Advice from Adult Autistics Please!

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I remember kindergarten, this was before, my lack of social skills caught up with me. I was pretty popular. Then the next year, No... I thought kindergarten was difficult, all it focused on was hand writing. Which, I'm really bad at it. My teachers can't read my hand writing, half the time. It's more of a struggle to make it readable than to do the work. Despite that, I'm still bad at typing. Oh, wait the title. Umm... Well, I feel shunned.

^Pieplup, I see your insight/input as being equally valuable to the conversation, as the next person's, and I bet the OP would agree and welcomes your insight! : )

I figured it was a simple error. I was really confused for a minute until I figured things out. I thought my post had been erased! It was just in the other thread.

He's probably doing precisely because he's tired and worn out, he's getting rid of pent up nervous energy so that he can relax and sleep. I did exactly the same sort of thing myself, lots of kids get "hyper" before they go to sleep and probably for the same reason.

Well, thanks.

I think you've summed it up well. It's almost like a tic for me, which gets worse when I am uncomfortable or overwhelmed.

It's nice to see people search out another POV.

My advice is to not focus too much on autism label and don't make his childhood all about autism.
Give him help within reason, but let him grow up happy and free.
Push him to go out of his comfort zone often, e.g. talk to people, do things for himself.
Let him make mistakes.
Making mistakes and having mishaps is a great part of childhood.
Don't surround him with aides and special programs in school, those can isolate him and hold him back from learning what he needs to be an independent adult.

I would not say making mistakes is great part of childhood but a sometimes heartbreaking and a neccessarly part of growing up, a fact that is often forgotten in today's everybody gets a trophy culture. I am not advocating traumatizing him to teach him a lesson, he is a kid after all and we all need to be helped at times but do not overdue it. But to become a happy adult one has to be allowed to figure out who one is.

I would advise only worrying about behavoirs that are harmful to him or others.

Pieplup,
I'm so sorry the title was isolating, I think I just meant "older" people, not "adult" if you don't like that term In fact, you perspective is very important because you remember KG and because LM still has to go through your current age, so anything you have for me that can help make us better parents to LM, please, please do share!
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I'm sorry that school kinda sucked for you....it did for me too but then college was incredibly liberating because you can just focus on what you WANT to study

MZ

Hi Mjr,

Thanks for your insight! And thank you for supporting our "quest for insight". All of you have been so generous with your feedback. I'm sure all of you are intimately familiar with this but for us it is such a push and pull between being told by "professionals" in the field that LM is on some critical time line where if he doesn't "accquire certain skills" by the time he's x or y years old then it's essentially never going to happen. So with that kind of pressure, you just want to throw EVERYTHING possibly therapeutic at him and give everything your best shot. On the other hand, I am finding by talking with people on the spectrum that that kind of thinking is outdated, incorrect and often does more harm then good. We try to use LM's own response as a barometer, so things he seems to want to go to ( eg, swim class, music therapy, school) we go no matter what and if he starts resisting something, we know to look at it closely.

We are hoping as soon as he can that he is able to grow up with some mentors from the autism community!

MZ

Hi Everyone,
Posting a new question because you were all so helpful with our last one. LM is doing wonderfully at his new school which is very supportive and uses a lot of visuals- he's a VERY visual learner. Since he started there, he is excited to go to school every day and actually gets sad on the weekends because he can't go? He's also become more verbal but is now struggling with "getting stuck" verbally, so he will repeat something with increasing anxiety but it's something that we can't really "answer" sometimes. Or if we do answer, it doesn't seem to help and he will keep repeating it. It's heart breaking to see him trying to communicate and to see his tiny 5 year old self so anxious. I would love ANY insight you have into how I can help him!

Thank you!

What do you mean by "can't answer sometimes", or why are you not able to answer?

It might help you to research the terms "stimming" and "perseverating". The behavior you were originally concerned about seems like an example of stimming to me. Your most recent concern may be explained by perseverance.

Thanks for the feedback, some clarifications

"can't answer"- could be a) I physically can't because I'm on the phone or talking to a teacher or dealing with my toddler

b) can't answer because his speech is limited and can be unclear so I may not KNOW the answer


YippySkippy- Thanks I realize it is what they label "perseverating" sometimes but a) the few techniques I read on how to change that up are too complex for LM currently and b) It isn't always perseverating because sometimes he is using a script between him and I to connect and "converse" with me the only way he currently can. So for example he says the first part of a line from a Disney movie and he knows I will say the next. That is his way of connecting with me It starts like that but sometimes he'll repeat it 10/11 times and start getting anxious.

In general LM has a lot of anxiety and finds transitions very hard