh all of the new policies. We are RR members and have been SW credit card holders for 5+ years. We’ve only flown SW. For me to try to get closer seats, it would have cost me over $600! 🤯

Can anyone recommend playgrounds for kids in the area? We will be staying in Anaheim for 5 days and our child LOVES playgrounds. I figure I would ask Reddit for the best and safest places to go!

Stadium Scavenger Hunt/Bingo

We are visiting CA for the first time next week! Our child is 11 and although we’ve been to a lot of games, I try to make it a little more interesting. I have created a picture scavenger hunt in the shape of a BINGO card (logos, hot dogs, stolen bases, etc). I know some of the stadiums have a Mickey statue decked out in team attire and we have a photo with our child and the Mickey statue at the White Sox game. Is there one at Petco?

We are visiting CA for the first time next week! Our child is 11 and although we’ve been to a lot of games, I try to make it a little more interesting. I have created a picture scavenger hunt in the shape of a BINGO card (with items like the rally monkey, logos, hot dogs, etc). I saw a photo of a Mickey statue decked out in Angels attire and we have a photo with our child and the Mickey statue at the White Sox game. Is Mickey still there? I don’t want to add it to the list if it’s gone!

Yesterday (Thursday) I had my first interview for an assistant principal position (PreK-6 school). I previously worked at this school 10 years ago when I was a new special ed teacher.

I graduated with my admin degree in December 2025, but have been working as a special ed teacher, so I do not have admin experience yet. I’m certified and have been studying since school got out for my state certification test that I take next week.

The district is small, with one preK- 6 building and one 7-12 building. There are 3 (1 principal, one AP, one AP/AD) admin at the 7-12 building and 3 at the preK-6 building. Superintendent is in her 2nd year at the district and the principal for the preK-6 building is new this year, he just got hired in March. I know the other AP from working with him when I was in the district.

I know the state of affairs of their special ed staff and students from when I worked there, plus my own kids go there. They need special ed experience in admin badly. Their special ed program is a mess as they don’t have a district director, it’s a director that oversees a regional area for special education. The AP in this building is over 504 plans as well.

I was one of 4 candidates:
1 man with admin experience
1 woman with admin experience
1 woman with no admin experience (new admin degree like me)
And me, no admin experience but lots of special ed experience that they need…

What are my chances?! Staff had already talked me up to the superintendent and the new principal and I felt my interview went OK… it definitely could have gone better. I was just really nervous. One of the other applicants worked with new principal in the past as well.

They said they would let me know by Monday and that feels agonizing. I did send a follow up email this morning thanking them for their time/ consideration and highlighting some of my skills that I didn’t get to discuss.