Mom of AS child

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Hello!

I just stumbled across wrong planet recently in my quest to find out more about my 8-year-old son. Here's a little about him.

My son is not officially diagnosised yet. His psychiatrist believes he has it, but she moved before taking any further actions. The only other psychiatrist in the area says he cannot possibly be an aspie because he loves and respects his older sister.

The only reason I took him to the doctor to begin with was the school had far too many problems with him. They said he was defiant because he would sit and stare into space all day long instead of doing his assignment. He basically shut down and wouldn’t respond for up to a six-hour stretch if the teacher decided he had to do a problem he didn’t understand.

The teacher would not remove the problem from him or just give him a zero. Instead she’d keep him in from recess and activities until he finished the paper. The principal claimed that those dead eyes frightened her, the councilor said he was the worst child she’d ever seen, and the teacher said she was at her wits end with him and he was a spoiled brat. After a few months of that, he was contemplating suicide. I needed help.

Certain people - mainly school officials - over the years have asked me what is wrong with him. I've always been puzzled by this question. There is nothing wrong with him at all. He thinks different from other children, true, but wrong? Not hardly. Many relatives that he is comfortable with tend to compare him to Henry David Thoreau or even Gandhi. He is passive and his words seem wise beyond years.

He’s a straight A student when the pressure isn’t on him, though he makes a few letter backwards. His cursive writing that he is just learning to write actually looks like it was done by an artist, but his print looks – well backwards, though he does not seem to be dyslexic.

I could brag about his strong points all day long, or I could harp on his social problems with kids his own age. The truth is, I just need him to know that while he isn’t normal like his principal is and wants him to be, he is unique and special, but not alone. Even more, I think that the way his brain connects things together, he may very well be what most of us wish we could be – truly gifted and enlightened. After all, neither of my other kids come home from school, hand me their reading book, grab their puzzle, and say “Mom, my teacher told me I had to read this to you when I got home,” and then while he puts the puzzle together he quotes the book, and yet they are bright and equally brilliant in their own ways.

- Kat

Congratulations on having a kid as wonderful as we are

Just kidding, but you probably figured out by now that we aren't as terrible as they make us look.

Oddly enough, I found a aspie quiz in this forum and decided to see how I did on the quiz. Here are my results. Now wonder I understand my child better than his teachers, principals, and councilors.

Your Aspie score: 113 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 67 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie

Well, I'm going to say Congrats and really mean it. There is nothing more wonderful than a gifted child and there's probably nothing wrong with him. As you read and understand more about the autistic spectrum, you may very well be diagnosing your son at the same time. If nothing else, you will have more and better questions to ask a pro when you find one you can trust.

Anyway, you're among friends here and you and your son will be safe. It gets better the more you learn.

Welcome.

Last edited by DirtDawg on 09 Sep 2006, 12:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

i dont think you reralise how much help your 8 yo son needs.
here is a start but real help and an indivdual education plan.
you are talkign about himn like only a mother can....kid needs help.
ghandi?
sheeezus.

Donkey I understand that some aspies need support to thrive but they also need encouragement and positive reinforcement this mother is harping on his son's strengths which something we need more of in this community. Their's no need to jump on her about how she views her son. I think it's great because in the long run it will improve his confidence and he will strive to do better.

reeferman...........i find the best way to get through to to newbies and a lot of aspies is the hard way.
it is my way of being supportive, we dont need to dissect what she has said but i feel she needs to have pointed out to her that the kid needs a lot of help and it may not be appropriate to compare him to ghandi and others historical figures just yet.
mother harping on about sons strenghts is great but im not interested in them if he is an aspie he can have all the strengths he wants, he needs help recognising them and cultivating them, not harping about preceived strenghts to the detriment of his aspie weaknesses....gottit?

I actually removed a large portion of my original post, because I did not feel I was being helpful or humble after re-reading it. I removed the parts about my son responding very well to a specialized program conceived for his difficulties and capitalizing on his strengths, because it just felt like a proud dad bragging about his son.

The point donkey has made is valid, although his approach is not quite like gentleness. It is important to understand your son's traits and provide him with a diet of activities which are designed to help him to cope with his specific challenges. Since he's 8 years old, if he's on the spectrum and you are just now figuring it out, he already has you and other care givers quite well trained in dealing with his needs. The problem is, some of those patterns he lives by are destructive and some are beneficial and you may not recognize the difference without some help. Even then, he's an individual with a unique set of characteristics and all the therapy in the world won't 'fix' him, but you can make it a lot better for him.

There are plenty here who have not had their needs met during development and some even turned out OK, but he will have a greater chance of a happy life with specific guidance and understanding from you and his teachers. I know that's why you're here and I wish you luck with your discoveries.

Hello Kat,

Unfortunately I can't offer much in the way of advise. I have an ASD 7 year old myself, but, being in the UK, the healthcare and education systems are different to the US.

There's just one thing I'd say - get another doctor to diagnose your son. Anyone who makes statements like "he cannot possibly be an aspie because he loves and respects his older sister" is clearly ignorant.

He's seeing a psychatrist, a therapist, and his teacher has been trained to work with aspies. I dont have a formal IEP nor a formal diagnosis yet, but I am working on helping him. I also have poured through every article I can find, book I can get my hands on, and talked to people with AS. I didn't sleep for the first few weeks well at all until I read everything and then reread them and then found someone to speak to that could answer more questions and then found someone with AS to speak to that was similar to my son.

I realize my post may have sounded a bit overdone. You are right. The thing is, I did not mean to say he is a philosopher, just that his actions and mind set is more comparable to them than to anything else I can compare him too. Sorry if I made it sound otherwise.

So the point is, I am a newb. I'm also a bit of a dreamer. I don't think helping him find his strenghts is a bad thing as long as we deal with the bad. I'm just trying to find out how. I am a bit defensive because of last years experience with the school system and i think that is why i said what I said though it is true people do call him by those names or else by names I'd rather not repeat because they think he is bad.

I'm sorry I offended the lot of you by being a newb mom.

Thanks.

I don't think that your post was in the least offensive. You're doing a great job in trying to help your son and have every right to be proud of him.

Not offended at all. In fact, none of us have given you enough credit, because it sounds like you're well on your way, after all.
Well done.

Interesting and coincidental that we three have boys about the same age on the spectrum. I may be stalking both your posts, but don't worry ... I'm an old, happily married, raggedy teddy bear, looking for courage.

Dude chill out I wasn't attacking you no need to get hostile and defensive.

kat your first post may have been over cooked but i guess mothers get emotional when they deal with their children in a way that perhaps some aspies cant undrstand.
this is a lesson for you in itself.
dont lose sleep over it..it is a long term ride this adventure...and the books are being written faster than anyone can read them..every one is a n expert and every one has an opinion, so dont try and keep up, jusy get a handle on what your son does.
good luck thou.