O.k.
I have one son that is diagnosed with moderate to severe Autism. he was diagnosed at the age of 4 at my request. However I have an older Son, that since he was a baby, I knew he needed help.

He was behind with all his milestones, would never and still never plays, was late talking, can not have any form of relationship with other children and the relationship he has with adults is basically as a means to get the necessary essentials he wants ie food, water or personal gain...
at my request i started the statementing process when he was 2 and a half years old as by that time he was in a daycare nursery for 2 days a week just to give me a break from his needs.
He has always shown Autistic traits, however he is by far different from my other son who has been diagnosed.

Jacob can be very, very aggressive, very very hyper, or very very depressed.. there is never any medium ground with him, we never have a happy or content son. He can be really clingy, he self harms by biting, scratching, attempting to stab himself and has attempted to throw himself out of windows. I have had to get rid of all sharp knives from my house, use plastic cutlery and plates, put locks on doors to stop him getting in, he has speech but his understanding is crap.. takes everything literally and takes on the whole worlds problems. he constantly puts himself down and will not accept praise and is constantly beating crap out of thwe other kids which is not good. He has no danger awareness at all and his memory retention is appauling..
after going down what i consider to be every route possible i am now hitting my head against a brick wall. while my son is very bright with some things he is also very behind on others, but because of the law of averages the tests say he is satisfactory... his good makes up for the bad.....
however at school he is in a constant depression and home i have to deal with his built up anger and energy issues that he has held onto all day.
in order to get my son into a school that can help him with his needs and also that can help wme and my family with other techniques than the courses i have done at least 9 times  he needs a diagnosis, now everybody has seen the autistic traits, everybody has seen the anger, the depression and the violence but singularly and never the same people, so because the professionals only see the one mood he is in, which isnt how i need them to see him (in a natural environment.. i.e home!)  aswell as the depressedness of the school. we can't get a diagnosis or help for him, he needs the school, and he needs additional help. i am not being unny but i am finding it really hard to cope with him, i even refferred myself to social services to get him help, however all they offered me is another positive parenting programme group :S 6 times later and still not woring!!... i need help, i dont want to live in fear of a 9 year old and his outbursts, the anger, the rest of the kids have to live with it too and it cant be nice for them, the new doctor refused to prescribe him his meletonin so non of us are sleeping either...

any ideas as what to do.... :s lost, and really not coping well at all . thanks in advance...
katie x

Positive parenting program would help you. especially if it dealt with how to parent an Autistic child.  If you cant afford the specialised therapies and counseling. It would  be helpful for your children, if you can do that at home

A little help for yourself , so that you can deal with anger & stress issues also.

the thing is, i have done the positive parenting programme 6 times, also stepping stones, home links, individualised ppp programme, plus more, non of it helps in the slightest.

there is never any trigger to jacobs behaviour. in the slightest. at least sam has triggers that can be pinpointed. distraction doesn't work with jacob. he doesn't understand the concepts of things and if he does understands them he then forgets . we had people coming in to him, we had councillors, therapists, camhs who have all now given up because he has not got the retention or the ability to follow through with any of the techniques that they would normally use.

i can manage his anger and aggression (for now) what happens in a couple of years time when he is too big.. I am a martial arts instructor but damn me when jacob goes on one.. i find it difficult. .. i have calm down techniques for him that will work sometimes, but not others... tripple p programmes just are not the answer. It was however, a great help with helping with the rest of my kids i have to add!

train him in the martial arts, if he is interested at all

it seems to have helped some of our members.

In fact our moderator, here, is trained in the art.

He will be here later and can offer advice

I am sure some of the parents here will see this also, and chime in with advice


Parenting is hard work

This post was last modified: 04-03-2012 09:07 PM by skyblue1 .

thank you . Already tried training him... he was having none of it. I tried him under a different instructor in my team after my initial failed attempt. He still wouldn't take part. He wanted drum lessons, when he is good he is absolutely astounding.. but the majority of the time he was on a downer hyper day and refused to even sit behind the drums, he ended up quitting even though he loves drums. I have 3 kits set up in my house along with guitars, bass, etc and a studio he can bash about in to his hearts content, but choses not to.. so at least he still has the option. now he has got into fishing, but doesnt want anybody to go with him :S he can't swim, no danger awareness .. but umm aargh, what to do.. no way is he going it alone by water.. I am trying to compromise that one at the min :s x

So he is ok at school?  If he was acting that way at school then they would be pushing for a diagnosis.  

Try having him on more of a schedule at home.  Use visual charts for him to remember how and when to do activities.

I was going to give you my stock "getting your child into martial arts" advice, but I happened to look at your profile and it says you teach. I guess you probably know most of what I would have to say on that.

What I can say is that you shouldn't limit his options to just martial arts. Many recreational activities can give him the same benefits. Drumming sounded good to me. Of course, outside of scheduled classes/lessons, he should be allowed to practice when he wants to (within reason) and not forced to at other times.

May I ask what style of martial arts you teach? That might make a difference. I've been doing a combination of Taekwondo and Karate (similar to Shotokan) for almost two decades. My instructor also has us do pieces of anything else that he's learned. I love it (obviously), but I do find that I can't really take more than about a week's worth of Judo classes at a time.

Maybe stop focusing on getting a diagnosis because we all know that therapy or school accommodations only get you so far.  

Most of us grew up without anyone knowing that we had aspergers at all.  What I will tell you that saved me was time to pursue my special interests at home in peace for several hours per day.  When I could do that I could withstand the bullying.

Yes.

I have read what you have said and I will give my honest opinion on things and I hope you take it the right way. Sometimes i can be a bit blunt. You are Neurotypical. You are a loving parent who is trying to make sense of a child that yo can not understand.
You can workshop, study, immerse yourself in facts but you can not be or come to fully intinctually know your child. If your child was blind the closest you could appreiate your child's condition would be to blindfold yourself and in this you would completely lose your perspective and find yourself at complete odds and disempowered. The experience would only enlighten you on what that would feel like but give you no real pointers.
So, what to do?
No two Autistic people are alike. Find what the stresors are for himand the things that cause him grief and work inwards. What do i mean by that? Let's say that he is overwhelmed by change in routine...work to minimise disruption and give him a heads up, when any change in things will occur. Is he tactilely sensitive find suitable clothing and such. Light sensitive...find what will calm his nerves here. Noise? Should be easy to work around. Is he getting bullied? Does he have fears that are grounded not in reality...alleviate these through rational (not emotional0 explaination. Make his world safer and more stable for him.
Work on him. Not on you.
You are here which means you are concerned and give a ***. You are already proviong your worth as a concerned parent I think that parenting courses are great but are not going to be catered for him and frankly not for you.
Do not allow your concern to cluster his space.
What do I mean by this.
My ex-wife is Neurotypical too. very smart lady and very well studied. At one time my child at 4 or 5 was barely verbal. and prone to meltdowns. when he did she could never get to the bottom of what was going on. She would try to ask him and it would not work. I would come home from work and go to the door and be asked to "do my Autism thing" (the equivalent of Autism whispering if you like). I would walk over to my son ...on the couch, arms crosed, frowning, angry, immobilised from his own frustration, red-faced. I would sit bedside him. talk parallel to him and n a quiet non-judgmental non-emotive way for 10 minutes and slowly everything would seep out of him. Hard words and difficult concepts and struggling verbalisations would spill. I would accomplish more in 10 minutes than she would manage all day. She did not fail. Her approach would have worked witha non-Autistic child. Mine worked because as odd and weird as it was, it worked because i am Autistic and he is and it was as natural to me as it was for him.
Were I in his face, making eye contact. pressing in around him. confusing him with emotion or unmodulated inflection or whatever it would have drawn out or shutdown the communication process.
Give him space to breath and come out with things and be there for him.
Once you have these "symptoms" taken care of you can look at managing the overall. but at the moment i think you have to address the many "symptoms".

Hope this helps

Has anyone considered bipolar disorder? Combine the extremely intense moods with autism and the associated communication difficulties, and that may explain some of your son's behavior.

Something that helps with most Aspergers and high functioning Autistic children is to find their special talents or interests and push this at the child as fast as they can take it. In reality with most of these children it is more of trying to keep up with their need to learn than push. I know that with my son this worked wonders much of his anger and nearly all of his depression went away once we got him into the schools most advanced math classes and had him in three advanced science and technology classes at once. Most Aspergers and Autistics will have areas of great interest and when active in these areas they are often at their most relaxed and are happiest.  "M" said it above "What I will tell you that saved me was time to pursue my special interests at home in peace for several hours per day.  When I could do that I could withstand the bullying"  - This was also the case for my son and yes for myself as well.

Once an aspie child is getting what they need in their desired mental stimulation they usually become more amenable to behaving generally well in society especially if the improved behavior leads to even more opportunities to engage in their desired activities.

May I suggest that you try Kahnacademy.org to see if your son has math or science interests - as going on what the schools are telling you may not work because the schools are geared for NT children and may be boring your son to death in the classroom. In fact you may have to fight the school and doctors to get your son what he needs.

Also may of the arts have weekend fairs and museums to see if the arts are what your sons thirst after.  There theater programs for children and you may also want to expose your children to music - expose them to as many things as possible to find their interest. Then help them pursue those interests with as much effort as possible.  

The one thing to remember is that You can NOT make them normal (Neural Typical)  - you can raise two happy, capable, industrious young men that can live complete fruitful lives in every way - they may well even learn to pretend to be normal well enough to fool most people around them most of the time - With a bit of luck they may use some of their special talents to make this world a better place. BUT they will never be Neural Typical (normal by your definition).

O.k.
I have one son that is diagnosed with moderate to severe Autism. he was diagnosed at the age of 4 at my request. However I have an older Son, that since he was a baby, I knew he needed help.

He was behind with all his milestones, would never and still never plays, was late talking, can not have any form of relationship with other children and the relationship he has with adults is basically as a means to get the necessary essentials he wants ie food, water or personal gain...
at my request i started the statementing process when he was 2 and a half years old as by that time he was in a daycare nursery for 2 days a week just to give me a break from his needs.
He has always shown Autistic traits, however he is by far different from my other son who has been diagnosed.

Jacob can be very, very aggressive, very very hyper, or very very depressed.. there is never any medium ground with him, we never have a happy or content son. He can be really clingy, he self harms by biting, scratching, attempting to stab himself and has attempted to throw himself out of windows. I have had to get rid of all sharp knives from my house, use plastic cutlery and plates, put locks on doors to stop him getting in, he has speech but his understanding is crap.. takes everything literally and takes on the whole worlds problems. he constantly puts himself down and will not accept praise and is constantly beating crap out of thwe other kids which is not good. He has no danger awareness at all and his memory retention is appauling..
after going down what i consider to be every route possible i am now hitting my head against a brick wall. while my son is very bright with some things he is also very behind on others, but because of the law of averages the tests say he is satisfactory... his good makes up for the bad.....
however at school he is in a constant depression and home i have to deal with his built up anger and energy issues that he has held onto all day.
in order to get my son into a school that can help him with his needs and also that can help wme and my family with other techniques than the courses i have done at least 9 times  he needs a diagnosis, now everybody has seen the autistic traits, everybody has seen the anger, the depression and the violence but singularly and never the same people, so because the professionals only see the one mood he is in, which isnt how i need them to see him (in a natural environment.. i.e home!)  aswell as the depressedness of the school. we can't get a diagnosis or help for him, he needs the school, and he needs additional help. i am not being unny but i am finding it really hard to cope with him, i even refferred myself to social services to get him help, however all they offered me is another positive parenting programme group :S 6 times later and still not woring!!... i need help, i dont want to live in fear of a 9 year old and his outbursts, the anger, the rest of the kids have to live with it too and it cant be nice for them, the new doctor refused to prescribe him his meletonin so non of us are sleeping either...

any ideas as what to do.... :s lost, and really not coping well at all . thanks in advance...
katie x

i declare no expert advice here, i've never had children-and i don't know a single autistic person. i'm new to the possibility of Asperger's--preparing to be tested, yippee

how old is Joshua? i notice some of the key phrases i hear that makes me think "well, there's part of your problem" and that is how he's been tested by the 'norm' and if he's having such difficulty with home and school life i have a few ideas i've given a lot of thought to--ironically, because i couldn't adequately verbally communicate with my home environment. where we spend our time, who with, and doing what-has a very important impact on our lives.

i'm between tasks and struggling myself, which makes me interested in your post-for i feel some similarities between us, and shouldn't we all work together?
$:=D
live with love and warmth

White Dog

will answer each post one by one, it makes it easier for me.

He isn't O.k at school. Just the school would rather leave him in a depressive state of doing nothing than Do anything with him. They won't accept him for who he is or try and overcome any state he is in. He has been pulled out of class early to eat on his own, is segregated in a playground with metal railings all around it so he can not attempt interaction should he chose too. wanders around the school when he suppost to be in lessons and they dont have the foggiest where he is. Oh but they constantly try to force him to d sport. He hates any form of sport, does not understand any of the conceps of it or the points of it and works himself into a state, then gets punished for not doing it. he gets punished for not getting changed with the rest of the class. He is finding it hard to cope in that school and I am constantly in there over bullying problems because of his behaviour and his bluntness.

we work everything in my house as routine because as i said, one of my other children is autistic too, so makes it easier for all to see visual charts, visual help and it helps them too understand more about autism in order to help each other.  We have charts for getting dressed, timetables throughout the day, menu charts for food 2 weeks in advance, reward charts, mood charts etc etc.. I live my life by charts and a big diary x

Yeah first thing I thought of was martial arts to try and help him, I have worked with autistic kids within my class that it has helped with.  however Jake really wouldn't get into it, or attempt it and would stand through whole lessons screaching, bouncing and smacking his head up the wall. myself teaching or others. I teach Shotokan, Go-kan-ryu, savant kickboxing and muay thai. After many, many years of training and competing in a lot of martial arts, self defence, etc.

It was him wanting to do the drum lessons. Then after months and months and months ended up quitting, i tried to teach him myself after the failure with somebody else, but still that failed too even though he still wants to do drum lessons,  or he says he does, yet never picks up the sticks. Living in a house mainly built around the music life he has access to a whole host of musical equipment ranging from, mouth organs, violin, acoustic guitar, 12 string semi acoustics, several electric guitars, bass guitars, banjo, several drum kits, saxaphones microphones plus more and a whole host of cabs, amps, pedals effects.. I am of the oppinion that if they want to play, it is there, if not well they don't have to touch it.. never force any of my life on them and always encourage and support anything they want to do.

He tried incubation and hand rearing for a while which he picked up from me, and enjoyed it, however i was forced to put a stop to it when "the voices in his head were telling him to kill them, he started regularly smashing eggs jumping all over the chicks and smashing the young birds up because of these so called voices (he describes it as his good brain and bad brain, when the bad brain talks the only way he can get it to stop is by doing what it tells him to do ) .