A confirmed diagnosis of my son

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Sooo..
Two weeks ago, my son was formally diagnosed, with a 44 page report, as being on the spectrum. They are not entirely sure he qualifies to be deemed to having full-blown Aspergers but, he is now on the spectrum, and we've had to change his school.

The changes have been dramatic, and intense. My wife has taken it hard, even though we knew this was the likely outcome.

Changing the school was the biggest positive change we made, he was taken out of a mainstream school and put into a school specifically for children with ASD/Aspergers. The outcome of this program, is to get him to be literate, to the level where he can either take up a trade, or get into university. In case you do wonder about this, where I live, our psychiatrist has made it possible for many Aspies to be given concessions in our universities.

Amazingly, I am OK with this, somewhat relieved, and filled with hope that he will make it, and not have to endure the massive struggle I have had to go through in life.

Your son is blessed to have a parent like you. A parent who understands and can be optimistic because, well, you understand how bad it can be without the help and changes. Your wife will more than likely come around when she sees the positive impact it has for your son.

I think it's amazing there are schools like that. I feel like I am doing the equivalent of herding cats in just trying to get my son's school to give him an IEP in a timely manner, lol.

Thanks, in regard to myself, its like I am picking up the pieces at 41 years of age and starting over.

I was about to be outraged that they sent him to a different school all the way. But then I saw that you live in South Africa. I don't know how things are there. Here in the US, students have a right to mainstreaming. That means that kids with disabilities go to the same school and get the same lessons as kids without disabilities. They just get more support from special teachers.

I wish your son many blessings. There are so many good things in life that don't have anything to do with academic achievement.

But I also want to encourage you to continue thinking of your son as someone who is very smart, but simply cannot express that right now. So continue to think of exposing him to the same lessons other kids learn. Because for a lot of us, we are hearing all of these lessons. We're just not very good at letting you know we understand.

Mainstreaming is a very complicated issue. Graduating rates may be higher, but there is more than education than getting a diploma. Perhaps the most important is learning reasonable expectations. It is very hard for young men to realize that they aren't going to date women in their late teens and early 20s like some of the men they are going to school with. As far as I know nobody gets that sort of advanced social training.

There can be brutal self esteem issues from bullying. Some on the autism spectrum work so hard at being normal that they are too exhausted to develop special interests. I think it is really important for those on the spectrum to develop self confidence via their special interests.

Trades like become a plumber or electrician are very good jobs around here.

Mainstreaming didn't work out for me. I ended up dropping out of high school over mental health issues. Granted, the living situation I was in at the time greatly exacerbated them, but even before that happened, it was pretty clear things weren't working for me. I struggled with keeping up with the other students, I struggled with the material itself, I struggled with getting sidetracked from my studies, and ultimately the struggles I faced with my personal issues lead me to quit.

Public schools are ultimately indoctrination centres designed to pump out the next generation of mindless worker bees. Don't fit the mold? Then you won't succeed, and you'll basically be judged a failure at life, unless you have a trump card like musical talent. The only reasons I'm alive right now are because I happened to have a good support network of family and friends (for a while at least), and I was able to get on disability, which helped pick up from when my support network exhausted most of its resources.

I know, I'm a cynic. At this point I'm not sure what I want in life. I feel like I'm destined not to do anything great with my life, contrary to what everyone told me growing up, "oh you're so smart!" and all that crap. There's stuff I'd like to do, but none of it involves working for a living. Maybe someday I'll suffer a traumatic brain injury that dramatically alters my personality, and makes it so I actually feel some gumption for once.

The point is, mainstreaming an aspie amounts to jamming a square peg in a round hole. You might succeed, but you'll end up ruining the peg. I forget who originally said this, I think I saw it in someone's signature on here. But it's a poignant truth.

Your son is lucky. The diagnosis didn't exist when I was in school. Guess who didn't any support, other than beat down? Guess who never got any kind of understanding? Given this, and the bullsh!t I've been putting up with. I'd rather lock myself in my room, and never come out.

Your wife needs your help. Seriously. You are relieved because he won't have to go through the struggle you did.
But, from her point of view, she has to let go of the hope that this was just a phase and he will be "normal." You may want to talk about it, which means bringing up the subject and listening.