Aspies For Freedom

If you have AS, or a parent, and you could do something over again with your AS Child, or with your parents and do it differently, what would it be?

I am a mom of a 3 year old who has just been diagnosed with AS (unofficially).  What I need is to know what NOT to do for sure because right now I feel as though I'm happy to know what it is for sure what we need to work with in our son, but I'm also getting used to possibly not having the son I once thought I'd have.  This sounds bad.  Fuck it.  I'm here to be honest.

I will make one thing clear.  If I could go back and change things...I would not do it.  I love my son unconditionally, and I will do anything to make him happy, and comfortable.

Last night, he motioned to my husband that he wanted me to come into bed with him.  I don't like starting things, but he never asks me to cuddle with him, so I went and layed with him and fell asleep.  He wrapped his little arms around me.  It was a sweet moment.  Tonight, he would not go to sleep without me there, drawing on his face with my finger.  He fell asleep within seconds of me doing it...all while he was scripting some commercial he saw on tv today.

I guess I'm afraid of making mistakes.  I just love him too much to make him hate me someday.  It will break my heart if there ever comes a day where I am not welcome in his world.

(i'm not a parent)first be opistive, and patient with him and be proud of him. second i would sugest getting oor at least reading  two book that i consiter must haves for any perant an AS child and for the child them selves,they are: perenting  'a child with Asperger's' and 'a teachers guide to AS', the give a lot of info on stratigies and insight to AS that i have found any where else yet.

I am the mom of a 6yr. old girl with Aspergers. This is my first post here. The doctors kept calling her the "mystery girl" from the time she was born till her dxes last year. I wish I would have not waited for a dx and put her on a Sensory diet sooner. Since we started this , she has really changed and is much calmer. I agree with the above reply in that being proud of your child will make all the difference. I am soooooo proud of my little girl, even when I dont understand her. I have learned also that specialists will tell you: "she will never socialize........" This is a bunch of crap! I allow my daughter to lead, I give her oppportunities to socialize often and we have seen great progress with this!                                                                                          Yes, my daughter refers to me as the "human" - which makes me feel strange but this is how she sees me and I dont get offended by that! Her sensory issues were really distracting her more than anything. I wished we would have helped her with that sooner.
Also try not to focus on what is lacking and feed into the talents your child does have. My daughter loves animals and is great with them. We have now adopted many animals for her and this makes her feel great. They are her friends, and family now. She wants to be a vet one day, and just told us this on her own. I couldnt be more pleased with her progress at this time!!

I agree with the above posts... Be supportive and allow your son to pursue his interests, even if it means he won't be the "ideal" child you had in mind. My parents realized early on that I didn't like playing with dolls and all that "girly" stuff (instead I liked to go outside and catch snakes, collect rocks, raise caterpillars into butterflies, etc), and they encouraged me to pursue my interest in science instead. Now I'm at a four-year university earning a degree in animal biology (and I'm planning on attending graduate school as well).

My mother is not very welcome in my world. She never knew when to stop, when to back off, when to give me space. Actually, it's not that she didn't know WHEN to. She just didn't do it. EVER. She's an unusual kind of person, so it seems highly unlikely that you are much like her. Just in case you are, though: leave him be sometimes.

I think so - a lot of us like some socialising at times but we also like to spend plenty of time on our own.

Get my dad off the sauce a LOT earlier.

If I had the time over again, I would have asked for more days off work to attend school events that my daughters had.

I wished my father was a bit more tolerant and not as unfair and rude as he was (and still is). I never understood his "jokes" (if they were jokes - I can't tell) and still don't do.

I wished I could have talked to my parents, but I couldn't and still can't, so I thinkt they sometimes wonder if I love them or not. My mom said I always sent her off when she wanted to cuddle with me, but my feeling was that I longed for cuddling.

Even being AS (selfdiagnosed) myself, I don't understand all of my son's behavior, but I guess that parents of NT children doesn't either.

So there's little I would want to change - wishing to have more patience with both of my kids sometimes.

Sibylle

I think that I would not have tried to get my son to look at my face.  That was my ego wanting to get connection and recognition.  He was connected and he knew who I was, I just didn't realize why he didn't need to make eye contact.  What I have learned this year in big large melt downs with my 17 year old daughter is:  Let go and Let Be, kids have the right to develop and unfold in their own space and time.  Don't fix, be supportive.  I have to let my kids affect their own destinies.  Step back more and let him find their own way.  It's very hard but very freeing to you as a mom to let go, fear less, love more.

I think Laneyfitz is doing good too. You love your son, your asking questions, you want to know what the autistic community and parent of AS people think.  I believe you can handle this journey and what you don't know your son and experience teaches you.

One thing that I would definitely do differently is preschool.  My son hated his preschool, due mostly to the forced nap time (he didn't sleep, and certainly couldn't sit still for 2 hours), but I felt it had taken him so long to get used to the place, that the idea of adjusting him to a new one seemed insurmountable.  And somehow I kept believing the school would recognize the trauma it was causing and change its policy.  Eventually I did realize it was the school that was the issue, but by then it was too late and there was no place to move him TO.  The second we got to Kindergarten - new school, new kids - it was like a world of worry had lifted off his shoulders.  So, I really wish I had realized that the situation was all wrong for him, and that if I had the right one it wouldn't be so difficult.

Funny you should mention the sleeping thing.  My son is now 10 and still dependent on me to fall asleep.  He CAN do it without me, but he doesn't WANT to.  My husband is starting to think it's wierd, but I do think my son will grow out of it before it gets TOO wierd.  The thing is, we worked really hard to train him to sleep by himself before my daughter was born, and it worked.  But after she was born, my son had a lot of issues.  Having a sister wasn't what he had thought it would be, and so on.  My husband actually suggested I stay with my son again at bedtime to simply make him feel happier and more secure.  Well, it worked.  But the depedency came back again, too.

You know what?  It's OK.  If this is what my son needs, it is what he needs.  He is a total sensory seeker when it comes to physical contact.  His needs aren't like mine.  But meeting his needs gives him the sense of security, the base, he needs to fly solo on all the other challenges he faces everyday.  The more I let him be himself at home, the easier it is for him to suck it up and do what he has to do during the school day, etc.

My son and I talk a LOT.  About what is expected of him away from home.  That home is his safe place although still with SOME limits and boundaries.  And so on.  I really do think he feels loved, and feels secure in his home base.  That is very important, I think, for a child who finds so much of the rest of the world a mystery.

My older daughter didn't need the nap time at kindy either. It meant she was still active and wanting to play at 10.30 at night and I would get cross because I was exhausted after a day's work and desperately wanted to sleep.

Unfortunately, by the time I realised the problem, she only had a few weeks to go there. Having daylight saving made the issue infinitely worse as I had issues with getting up in time and getting organised in the mornings.

Quote from Guess Who:

Being single (but being a Web developer)... is there a good reason for that too?

Response:

I would say yes, there is a good reason.

I was married for the first time rather late in life, and looking back I wouldn't change it.  I accomplished things that I never thought I could accomplish, and I will always have the satisfaction and confidence of knowing that I grew into that person, the one who could do those things, by myself and for myself.

Some people grow more in relationships.  Some people grow more on their own.  It all seems to have its time and place.

My one regret about my single years?  That I spent so much time worrying about the fact that I was still single, instead of simply enjoying the advantages it offered.

I love my life now, too.  It's another phase, a different type of growth.  But, for me, this was clearly meant to come after the other.  All those things I needed to know I could do on my own.

Yes, I wish I hadn't worried so much about being single. But it seemed to be expected that I would marry in my early 20's.