Should I Or Shouldn't I???

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My kids are: DD10 DS4 DD2 DFdueJune.

I'm AS. I'm about 80% sure my son is, too.

He interacts with other children well if he's familiar with them, very little if he's not. He will occasionally play with other kids at the park, but they have to be the same size and most of the time he prefers to play with his sisters or alone. I don't mean parallel play sharing the equipment with other children but not with them-- I mean ALONE. Where other kids aren't. Like I did when I was his age.

He forgets himself and plays too roughly sometimes, but he's not aggressive.

His emotional maturity is about on par with his 2-year-old sister's. Can't calm himself down (but I can get him settled if I can take him somewhere quiet for 15 minutes). Gets upset way too easily-- cries over everything-- can't be pacified-- has to cry it out. Terribly, horribly, painfully easily frightened.

Walks on either his heels or his toes. Flaps hands when very excited (it's cute). Can make eye contact if reminded, can sustain it if I hold on to his chin gently, but won't do it on his own.

It's like looking at a little, male version of myself. The only difference is that, by the time I was 4, I'd already learned that I was bad. He hasn't learned any such thing. He's Buddy and he's beautiful.

I'm deliberating whether to get him diagnosed and treated. It's been mostly a nightmare for me-- based on my own experience, I wish I'd never heard of Asperger's. I was happier when I thought I was just a contrary backward little brat.

I don't want him medicated out of his personality (happened to me-- awful). I don't want him taught that he's defective (seems to be damn near par for the course).

At the same time, I don't want him to live the life of misunderstanding and rejection that I have. I'd be thrilled if someone out there could teach him to deal with his own brain in an optimal manner. I'd probably ask them if they have a colleague that works with adults...

If it was your kid, what would you do????

You are not bewildered about his development or interactions. You know how he is and why. This is unlike parents who know something's unusual but don't understand what/why/how and need help to understand.

Diagnosis is relevant in school if he needs extra or specialized help. In a certain sense, I don't think you have much choice in the long run. They will most likely push for some testing once he's in public school.

I'd not test now; why spend the thousands required for that since the school system will most likely do that anyhow.

If he has any delays (speech, etc) I would check with the school district to get him tested for Head Start. My son was tested but was just barely above the cutoff for getting any services.

I had never heard of Asperger's until my son was 8. Until then, the only things I knew about autism was the kid who is totally non-verbal, won't make eye contact, sits in the corner, and rocks. Now, I know that my husband and I both have Asperger's and my son is AS/HFA. It took us so long to get a diagnosis because we just kept saying "he is just like his dad". Well, he is, we just didn't know that there was a name for it.

I wish that we had known sooner. I wish that we could have done more earlier. Because now, he is 10 and just got asked to leave the private school where he had been since he was 22 months old. Now, his meltdowns are becoming dangerous. These are no longer what we thought were 2 and 3 year-old tantrums. These are full-blown autistic meltdowns with a kid who can throw chairs when he gets too agitated.

But, your son is also at a great advantage. You understand. You know what AS is. You know the good and bad of how your childhood went. You can make sure he is loved for who he is and that he knows that he is NOT defective. He is NOT broken. He does NOT need to be fixed. He just needs to learn how to use his brain effectively. Do you need a diagnosis for that? NO. Might a diagnosis help get him into some early therapy that might help his brain develop faster and better at this early age? Yes.

For me, personally, I would want to know so that I could start pursuing therapy. But, remember YOU are his mom. You are his best advocate. If a therapy, treatment, or medication feels wrong to you, speak up. But, some ABA therapy or OT or sensory therapy could be beneficial.

Good luck.

I find the diagnisis helpful when I need to explain to others (teachers, relatives, neighbors) that my daughter isn't behaving badly (just differently) and that she needs to be treated in a slightly different fashion from other children.

The diagnosis may be needed to get things going well at school. It certainly was for us.

If you don't have a diagnosis before school starts, be ready for it to get rough and for the diagnosis to take a while. If you would have the flexibility to home school for a while, keep the option open, in case you need it.

If you've always planned to homeschool, you may not need the label.

I do not believe that anyone can force you to give your child medication, but I have heard of schools in other countries saying medicate or your child cannot attend. In which case, again, you home school.

We don't medicate our son and it has rarely been suggested.

I recommend that you start figuring out what kind of school you have now. If they understand ASD at all, how they handle it, how the parents of those kids think and feel about it all. See what kind of mini world you are actually living in, to get a feel for how a label could play out. I feel we've been very lucky where we live, but that is not true for everyone. For us, the label made my son's life a whole lot better - he was always loved and understood at home, but the label has been like insurance he'll be understood at school (he is almost always appreciated by his teachers, though, he just has that way with people - if only it could work on his peers!).

I think there is much more understanding of autism than even five years ago, better tools to deal with it, and significantly less pathhologizing of it.

That being said, it does happen. The key is to make sure your son gets what he needs. You have a gift (same as us) in that your son is just like you and you can see things coming: seek out help for the things that you know are going to be difficult. You don't have to do this now if things are going fine (language delays respond well to help at this age, but the other stuff can wait.) but you might want to consider it later.

I think a lot about how supremely difficult my childhood was, and how everyone around me made it that much harder. All I want in life is to do better by my son. I recognize that sometimes this means making him do stuff that's uncomfortable and doesn't feel good in the short term - but I am trying my best to make sure I address long-term suffering.

We were told to medicate by the first doctor, and simply refused to do so...though when we went through a period when my son expressed a lot of suicidal language, I thought about it. Had it not gone away with therapy, I'd have gone there: my criterion for medication (besides ADHD stimulants, which he doesn't need) is that there is the potential for physical danger to himself or others.

Speech therapy and social skills classes have been a godsend for us, and I wish we'd started them earlier. Yes, it did mean that my son had to acknowledge a deficit, which was hard, but he also realized that he has gifts that make learning these skills cognitively an easy task. We talk a lot about his gifts, probably more than about his struggles; when those come up, I simply remind him that he has tools to deal with them if he chooses.

Thanks for the input, folks.

Still torn. We're blessed to live near a good facility-- people who actually seemed to know how to deal with me. Part of me wants to take advantage of that now, while we have it, instead of taking our chances with God only knows what, God only knows when, God only knows where. Also to be blessed with good insurance-- but there's a limit to what even very good insurance will help with.

Trying to get help near Pittsburgh was radically, life-alteringly different than trying to get help 100 miles away in West Virginia or while we were living in Arkansas. All those people knew to do was tell me to take my Risperdal like a good girl (despite the fact that I had never been violent and the stuff was literally killing me) and not expect too much out of my life.

Part of me would rather know already when I start dealing with the school system in the fall. I feel like I've got the advantage then, I've got the drop on The Man. I hope he doesn't run into too much trouble-- he's very much on the painfully shy end of the spectrum, making him more a target for bullies than a likely discipline problem (like that's not enough of a problem in its own right) but I don't know how he'd react if he was pressed enough and couldn't get away.

No speech delays at all. Hyperverbal, in fact-- just like Mommy. Something parents of kids struggling to verbalize would love to have-- but it comes with its own problems. It's social and emotional crap-- and I know that's minor in comparison to what others struggle with, but it feels a hell of a lot less minor when it's your emotions, your social problems, your life.

It doesn't bother him now. It won't for a while. If he runs like I did, troubles will start a year or two before puberty. If I could find a way to spare him that... No it wasn't anything like as horrific as what some others go through, but it was bad enough.

Homeschool is something I've considered-- actually wanted to do-- but it's a last resort at this point. I'm really not sure my own executive functioning is strong enough to make a success of it. Plus the fact that he's going to have to function out there someday-- the longer I manage to shelter him, the harder it's going to be.

Hubby doesn't even want to talk about getting the kid evaluated-- says I make too big a deal of it, I'm very high-functioning and he will be too. No problem.

Yeah. Right. No problem. Sure. *sarcasm*