Getting a new brain for my AS son

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Let me add my two cents to what your son is saying. I experience a pain that is not exactly a headache but more like the sort of anguish that you might imagine a car going through when the gears do not engage properly but the engines get revved up. It appears to locate deep within my brain and I often wonder if I would get relief by sticking a needle into my head to scratch that offending deeper layer of my brain. It is as if the misfiring neurons are inflicting pain on the rest of my brain by being disorderly. Like most things with autism, it worsens when I melt down and attempting complex tasks when this happens is pretty much impossible. But the origin of this pain is not external. It starts from the inside and manifests in certain behaviors that can appear very odd and offensive to others. In other words, I doubt if doing three activities in school would cause your son's brain to hurt; but rather, because his brain hurts, he cannot perform those tasks.

For parents of autistic children perhaps the most important thing you can do is to encourage them to tell you how they feel as a way of helping them understand their own uniqueness.

[quote="Zeno For parents of autistic children perhaps the most important thing you can do is to encourage them to tell you how they feel as a way of helping them understand their own uniqueness.[/quote]

What would people say are the best ways to encourage your child to tell you how they feel? My son usually shuts down when it comes to communicating emotions/reasons. Often I will get glimpses at these, but they usually only happen when I've spent time experimenting with probing the problem, but there are no hard and fast rules as to what works.

Do not probe and do not push. Much of what autistic children experience is usually very painful. You can assume that your child is being bullied in school by their peers or teachers. All the things that torment them will happen in spaces that you cannot look into. It could be a snide remark by a fellow pupil or a vicious put down by a sadistic teacher, but it is likely to be a situation that accentuates the powerlessness of the autistic child. In some ways, your concern, which your child is likely to perceive as further proof of how bad or wrong he or she is, will only compound the problem. All children want to be loved and aim to meet the expectations of those whom they care about. When you ask the “what’s wrong” question, it will just force them to feel worse than they already do.

Even more wrong than probing is attempting to fix the problem. Autism cannot be fixed anymore than Down’s Syndrome can be cured. The first step any parent needs to take to encourage their child to open up is to make the home a sanctuary, a place where they can feel safe and where the hurts just do not reach. Harassing your child to get them to change their ways is only going to deprive them of the only space where they might gain some respite from a world that they are ill suited for.

They will talk because they need to. It is extremely important to learn to listen and not judge or enter into a problem solving mode when the child starts to confide. Believe it or not, most autistic children probably know the problems they face and understand that there are likely to be no real solutions. How you might get them to talk further is an art. But first they must feel safe reaching out to you.

Try the writing perhaps?

When I was younger I had a really hard time writing as I have said. I would be put down to do my homework, I tried to keep the TV on, nope wouldn't let me. I don't multitask. It was white noise to me. Now when I write I have a constant repeat mode song in my earphones. I hear it, but don't, it's a stim in the back ground. Now having said that, I've seen other parents who have had kids with the complete opposite. The music that was playing had to be turned off, just to look out a window. We're all different, just ask away here and other places, someone may have an idea that works. In the mean time, watch what he's interested in, feed it. expand it, he'll find his own style and may open up with words because you're interested too.

There is no magic key, it's going to take a lot of understanding as best you can and time. But at that age he needs to be defended, especially if he's in public schools. And it isn't always the other kids you must stand up for him.

I'm going to butt out of this conversation. Others are giving you good input. Been a long time since I was a kid, and all my kids were NT's, kinda. Now I get to work on the Grandkids and enjoying every minute of it. There is no such thing as a perfect parent, but if we get lucky and get another chance, we might not do it as we did it the first time. I got lucky.

I'd ask to be adopted by you, I think you're going about it the right way. But I think the adoption process could get a bit complicated.