That moment when YOUR child becomes the 1 in the statistics

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Nah. Just a hyperverbal Aspie in a good mood.

Criss,

There is no need to feel guilty. Based on how you describe Thomas, even if you had tried to get him interventions sooner, you most likely would not have succeeded. Early intervention seems to be designed and intended for more directly "obvious" communication issues. One can be autistic and "pass" as NT with no diagnosis and be left to navigate with no help. (Many of the parents here, are in this category.) So he is actually in a really good place, though it may not seem it.

As you say, the diagnosis now will help you fight for him and know when you need to cut him slack or explain things in a different way.

I wouldn't keep it a secret at 13, as I am sure he knows he has been being evaluated. I would just tell him that you now know why he has trouble with certain things, and now you have a means to help him. This is assuming he recognizes he has these issues. (My 8 yr is completely oblivious, and it has been hard to get him to understand without introducing a stigma, so we tread lightly.)

It sounds to me that although he doesn't have many friends he has allies that he identifies with and protects. He might be able to create a social group out of it, I don't know. Being in a social group, even if an uncool one, can insulate a kid from bullying, to at least some degree.

You will need to talk to someone in your school district about how to get him the help he needs. If he has issues with handwriting, then he might be eligible for occupational therapy as well as modification and accommodations. If he has pragmatic language issues, he might be eligible for speech therapy, even if he has no actual difficulty speaking. He may need help with organizing his school work and dealing with changing classes. These are just examples.

But if you every want to be a motivational speaker, come get me and we can run away togethr and .....


wait for it........

Live in a VAN, DOWN BY THE RIVER!! !! !


(SNL joke - please tell me you are old enough to get it)

Short term, you need to discover bungee laces. The ones sold for triathletes.

You and your son will love them.

And in a year or two your son may actually suddenly understand how to tie shoes. It happens weirdly like that. One day you just accept it will never happen, and another your child tells you to skip the bungee laces, he knows how to tie the shoes and can even do it fairly quickly.

Unfortunately, I have a work deadline, or I'd start spilling all sorts of things. Main thing to know is that middle school is probably the most difficult socially and it can actually get better in high school. It has for my son, anyway. He is not teased. He is well accepted. He doesn't have many close friends because he does not want many close friends, but I observe and am pretty sure he could if he chose it. True, we live in a pretty special, accepting community, but we aren't the only one in the nation. My son is off IEP, an honors student, active in drama, and active in Boy Scouts. It is going to be OK, I really think it is. Your child sounds amazing.

So true.

http://www.locklaces.com/

Criss, you sound like a wonderful mom and Thomas is a very lucky guy.

Yes, I'm old enough to get it.

Knowing me and you, we'd be more likely to live in a retrofitted school bus out in the woods.

Bungee laces. Velcro. Chore charts.

Jennifer McIlwe Myers. Look her up. She has a freakin' great book on teaching Aspie kids to cope. Because she was an Aspie kid. I LOVE THIS WOMAN. In all caps.

Ditch the guilt. Seriously. YOU DID THE RIGHT THING. As mildly affected as Thomas is, getting earlier intervention could have helped...

...and it could have hurt. It could have hurt A LOT. He could already have a head full of "I'm broken, I'm disabled, I can't, I give up." I don't know where you are at, but that's still the prevailing attitude toward Asperger's in a lot of the States. I got slammed with that in 2011!!

Early intervention could have helped. But there's a really good chance that it could have hurt, too. Broken Syndrome is a hell of a lot harder to deal with than Asperger's. My therapist spends 4 hours a month trying to teach it out of me, and she says it's actually the single most common problem she runs into in the teenagers with Asperger's she sees. It's not Asperger's she's treating most of the time-- it's depression and sh***y self-esteem. She spends a lot of time cussing the system that got this idea into these kids' heads. So actually you very well might have done him a favor.

The bullying really won't ever end. It never ended for me, it never ended for other Aspies I know, it never ended for really anyone I know. Some bullies grow up, but some just grow older. There will always be bullies. Don't teach him to STOP bullies-- teach him not to let them get to him. Teach him to avoid being a target (but it will take years). Teach him to ignore them. Teach him to stand up for himself in acceptable ways, by going through proper channels.

It will never go away. But it does get better, and we do get better at dealing with it.

As far as pushing and shoving your kid to be what you want, because it's what you want-- Honey, if you've figured out when your kid is 13 that that's what you're doing, and that it's not a good idea, and that it's something that you want, to a reasonable degree, to stop doing, CONGRATULATE YOURSELF. You are way ahead of the game.

Most people don't figure that out until their kid is 20-something. My FIL NEVER figured it out. The only person I know who had it down pat, from the word "Go," was my dad...

...and he was an Aspie. They say Aspie parents tend not to have expectations like that for their kids-- that Aspie parents' expectations pretty much stop at, "I expect to know where you are" and "I expect you to be quiet and let me watch this movie."

It's not really a matter of learning to have NO EXPECTATIONS. It's more a matter of learning not to have SPECIFIC EXPECTATIONS. It's the difference between, "I expect you to get a great date for the Junior Prom and then get into a good premed program, finish medical school with honors, marry a beautiful woman, have 2 kids, and become a surgeon" and "I expect you to treat others with respect, abide by the spirit if not the letter of the law, do your best, figure out what makes you happy, and go after it."

Einstein couldn't tie his shoes.


I'm glad you are processing everything. I hope you stick around,

Criss, I didn't have time to read all the other posts, but please stay here at WP and read other threads. That is the first thing I did when my son was dxd, and that has made all the difference. I love, love, LOVE learning from adult Aspies themselves. They give me great wisdom and understanding and confidence in how to go forward with my son. You will see plenty of bitter posts from bitter Aspies, but that's mostly because they were ill-treated. It's easy to still get the info you need. ''

The most beneficial threads I read at the beginning changed how I disciplined my son (8yo at the time). My first post was asking about why my son freaked out when he received a standing novation honor. So, there are plenty of answers here! Just keep reading, and if you have any specific questions, there are plenty of great people here to answer.

Haven't made it past the quoted post yet, so forgive me if others have already said what I am about to say.

It may help you to put things into perspective if you can keep two things in mind 1) some of us have ASD ourselves, or at least some traits, so abrasiveness is often unintended and 2) most of us have been scammed at one point or other on the internet. One such scam can involve new posters who either pass themselves off as parents new to the diagnosis or as someone with a diagnosis and then it can devolve quickly into a pack of lies, requests for donations, and sham "advice" from people who have more experience with being con artists or histrionic than being autistic. Stick around long enough and your "BS sensor" will be piqued a few times as well. Unfortunately, sometimes it is piqued inappropriately. But once you have seen it, it's hard not to see potential warning signs. Kind of like how after your kid is diagnosed, you see symptoms in all sorts of people. Including yourself, your parents, your siblings, your neighbors, etc. It's kind of like one of those things you can't unsee.

Posts such as yours tend to raise our flags because it is not the way people usually "introduce" themselves on the forum. Usually, it goes something like this: Hi. My 12 year/old son was just diagnosed with autism. I am shocked and feeling a bit like I have been kicked in the gut. Will this feeling ever go away? Posts here do not usually resemble a blog entry, but more a conversation. Well, that's not true. Some of us do monologue on occasion and that can kind of look like a blog entry, I suppose, but it's not the norm.

I have a daughter that was diagnosed with ASD just before she turned 2 and her older brother was diagnosed with ADHD and NLD (kinda looks like AS and some argue that maybe they are the same thing) after she was diagnosed. What I found helpful: 1) reading things written by people with AS/ASD. Both stuff on the 'net and books. It helped me feel like I understood better what it was like for them, from their perspective. It also made me more sensitive to the language I use. For example: they do not have a "problem" or something "wrong." Once I understood how that sounded from the other side, I was sickened that the words ever came from my mouth 2) I found books on sensory processing issues (The Out of Sync Child) to be very helpful in understanding the sensory aspects of the condition 3) I found works by Tony Atwood helpful. He writes in a down-to-earth manner that does not catastrophize things. When you are new to this, it is easy to get caught up in a ruminatory deluge of negative thoughts. Things can quickly seem insurmountable. The last thing you need, IMHO, is to align yourself with people who feed into this. Best to surround yourself with people who take a very pragmatic approach that focuses on the fact that thousands of people deal with this every day.

And so will you.

Welcome.

LOL! I have just scrolled through the rest of this thread (can't focus to read now) and it looks like we have a LOT of long, monologue-ish posts going on! So perhaps I will have to eat my words that we do not do it a lot.

Though if I am to be honest, I do it a lot, but it seems like most other people do a better job of managing brevity. I struggle with that a lot

Ahem. Apologies if I go on too much. I can monologue with the best, I'm afraid.

And sorry for being unwelcoming, Criss.

LOL! That's The Farm in Summertown Tennessee! Have you ever been there? We went camping there when the kids were little. It's a commune started in the late 60s/early 70s by Stephen and Ina May Gaskin. They actually still have those buses out there. It's a cool place to visit but I don't know about living there - they are all vegan.

They aren't all vegan anymore, but it's certainly the norm.

Criss

Welcome to WP. My little guy was dx about 6 mo ago. At least for me it took a few weeks to get over myself and the misinformation. I think it would have been faster if I would have come here first, so you are way ahead of the game.

I have gotten some really great advice and recommendation from this group. I hope you stick around.

Those what ifs could all happen, and should be dealt with when the time comes...if he is having trouble in school perhaps he needs academic help, if he's having problems with bullying that needs to be addressed sometimes there are options outside of traditional public school worth looking into. Perhaps he could make it through college with proper support, maybe college will be too much, then there are trade schools or finding work...if he ends up unable to work there is SSI, though I think there are programs to help people with conditions like autism find jobs.

And what if he ends up not wanting to get married or have children? If he does its not impossible...also living at home as an adult isn't that bad if you live with supportive people, the question would be would you have a problem with him not moving out at adulthood?

Whatever you do don't tell him what his limits are based on other people with autism, work with him to find out what his limitations are...and perhaps he might need therapy if he experiences depression or anxiety issues. But try not to be discouraging otherwise it would be hard for him to gain confidence and reach his full potential....but also try not to push to hard and acknowledge when he expresses what limitations he has. Just keep in mind there are options. Having a parent who wants to put in the effort to help and do what is best for their child already improves his odds of a full-filling life. This is based on my experience of having the disorder and growing up with it undiagnosed till I was 23 it wasn't acknowledged that I had a disorder which didn't help me and was damaging, but at the same time if i was diagnosed early and told at say the age 8 I'd never do this or that then I wouldn't have tried to do anything so either extreme isn't good.

the OP has not posted since her original 3 posts. I pmed her and welcomed her. Begged her not to leave. No response. Some people [OOM] for one, said some awesome things. A few of you, though, had no problem sending her straight into Autism Speaks welcoming arms.