My son, who is 10, and has AS has become increasingly worried and obsessive about "not being a little kid anymore". He went to the mall yesterday and found that the sign on one of the play spaces said it was for younger children. He became tearful and continues to perseverate about it. He says the pictures in our house of he and his sisters as toddlers make him too sad. He has what he calls his "fear", which is a fear of growing old and dying. Every day it is some new trigger that starts him off on this train of thought. He says his friends don't want to play his little kid games anymore. I went the path of reassuring him that he would always be a kid in many of the best ways. I didn't try to nudge him forward at all toward accepting that people get older and you just have to accept it. Do you think I need to try to force him into the "real world" more so he won't get teased or just let him be sad and anxious but with our support (and that of his psychologist?
16 May 2011, 9:39 am
