Questions about Parenting...advice for a newbie?

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I hope you all don’t mind me posting. I lurk here a lot and the posts are very insightful for me.

I am mom to a 9-year old son who has recently been diagnosed with AS, Expressive Language Disorder and Sensory issues too. Of course we have known for several years that he was different and have parented him accordingly; often being told by well meaning relatives that he obviously needed more discipline and a good spanking when they were witness to any of his spectacular meltdowns over what might seem innocuous to someone else.

Until recently it really wasn’t an issue if there was something. This was part of the reason we didn’t pursue a formal diagnosis. However, in third grade, a lot of things became more of an issue; he was being bullied in school, developed really bad tics, grades slipping and punched a boy over a game of tag. It became ever more apparent that he was not at the same social level as other 9 year old boys. We realized that we needed help and he needed help too.

We began the process in February of this year, and it has been a fight to get anything done through the school. Luckily we have a wonderful child advocate working with us, and hopefully we will be able to get “official” accommodations put into place soon. The bullying is no longer an issue, thankfully. After we found out about it, we were up at the school at 8am the next morning, where my husband threatened them with a lawsuit if someone touched our son again. He had been spit on the day before and all of us were very upset by this incident.

Our son has been going to OT once a week and is learning to recognize and label emotions. He works with another little boy and they have become friends, able to practice facial expressions and tones of voice on each other.

Some questions I have are while he has such trouble expressing himself with regards to emotion…he does feel this emotion, right? So, he loves us; his mom and dad? Will he ever get to where he can really openly show/express this? Can any of you remember this time in your life? Our son has been in on this diagnosis since the beginning and was very relieved to know that he has AS, and is not weird or a freak. (This is how he felt prior to starting OT and receiving a diagnosis). He knows that his brain works differently and that this means that he thinks and sees things differently than we do.

What can I do to make life easier for him? I try so hard to talk to him, and he is just not interested. Put him in front of a computer game or video game though, and he becomes completely and utterly absorbed. I can totally see him being a game tester when he grows up:)

He is very reluctant to talk to me or his dad about anything though. When he was being bullied, our older daughter told us she witnessed it…then he told his OT about it…he never would talk to us about it…why is this? We are close…he will sit with me and watch a movie or TV show…

Any tips as we go through life? I mean, I know that everyone is different; I am just trying to get all the information I possibly can, and what better source than those who have been there and are now grown up...

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Laura – Mom to Remy – 9 years old (AS)

I can't really remember being nine, but do kind of know that as a kid I didn't really express anything that I was feeling so I guess I must have come over as quite flat. Us aspies do feel emotions, I can't say whether your son will get to the point where he expresses how he feels to you, but think it's fair to say that many of us who are 'flat' as children eventually learn how to (clumsily) tell people how they feel.

Umm... tips is a difficult one, the most important thing I can think of is for you to listen to your son and it sounds very much like you're doing this already.

First, thank you for stopping the bullying (and thanks to your daughter for seeing and reporting it). This is very, very important.

All AS/autists are different. My AS son's behavior and temperament as a child were very different from mine. I was more autistic than AS and never expressed affection to my parents and never wanted to be hugged. It was very distressing to my mother especially. I assure you though that I loved my parents and I am sure your son loves you, too. We have feelings, even strong feelings, even if we don't express them. I suppose I didn't start verbally expressing any affection until after I was 20, and then clumsily. My son was much more openly affectionate than I was, and more sensitive to the needs of others to receive affection.

In school, I got hundreds of detentions, mostly for incessantly talking in class, and I never did any homework, and I wouldn't discuss any of this with my parents. My poor mother would tell me she was worried sick and didn't know what was going to become of me (that doesn't help!), and I would be completely unresponsive. Sorry, I can't tell you why I was like that.

The only tip I will offer is to do everything possible to keep your son's confidence and self-esteem high. He sounds like a great kid.

All the best.