What do YOU tell yourself?! !(to feel better)

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You know the story.... (I hope)
Your determined to do something resonably normal, even though it probably won't end well. The signs are all there: whinging, delaying, rudeness, etc, but you choose to ignore it all.
"Come on, it'll be good for you ", you say. Later when you are home, humiliated, frustrated, angry at both yourself and them, you wonder why you put yourself through it!?

Please tell me this happens to others and what you do/say to make yourself feel better.

I know the feeling.
Live and learn and move on? Sometimes it's important enough to try to figure it out, and sometimes I have a clue as to why some things work and some don't. And sometimes it's just not worth it because there is no answer.

And sometimes I say, "I knew I shouldn't have had that lobotomy" and just move on.

PS: I like your "stress reduction kit." I might even use it.

Instead of getting humiliated and angry, I would look carefully at the situation for things you could change to make it better for yourself and your child for next time. For instance, a different or shorter outing, better time of day to go, more preteaching so your child knows what to expect? Or investigate any sensory problems that may have caused them to act out.

If we have a miserable time during an activity, it is usually because the activity needs to be modified in some way. There are many "reasonably normal" things that just don't work well for our sons, so we choose different activities that we all like, and we make sure they have choices about where we go and when, whenever possible. Even if we want to go somewhere that they enjoy, we may have to change plans if they are just too tired or having an "off" day (which happened last weekend with an outing that we had planned to the zoo).

So I guess what I say to make myself feel better is "what can we do differently to make it better next time?"

i am glad most of my money is in a bank, and i am glad that the sector of the housing market that has been spared from the property price slump is the sector in which my 2 houses are.
i also believe strongly that the GFC is over, and lot's of suppressed optimism is going to come to the fore, and i am buying lots of shares (with money i can afford to lose) at this time because there are bargain basement prices everywhere on the stock market.

this is a time for anyone who wants to make money to take advantage of this phase when nearly all stocks are temporarily about 40%-60% cheaper than their real (pre crisis) value.

killings will be made by people who can guage the market, and i am optimistic that it is time to start buying stocks.

money is a good panacea. it makes going to sleep easy when you are making some, even if your social life is pathetic.

pssst -- B9 --
Don't tell anyone, we little people are not supposed to know,
but the real crash shouldn't happen for another five years or so.
This little one is for people who want to bail out early.
Real Estate, if it's paid up with no mortgage, is the only thing that will survive.
That's why they call it "Real Estate."

"Everything could be worst"

"at least i can laugh about it"

"and that's how you learn"

":D as long as i keep learning and laughing from it it's ok"

It used to happen a lot; rarely happens now. I guess I've gotten much more used to who the various members of my family are and to the good sides of meeting all the unique needs. Maybe all the "normal" has washed out of us, lol. Regardless, we're in a pretty good space right now.

Still ... some things we can do now may well have been the result of training all of us, of having pushed through it, found the weak spots, and fixed them. Traveling, for example. I don't dread it nearly as much as I used to. We kind of have our way now.

Sooo ... sometimes it really is an investment. And investments tend to pay off. That is what you tell yourself.

Just be careful where you put your "money."

This happens to us, too. I have got to get it into my head that CME just doesn't care about the cute little kids' movies that come out. That taking him to a full length movie, no matter the subject or characters, is a waste of time, money and energy.

Usually, they are the things that I think are fun for him that turn out to be disasters. Hindsight is 20/20.

When i look apon the situation in hindsight, I know how and why I should have done things differently to prevent the episode. I chose to ingnore the signs, so my heart was overuling my head.
Using that metaphor, I guess my heart wanted to prove that we can do something normal to my head. "We can make him understand and see our reasoning. Today will be the day that he will understand concequences." (LOL)

Later on, he was sent to his room to calm down with the instructions that I didn't want to talk to him for a while as he has to try and realise what his actions and words can do to other people around him. The next morning it was like nothing had happened of course. I foolishly just really wanted him to realise and understand, acknowledge that he had upset me.

I am not stupid. I know that this is the way he is and probably will always be. But as a parent, as much as you try and deal with it, usually quite well, (or not so well!), a small part of me still hopes that he will say, "Sorry mum."

PS. Sorry for a bit of a rant. Again, what do you tell yourself to cheer up? Those with older children, do you always have this struggle inside yourselves?

Did you think to explain this to him? I am no expert but I have found with my son that I often have to explain these sort of things to him. My son is different but not stupid. Often he just doesn't realise what I want him to do. It doesn't occur to him but when I talk to him about how something he has done has hurt me he really is sorry. He just hadn't looked at it this way. My Husband has trouble with remembering to say "I feel" and gets angry. The two go head to head and it goes nowhere. I have to keep reminding him to explain in a calm way how he is feeling about the situation. He admits it works better but finds it hard.

I don't know if this will work for you but if your son hasn't realised he has hurt you he won't think to say "sorry Mum". He may just feel you were angry and it was better not to mention it now that you have calmed down.

I used to get very depressed about these sorts of things.....i'd take it personally....i just end up reminding myself that sometimes i expect too much. that hearing an apology or compliment will not happen unless i prompt it.....i find other things to boost my spirits......having to prompt someone else to apologize or compliment you just seems so false. but, i'm hoping that some day, son will actually figure these things out.

I really don't. At this point, we have the life we have and everyone has adjusted and learned a little. We've got a balance that we can all live with, for the most part. But I do remember the days. They were there. If it was important enough to me, I kept at it until we all figured it out. A lot of other things I just let slip out of my life. So what you tell yourself is that you are investing in a learning process.

My kids are still fairly young. However, when we've had disastrous outings, the brighter side is that we actually got out of the house and attempted an activity. Hindsight being 20/20 of course, we know now to weigh our options and stack the deck in everyone's favor.

Then again, sometimes the s**t just hits the fan and we have no way of knowing or controling the outcome.

AS11, I can say from experience -- IT DOES GET BETTER.

I have a married 23 year old who was mildly on the spectrum, and a 13 year old who was diagnosed PDD-NOS. I've had embarrassing, rough, anti-social times with both of them, and wondered when it would all end -- when would it ever get better? Your feelings of discouragement and frustration are NORMAL.

I learned to do things in small increments with my boys -- we still did social stuff, but only as much as they could tolerate. Often, it was painful, but because I kept doing these things with them, they eventually learned to adapt over time. Also, you come to realize that the supposedly "normal" kids are not that normal. They have their own problems and inabilities, and sometimes YOUR kid looks good in comparison!

IT DOES GET BETTER.

EXACTLY!
I do take things personally, even though I know in most of these sorts of situations with AS son, shouldn't be taken to heart.



I have tried having talks with him and explaining about others feelings, in particular his family's, but it doesn't sink in. Of course this is part of AS, but is hard to accept sometimes. I remember one occasion though after a bad day and I was trying to get through to him and he seemed to 'click' and started getting upset and crying. I was so shocked and started getting teary too, but I felt that we had accomplished something. Of course that happens rarely.

Every dx of AS should come with a padded cell installed free as standard! (For the parents!!)

Try it frequently with simple terms. I was surprised how effective a friend's frank responses to her children were. Things like "You're being rude. I'll talk with you when you decide to be nicer." with 2 year olds. I started doing it with our kids and you'd be suprised how well it works. Especially for a child with AS who may not be aware they are being rude. With my son, I'll elaborate. "You're being rude by interrupting. I won't talk to you until your mother is done talking." I have to remind every once in a while but it's far more effective than saying "shh" or "be quiet".