Dad of 4, new here

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The skills that took me longest to develop and I would have benefited most from learning at a younger age are executive skills (like time management), study skills (really came to bite me in university), emotional skills (like stress management and dealing with frustration) and social skills. I was getting by well enough in most areas until my teens/late teens, but after that the expectations of school/work rose steeply and it became harder and harder to compensate for my difficulties until it was just impossible. I've learned though. I've developed a system of some sorts for everything I've mentioned in this post (and btw, that's one of the most useful things I've learned, the ability to granularize any problem and develop a system to deal with it). Many things have taken around a decade of focused practice to learn, which makes me wish I had learned them in my teens instead of my twenties. Would definitely have saved me a lot of frustration/heartache/tears.

I would really appreciate any input you have on how you learned the exective and study skills as my dear daughter is struggling now in her teens having coped fine until as you describe the expectations are rising

thank you

Ajk, welcome!
I think I've seen that first paragraph on some other thread (which I can't find right now), I guess you intended to quote it and your 2nd paragraph is addressed to the person you quoted?

Yes absolutely I was quoting and failing to quote at the same time I think it was in this thread but I have been reading all over the place I would love advice on how to best help her

Ajk, now I see you were referring to what Eik wrote earlier in this thread.
Maybe Eik has some answers?

As for myself, not sure if I can give any advice... none of my kids have hit their teens yet.
My own executive skills, study skills, emotional skills and social skills are not good enough to be happy with them but also not bad enough to ever trigger a proper effort on my part to improve them.
One thing I have done a few times in my life is force myself to learn by "jumping into the deep end of the pool" as it were. For example, moving to a new place where I didn't know anyone forced me to develop some social skills, giving up a secure job to become self-employed forced me to develop some work discipline. It kind of works, but the price (stress, money, effort) is quite high, so it's probably not the best method.

Uh..well I'm also not a doctor, but I am a mother of a boy with epilepsy, and those sound like actual seizures....and if the doctor really reacted like that, personally, I would be finding a new doctor ASAP. That's something to get checked out further- it may just be nothing- but I would not automatically assume it is.

Yeah...those don't sound like meltdowns. Those sound like seizures. It could be that meltdowns bring on seizures for your son, and that's why you're having a hard time deciphering what's what. But I agree with others here - you should get that checked out.

Thanks all.
Just asked again what exactly the doc said (I wasn't there, was minding the other kids at the time)
According to her, a few % of all kids have this, including her own kids, it goes away after a few years and it's not necessarily epilepsy - the telltale sign being whether it can happen anytime (epilepsy) or only when the kid is upset (not epilepsy).
We generally trust this doctor more than most we've come across. Proof of a serious misdiagnosis could induce us to find someone else, but otherwise I don't see us starting from scratch with someone we don't know.

In bolded area- what is "this"? A few percent of kids have what exactly?

It's pretty common for epileptic seizures to be triggered by certain things so it still seems bizarre to me that she didn't see any need to look into it further. Screaming/stress is also a very common trigger. That's a trigger for my son- who has had EEGs done and so on. Another one for my son is lack of sleep..

I'm assuming that "this" means "the kind of seizures that RN has had". I say assuming because I was not personally present in that conversation with the doc, so need to rely on my better half's account & translation of it.
Anyway, RN has not had seizures for quite a while, which is consistent with the doc's assertion that "it goes away after a few years". Nevertheless I'm making a mental note to get him checked for epilepsy at some point. But to be honest that's not at the top of my list of priorities right now, there's way too much other stuff going on (some I've written about here, and some I have not).

In other news... looks like there's a long queue (months) to get kids evaluated for ASD here. Apparently there's some kind of tax relief to be had, so now everyone and their dog is queuing up The good news is that it's possible to "jump ship" very easily while still in the queue, they're overwhelmed and glad when people pull out. So we can sign on now and try to find out more about what's ahead in the meantime, and decide later whether to go ahead or not.

We also found places to have it done privately, which is much quicker, but I'm not entirely sure what the point would be. If we're after some kind of professional treatment / therapy (still no idea which of these may be helpful or harmful etc, but let's say for the sake of argument that we want it), then it has to be subsidized or else we'll go broke. So the diagnosis also has to be "inside the system", not done privately "just for our own curiosity".

While I appreciate the harm that can come from trying to second-guess trained professionals, I still feel a need to understand what may come after a diagnosis, and prepare for the various options. I don't think it's wise to blindly rely on people in a position of power doing the best thing despite time constraints and whatever other pressures they're under. Especially since they have no real stake in the outcome of their actions - if they get it wrong, they won't suffer at all, but my family could suffer a lot.

So I would like to try and second-guess them in the wisest possible way - not jumping to conclusions, keeping in mind that I don't have the expertise (apart from knowing my kids better than they do, of course), etc. Specifically, if someone here is able to say something like: "based on your description of your son DM, here are the 3 most commonly prescribed courses of action / treatment for such cases: X, Y, Z" (I would of course keep in mind that there's all kinds of reasons we may get a completely different recommendation), I could then go off and find other parents here on WP whose kids have been through X, Y, Z, or articulate adults who have been through X, Y, Z as kids, and can give their view on it (again keeping in mind that people are different, what was good for them may be bad for DM and vice versa). This would give me at least a *very rough* map of the territory ahead. Probably an unrealistic dream but if any bits of info much appreciated. I'll try to assemble the puzzle myself, as best I can.

Maglevsky,
I understand why it's not at the top of your priority list. My concern was just because I know with my son it has been a major problem, and it has effected his development (primarily speech) and so I saw that and felt the need to relay that info onto you. But four kids is a lot... I only have two and I'm going crazy. I wish you luck with the autism diagnosis. As for treatment,have you looked into any "artsy" things? I don't think those are offensive to any particular group in the autism community (now that I've said that, it'll probably be the next scandal though )- I'm talking about dancing classes, music therapy, etc. You may not even need a diagnosis for those.

Just a quick update to this intermittent sort-of journal....

DM is now getting evaluated (we're halfway thru a series of meetings) at a semi-private sort of place.
Last meeting started off a bit frustrating - they were supposedly checking his cognitive skills but I ended up having to educate them as to how to talk to DM, how to get him to come out of his shell and interact with them rather than just staring at the desk and fidgeting. And these people are supposedly autism experts? I felt like I was teaching them how to do their job, and paying for the privilege.
Still not sure if the result of that evaluation - whatever it may be - will actually help anyone in any way... I guess I'll find out.

RN is also in the queue, but hasn't started. Getting close to 4 years old now and still basically nonverbal. Took him to a speech therapist recently, who found no evidence of any physical speech or hearing impediment and concluded that he's nonverbal because he doesn't understand / doesn't care about the benefits of communicating verbally, for some reason outside her expertise which should be investigated by child-development expert. (No real surprise to me but my better half had a theory going that RN's often angry / disruptive behavior was due to frustration over not being able to talk).

The situation on the ground has also changed in the last couple of months.
DM is coming out of his shell a lot more, talking more, getting angry and frustrated much less frequently, and generally being sweet beyond belief. Still not very "normal" but much happier than before!
RN on the other hand .... pure hell. Recently the only times I've enjoyed being with him are outdoors with very few or no other people around - preferably in a field or forest where no-one cares what he touches / throws / breaks / pisses on. Luckily I quite enjoy hiking & all that sorta stuff, and our oldest is usually up for it too. The other 3 members of the family are less into it, so we often end up splitting up into 2 separate groups for a big part of each weekend. Bit of a shame really, but keeping RN in the house is just unbearable; and dragging the others along on long walks they don't enjoy - what for? So yeah, need to work on that one.

Looking back thru this thread and that post 3 months ago when I talked about DM, it now seems weird that I worried about him more than about RN. Were things really that different such a short while ago?

Still haven't signed either of the boys up for any "artsy" things as WelcomeToHolland suggested, mainly because we just haven't got around to it. Seems like a good thing to do, but for now it would have to be a one-on-one thing, especially with RN. Maybe the whole evaluation process will even help us get part of the cost reimbursed. Let's see.

TL;DR: haven't been on WP much lately, but everyone is still alive and causing trouble, so I'll probably bother y'all with more questions at some point