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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 357635" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>Yep. But I'm lucky - husband is very housebroken. He's also a member of this site, he lurks all the time and posts occasionally too, as "Marg's Man". We think husband has Asperger's. However, he does have problems clashing with difficult child 3 at times when he is overtired and snaps back into old "disciplinarian" habits. Also he can be very inflexible, especially when he's tired. And difficult child 3 is also very inflexible and it can be a bad mix. husband though has a really good grasp of his strengths and weaknesses and is really working hard to do things the right way.</p><p></p><p>What helped us a great deal - reading "The Explosive Child" by Ross Greene. I read it and found, even as I was reading it and before I made any changes, difficult child 3's behaviour was already improving (because I was already making changes just in my attitude, and this began to have positive benefits on difficult child 3 immediately).</p><p></p><p>I gave the book to husband but he just couldn't get into it, it just didn't seem to 'sink in' for him. So I wrote a summary for him and also explained it to him; then as I put it into practice I explained how it worked as we went. This all actually helped me a lot, because to be able to explain it, I really had to have a good grasp of it myself.</p><p></p><p>What we found - because I was the first one to really have a good grasp of how it worked and to use it, we became "good cop, bad cop" and difficult child 3 became even more hostile to husband, because husband was still far more in "because I said so" mode (a very bad thing with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)-ish kids).</p><p></p><p>I strongly recommend you read the book AND do your best to recruit husband to how it works. It won't be easy, but if your husband is at least prepared to see that there is another way that could work, you are ahead of the game. If you can get him to lurk here and maybe (if he wants to) PM my husband, it might help.</p><p></p><p>I am writing this knowing my husband will be reading this - he reads everything I post, always has. This has actually been very helpful for our communication and teamwork in raising our kids. sometimes he will come home and say, "I read your posts while I was at work today. I hadn't realised you felt that way," or "I didn't agree with what you wrote. I think you didn't put my side very well." We then would discuss it and work out any differences. It all is good to help us be on the same page. And also, what we write in a post is far more concentrated than what we might say to one another; he was getting it in a more concentrated dose, more cohesive.</p><p></p><p>The problems aren't fixed, but we now have a different way of dealing with things. husband has also had to learn to be far more tolerant, far more patient and he IS learning this because he can see that it works. It is helping him personally in other ways.</p><p></p><p>Other topics I want to share with you - Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) is not seen as a disability in this house. It is simply a different way of brain functioning, one which brings gifts with it too. We support and nurture those gifts, we value them and we work to help the child do things his way. You sound like you're also doing this but letting your son spend all of one day on one subject - this is what we found has worked for us, first with difficult child 1 and then with difficult child 3. But we have added a few refinements to our schooling program that might help you. Feel free to 'steal' whatever of my methods you think will help, and discard the rest.</p><p></p><p>1) School work during school hours.</p><p>That means even if he feels sick, he still works on schoolwork and not on non-school stuff. In your case you set the school hours time yourself, in consultation with your son. But this is an important rule to stick to. When you can, replace it with an outcomes based system where he has to complete a certain amount of work to consider his school day (or school week) done. Also part of this - if he is so sick he just wants to sleep, we let difficult child 3 sleep. Because he doesn't do this often and only when he is genuinely sick. If he's well enough to sit up awake in bed, he's well enough to read a textbook. Or if he's well enough to sit up in a blanket on the couch, he's well enough to watch a documentary on DVD. Or do some educational computer stuff.</p><p></p><p>2) difficult child 3 chooses which subject to work on next, but I guide him if I feel my availability is going to be needed more, or less, and I have to plan fort the times when I will be available. We're also moving towards a system of "Put solid effort into this subject for the next hour, and if you can then we will go do X for the next half hour." At the moment X is a driving lesson. But it could also be a promised trip to the mall, if he has got his work done efficiently.</p><p></p><p>3) Involve your son in his own education choices. So if you feel he is getting a bit into a rut and needs to be shaken up a bit, discuss with him about planning a day excursion somewhere as part of his study. If his hands hurt to do writing tasks, let him type his answers on the computer, for example. If he has a laptop computer he can use (or something similar) then let him use it in the car and keep a journal on it. difficult child 3 has a small inexpensive word processor which he was given to use while still in mainstream, because of his problems with his hands hurting (hypermobile joints). A home-schooled student is a portable student, and we go on trips occasionally and each time difficult child 3 keeps a travel journal plus we make sure he logs everything educational we do, and the places we go. We link in every subject we can - when we went to New Zealand, we took lots of photos of geothermal power stations, of volcanic activity, of various land formations (such as glacial valleys, boiling mud, steam vents, glow-worm caves) and then got him to write about it at the end of each day. When we bathed in a hot spring we got him to copy down the list of the mineral salts in the water, for his science teacher. And for the sports teacher we took photos of the first commercial bungee jump centre in the world. difficult child 3 is a correspondence student, so he does have subject teachers - on the other end of a phone or mailing envelope.</p><p></p><p>As far as social skills while at home, vs social skills in any mainstream school - we make a point of getting difficult child 3 out mixing with people. But because he can always come home when HE wants to, it means that if he's at a friend's house and someone is being mean to him, he can always leave. But at school he couldn't do that, and if it was teachers being mean, or not stopping other kids being mean, it was bad. We've found that difficult child 3 has learnt better social interaction now he's at home, because HE is in more control of the interaction and can suspend it if it's not working or he's not coping. He's also been in a better position to learn more appropriate lifelong social skills such as when he helps me with the grocery shopping - he has had to learn to interact appropriately with other customers, with shopkeepers, with people of all ages, sizes, shapes, walks of life. it is actually NOT natural, nor will it help him later in life, to be forced to spend most of every day in a room with the same 40 kids all his age, with only one not very interested adult in supervision. When difficult child 3 was in mainstream he was learning very bad social rules and bad habits were forming which have taken some time to repair. His short fuse got shorter, he had learned to hit back when other kids hit him, he also learned that he would always be the one to get into trouble even if he didn't start it. He was treated as stupid, as violent and as a liar. None of these are true. But he was believing this about himself and this was making our job as parents almost impossible. Plus he was vomiting at school every day, purely from the stress of being there. He wanted to be there, he loves being around other kids (yes, he is autistic but that doesn't have to mean he chooses to be apart) and he loves being in any enriched environment where learning opportunities are all around him. But the bullying was so bad it was undermining his self-confidence.</p><p></p><p>YOu need to get a handle on the diagnosis for difficult child and for husband. Even if husband is too old to be assessed (and at his age, it wouldn't achieve much) he needs to be prepared to at least accept, even informally, that the son's diagnosis has undoubtedly had a genetic component. Also look into yourself and your side of the family - we've found Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) tendencies on both sides in our family too.</p><p></p><p>Don't try to block the Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) stuff. Indulge it, as long as you can. Don't try to switch off stimming, these kids need to stimulant. But over time they will learn to choose stims which are more subtle and more acceptable socially.</p><p></p><p>Some more study for you to help - read anything by Tony Attwood, on Asperger's and autism. he puts things in a very positive, supportive light which could make it easier for your husband to accept that this might describe him too. Especially if he realises you love him as he is, warts and all, stims etc and all. Your son also needs to know this. Keep things light, non-judgmental and respectful all round. </p><p></p><p>The golden rule is respect. But nobody should demand respect. You have to SHOW respect, in order to be given respect in turn. And as parents, you have to be the ones to begin. Think about how we traditionally treat our kids - it's generally not how we would treat an adult living under the same roof. Compare how you speak to your child, with how you speak to your neighbour or your friend. Now try to interact with your child the same way you would with your friend. Even if your friend is rude to you but you know your friend is having a bad day - how would you handle it?</p><p></p><p>THis is not giving in to your child, it is actually teaching your child how to behave to others. It really works with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) people.</p><p></p><p>Next - for your husband especially - go to <a href="http://www.childbrain.com" target="_blank">www.childbrain.com</a> and run the Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) questionnaire on him. If you think he can accept it, discuss the results with him, maybe ask him what he thinks. Or find a Tony Attwood article on Asperger's and see if it could describe your husband.</p><p></p><p>The first Tony Attwood article I read was shown to me by a psychologist. The article listed the good qualities of someone with Asperger's. This expands to include Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)-not otherwise specified.</p><p></p><p>They are loyal. Extremely so. They would walk over burning coals for a friend or family member, even if the same loyalty is not returned.</p><p></p><p>They are capable of deep, intense love as well as other emotions. We just don't always recognise those emotions because although they feel them, they don't always show it in ways we recognise.</p><p></p><p>They are able to focus intensely, to a greater degree and for far longer, than most people. This can be a huge asset in the workplace. This is also the case for those who also have ADHD. It just has to be on the correct topic.</p><p></p><p>Their problem solving skills are usually highly advanced.</p><p></p><p>These abilities can be used to forge a possible career path, even if the person's obsessions seem odd and unproductive. For example, Temple Grandin's obsession is cattle and cattle loading chutes. But she has a very good career designing cattle loading chutes and related works. She is able to simply stand and look at a building, and in her head the necessary modifications are already drawing themselves. In her head she can rotate her drawings, walk through them, look at them from any angle and 'run' them to make sure they WILL work. This is not what most people call normal, but is IS very valuable.</p><p></p><p>My difficult child 3 can't do that. He can't draw for nuts. But his grasp of electronics and computers is remarkable. We're gently pushing him in that direction for a career path.</p><p></p><p>Welcome to the board, we can help.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 357635, member: 1991"] Yep. But I'm lucky - husband is very housebroken. He's also a member of this site, he lurks all the time and posts occasionally too, as "Marg's Man". We think husband has Asperger's. However, he does have problems clashing with difficult child 3 at times when he is overtired and snaps back into old "disciplinarian" habits. Also he can be very inflexible, especially when he's tired. And difficult child 3 is also very inflexible and it can be a bad mix. husband though has a really good grasp of his strengths and weaknesses and is really working hard to do things the right way. What helped us a great deal - reading "The Explosive Child" by Ross Greene. I read it and found, even as I was reading it and before I made any changes, difficult child 3's behaviour was already improving (because I was already making changes just in my attitude, and this began to have positive benefits on difficult child 3 immediately). I gave the book to husband but he just couldn't get into it, it just didn't seem to 'sink in' for him. So I wrote a summary for him and also explained it to him; then as I put it into practice I explained how it worked as we went. This all actually helped me a lot, because to be able to explain it, I really had to have a good grasp of it myself. What we found - because I was the first one to really have a good grasp of how it worked and to use it, we became "good cop, bad cop" and difficult child 3 became even more hostile to husband, because husband was still far more in "because I said so" mode (a very bad thing with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)-ish kids). I strongly recommend you read the book AND do your best to recruit husband to how it works. It won't be easy, but if your husband is at least prepared to see that there is another way that could work, you are ahead of the game. If you can get him to lurk here and maybe (if he wants to) PM my husband, it might help. I am writing this knowing my husband will be reading this - he reads everything I post, always has. This has actually been very helpful for our communication and teamwork in raising our kids. sometimes he will come home and say, "I read your posts while I was at work today. I hadn't realised you felt that way," or "I didn't agree with what you wrote. I think you didn't put my side very well." We then would discuss it and work out any differences. It all is good to help us be on the same page. And also, what we write in a post is far more concentrated than what we might say to one another; he was getting it in a more concentrated dose, more cohesive. The problems aren't fixed, but we now have a different way of dealing with things. husband has also had to learn to be far more tolerant, far more patient and he IS learning this because he can see that it works. It is helping him personally in other ways. Other topics I want to share with you - Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) is not seen as a disability in this house. It is simply a different way of brain functioning, one which brings gifts with it too. We support and nurture those gifts, we value them and we work to help the child do things his way. You sound like you're also doing this but letting your son spend all of one day on one subject - this is what we found has worked for us, first with difficult child 1 and then with difficult child 3. But we have added a few refinements to our schooling program that might help you. Feel free to 'steal' whatever of my methods you think will help, and discard the rest. 1) School work during school hours. That means even if he feels sick, he still works on schoolwork and not on non-school stuff. In your case you set the school hours time yourself, in consultation with your son. But this is an important rule to stick to. When you can, replace it with an outcomes based system where he has to complete a certain amount of work to consider his school day (or school week) done. Also part of this - if he is so sick he just wants to sleep, we let difficult child 3 sleep. Because he doesn't do this often and only when he is genuinely sick. If he's well enough to sit up awake in bed, he's well enough to read a textbook. Or if he's well enough to sit up in a blanket on the couch, he's well enough to watch a documentary on DVD. Or do some educational computer stuff. 2) difficult child 3 chooses which subject to work on next, but I guide him if I feel my availability is going to be needed more, or less, and I have to plan fort the times when I will be available. We're also moving towards a system of "Put solid effort into this subject for the next hour, and if you can then we will go do X for the next half hour." At the moment X is a driving lesson. But it could also be a promised trip to the mall, if he has got his work done efficiently. 3) Involve your son in his own education choices. So if you feel he is getting a bit into a rut and needs to be shaken up a bit, discuss with him about planning a day excursion somewhere as part of his study. If his hands hurt to do writing tasks, let him type his answers on the computer, for example. If he has a laptop computer he can use (or something similar) then let him use it in the car and keep a journal on it. difficult child 3 has a small inexpensive word processor which he was given to use while still in mainstream, because of his problems with his hands hurting (hypermobile joints). A home-schooled student is a portable student, and we go on trips occasionally and each time difficult child 3 keeps a travel journal plus we make sure he logs everything educational we do, and the places we go. We link in every subject we can - when we went to New Zealand, we took lots of photos of geothermal power stations, of volcanic activity, of various land formations (such as glacial valleys, boiling mud, steam vents, glow-worm caves) and then got him to write about it at the end of each day. When we bathed in a hot spring we got him to copy down the list of the mineral salts in the water, for his science teacher. And for the sports teacher we took photos of the first commercial bungee jump centre in the world. difficult child 3 is a correspondence student, so he does have subject teachers - on the other end of a phone or mailing envelope. As far as social skills while at home, vs social skills in any mainstream school - we make a point of getting difficult child 3 out mixing with people. But because he can always come home when HE wants to, it means that if he's at a friend's house and someone is being mean to him, he can always leave. But at school he couldn't do that, and if it was teachers being mean, or not stopping other kids being mean, it was bad. We've found that difficult child 3 has learnt better social interaction now he's at home, because HE is in more control of the interaction and can suspend it if it's not working or he's not coping. He's also been in a better position to learn more appropriate lifelong social skills such as when he helps me with the grocery shopping - he has had to learn to interact appropriately with other customers, with shopkeepers, with people of all ages, sizes, shapes, walks of life. it is actually NOT natural, nor will it help him later in life, to be forced to spend most of every day in a room with the same 40 kids all his age, with only one not very interested adult in supervision. When difficult child 3 was in mainstream he was learning very bad social rules and bad habits were forming which have taken some time to repair. His short fuse got shorter, he had learned to hit back when other kids hit him, he also learned that he would always be the one to get into trouble even if he didn't start it. He was treated as stupid, as violent and as a liar. None of these are true. But he was believing this about himself and this was making our job as parents almost impossible. Plus he was vomiting at school every day, purely from the stress of being there. He wanted to be there, he loves being around other kids (yes, he is autistic but that doesn't have to mean he chooses to be apart) and he loves being in any enriched environment where learning opportunities are all around him. But the bullying was so bad it was undermining his self-confidence. YOu need to get a handle on the diagnosis for difficult child and for husband. Even if husband is too old to be assessed (and at his age, it wouldn't achieve much) he needs to be prepared to at least accept, even informally, that the son's diagnosis has undoubtedly had a genetic component. Also look into yourself and your side of the family - we've found Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) tendencies on both sides in our family too. Don't try to block the Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) stuff. Indulge it, as long as you can. Don't try to switch off stimming, these kids need to stimulant. But over time they will learn to choose stims which are more subtle and more acceptable socially. Some more study for you to help - read anything by Tony Attwood, on Asperger's and autism. he puts things in a very positive, supportive light which could make it easier for your husband to accept that this might describe him too. Especially if he realises you love him as he is, warts and all, stims etc and all. Your son also needs to know this. Keep things light, non-judgmental and respectful all round. The golden rule is respect. But nobody should demand respect. You have to SHOW respect, in order to be given respect in turn. And as parents, you have to be the ones to begin. Think about how we traditionally treat our kids - it's generally not how we would treat an adult living under the same roof. Compare how you speak to your child, with how you speak to your neighbour or your friend. Now try to interact with your child the same way you would with your friend. Even if your friend is rude to you but you know your friend is having a bad day - how would you handle it? THis is not giving in to your child, it is actually teaching your child how to behave to others. It really works with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) people. Next - for your husband especially - go to [url]www.childbrain.com[/url] and run the Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) questionnaire on him. If you think he can accept it, discuss the results with him, maybe ask him what he thinks. Or find a Tony Attwood article on Asperger's and see if it could describe your husband. The first Tony Attwood article I read was shown to me by a psychologist. The article listed the good qualities of someone with Asperger's. This expands to include Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)-not otherwise specified. They are loyal. Extremely so. They would walk over burning coals for a friend or family member, even if the same loyalty is not returned. They are capable of deep, intense love as well as other emotions. We just don't always recognise those emotions because although they feel them, they don't always show it in ways we recognise. They are able to focus intensely, to a greater degree and for far longer, than most people. This can be a huge asset in the workplace. This is also the case for those who also have ADHD. It just has to be on the correct topic. Their problem solving skills are usually highly advanced. These abilities can be used to forge a possible career path, even if the person's obsessions seem odd and unproductive. For example, Temple Grandin's obsession is cattle and cattle loading chutes. But she has a very good career designing cattle loading chutes and related works. She is able to simply stand and look at a building, and in her head the necessary modifications are already drawing themselves. In her head she can rotate her drawings, walk through them, look at them from any angle and 'run' them to make sure they WILL work. This is not what most people call normal, but is IS very valuable. My difficult child 3 can't do that. He can't draw for nuts. But his grasp of electronics and computers is remarkable. We're gently pushing him in that direction for a career path. Welcome to the board, we can help. Marg [/QUOTE]
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