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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 259745" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>Welcome to the site, here we have a wealth of experience that you can take advantage of. Feel free to dump on us when you need to, to pick our brains etc. Also feel free to share your experience - you will be surprised at how much you already know. One thing I have really got from this site is a sense of empowerment and confidence in my own decisions and choices, concerning our kids.</p><p></p><p>A couple of things to share with you now -</p><p></p><p>1) Read the book. It will help. Really. You can change your approach to discipline, to parenting, and instead of clashing you can turn it around. It's an attitude shift, a different way of looking at him and his issues. It can seem counterintuitive but it works so often where 'normal' methods seem to be making things worse. However, all who are dealing with this boy need to be working as a team. Those not on board will be the ones to suffer. We found that ourselves. I read the book and began to implement it immediately. husband of couse could not implement the book as quickly, because only one of us could read it at a time. Also, he was unable to "get into" the book (not his fault) so I boosted my own understanding of the book by explaining it to him and writing out a summary. This has helped husband, plus we workshop it when we need to. However, the lag between me using the book and husband taking it up, meant that difficult child 3 for some time has seen husband as the ogre, as the problem. He is now beginning to see his dad in the right way, but when he rages or they clash, old habits kick in. It's not always easy, especially for sons and fathers. husband tries really hard to not "snap back" to old disciplinarian techniques (which don't work here, and can make things worse) but especially when he's tired or stressed, it's so difficult to concentrate on this. However, it IS worth the effort and does pay off.</p><p></p><p>2) Keep a diary. You may think that you will never forget the important stuff, but you do. A lot of the important stuff is the positive stuff, the fun stuff, the interesting stuff - that is often the first stuff we forget, and it should be the last. It's also VERY useful to have a "Communication Book" travelling in the schoolbag going to and from school, as communication between you and the teacher. it should never be the child's responsibility in any way to ensure the book is transported or delivered (it's too important, and to try to use it to "teach him to be responsible" is a HUGE mistake). If you both make short but frequent notes in the book it's amazing how much it can help. The immediacy especially is valuable. it also reduces stress to both teacher and parent, which has to make things better for everybody, including the child. It also allows the teacher to get away at the end of the day and of course we as parents must recognise that having our Aspie kids in the classroom all day is no bed of roses - the after-school classroom steps consult can be avoided if you use the book, and this gives a grateful teacher an earlier escape. Win-win. it's also in writing, which is also very vlauable years later, when you want to see how much progress has been made as well as to check up after the fact on old cases.</p><p></p><p>3) Recognise that he WON'T be able to do the same things as his peers at the same age. He will get there eventually, but will take a lot longer to reach some milestones. For example, my difficult child 1 couldn't use the telephone for years, even to ring his best friend to invite him to his birthday party. I had to make the call then hand over the phone. Even at 18, he couldn't make a phone call. A problem, when he was a correspondence student who needed to telephone his teachers to ask for help. I had to stay with him and keep asking, "How is it going? Do you need me to call a teacher for you?"</p><p>However, over time he slowly got the confidence to do this and now can use the phone with moderate ease.</p><p>Toilet training took longer (with both our boys) as did a number of other skills. However, the gifted component found in a lot of Aspies was in stark contrast - difficult child 3 was reading VERY young, including reading sheet music and playing the piano as a pre-schooler. A non-verbal pianist in nappies...</p><p></p><p>4) There are going to be long-term social problems, but Aspies CAN learn to find ways to reduce the problems, as long as they are taught in ways they can take on board. They WILL NOT learn social skills purely by being around other kids. This may seem obvious, but we found that a lot of educators simply couldn't understand this and have caused us a lot of grief.</p><p></p><p>Something that has been important for us - we have taught our kids that yes, they have a disability, but they needn't have a handicap. It is up to them, to make the best they can of the brain they have been given. They may have difficulties in some areas, but the same brain wiring that is responsible for those difficulties has also brought unexpected gifts. difficult child 1 can't mentally multi-task, he has short-term memory problems. However, he has learnt to compensate by using his long-term memory, so it has deveoped to a prodigious level and he has an amazing wealth of information in his head. He can also narrow doen his concentration to such an intense, fine point that he can shut out all distractions and concentrate to an unbelievably intense level. His sensory integration issues also mean that he is very aware of imperfections in a surface, so in his recent job he was put in charge of sanding furniture because he ensured a perfect finish. He was proud of his workmanship and enjoyed his work in a way a lot of other people might find difficult to understand. He would come home from a hard day's work with a deep sense of satisfaction.</p><p></p><p>There are a lot of misconceptions about autism and Asperger's. I recently was talking to a relative who has a 70 year old brother with Asperger's. He commented how his brother "of course" isn't capable of loving his family. I immediately corrected him - I had just met the brother and his intense need to please people, to be loved by them, was obvious to me but only because of my own experience. I pointed out to the relative that in my experience they ARE capable of loving, very much so, but it doesn't always show in ways we recognise. My boys feel emotions very intensely, but it doens't always show on their faces and so other people don't always recognise it. With the 70 year old cousin, in the days when he was a child it WAS believed that people with autism had no feelings, no emotions and couldn't be reached except very peripherally. His parents were told he was retarded and as a result they would have treated him as such, never expected him to be able to do much.</p><p></p><p>Even as recently as when difficult child 3 was a toddler, there were research papers being written which stated that autistic people with savant skills weren't really skilled, it was just a freakish semblance of intelligence, in the same way that when a parrot talks we think it amazing and an indication of intelligence in the bird, but in reality the bird is only functioning as a tape recorder and not really using language. I happened to make contyact with a researcher at that time who was working on a new and at the time controversial idea - that you could use the high skills to help the child make progress in the low skill areas.</p><p></p><p>Ideas are changing all the time. I have had strong ideas which were at odds with the scientific thinking at the time, but which have been since shown to be right. I have felt vindicated in my parental instincts and this encourages me to express my ideas, to have faith in myself as a parent and to see myself as an expert at least with regard to my own children. Of course I will still listen to professionals, but if their views clash with my own, I will not automatically dump my own ideas, I will discuss it all and weight it all up, keeping an open mind and gonig forward carefully, ready to change direction should things prove to be not what is expected.</p><p></p><p>We are at the coalface of parenting our kids, at a time when scientific/medical thinking is changing dramatically, with regard to autism and Asperger's. At such times, we need one another very much, for support, for confidence, for help.</p><p></p><p>Welcome!</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 259745, member: 1991"] Welcome to the site, here we have a wealth of experience that you can take advantage of. Feel free to dump on us when you need to, to pick our brains etc. Also feel free to share your experience - you will be surprised at how much you already know. One thing I have really got from this site is a sense of empowerment and confidence in my own decisions and choices, concerning our kids. A couple of things to share with you now - 1) Read the book. It will help. Really. You can change your approach to discipline, to parenting, and instead of clashing you can turn it around. It's an attitude shift, a different way of looking at him and his issues. It can seem counterintuitive but it works so often where 'normal' methods seem to be making things worse. However, all who are dealing with this boy need to be working as a team. Those not on board will be the ones to suffer. We found that ourselves. I read the book and began to implement it immediately. husband of couse could not implement the book as quickly, because only one of us could read it at a time. Also, he was unable to "get into" the book (not his fault) so I boosted my own understanding of the book by explaining it to him and writing out a summary. This has helped husband, plus we workshop it when we need to. However, the lag between me using the book and husband taking it up, meant that difficult child 3 for some time has seen husband as the ogre, as the problem. He is now beginning to see his dad in the right way, but when he rages or they clash, old habits kick in. It's not always easy, especially for sons and fathers. husband tries really hard to not "snap back" to old disciplinarian techniques (which don't work here, and can make things worse) but especially when he's tired or stressed, it's so difficult to concentrate on this. However, it IS worth the effort and does pay off. 2) Keep a diary. You may think that you will never forget the important stuff, but you do. A lot of the important stuff is the positive stuff, the fun stuff, the interesting stuff - that is often the first stuff we forget, and it should be the last. It's also VERY useful to have a "Communication Book" travelling in the schoolbag going to and from school, as communication between you and the teacher. it should never be the child's responsibility in any way to ensure the book is transported or delivered (it's too important, and to try to use it to "teach him to be responsible" is a HUGE mistake). If you both make short but frequent notes in the book it's amazing how much it can help. The immediacy especially is valuable. it also reduces stress to both teacher and parent, which has to make things better for everybody, including the child. It also allows the teacher to get away at the end of the day and of course we as parents must recognise that having our Aspie kids in the classroom all day is no bed of roses - the after-school classroom steps consult can be avoided if you use the book, and this gives a grateful teacher an earlier escape. Win-win. it's also in writing, which is also very vlauable years later, when you want to see how much progress has been made as well as to check up after the fact on old cases. 3) Recognise that he WON'T be able to do the same things as his peers at the same age. He will get there eventually, but will take a lot longer to reach some milestones. For example, my difficult child 1 couldn't use the telephone for years, even to ring his best friend to invite him to his birthday party. I had to make the call then hand over the phone. Even at 18, he couldn't make a phone call. A problem, when he was a correspondence student who needed to telephone his teachers to ask for help. I had to stay with him and keep asking, "How is it going? Do you need me to call a teacher for you?" However, over time he slowly got the confidence to do this and now can use the phone with moderate ease. Toilet training took longer (with both our boys) as did a number of other skills. However, the gifted component found in a lot of Aspies was in stark contrast - difficult child 3 was reading VERY young, including reading sheet music and playing the piano as a pre-schooler. A non-verbal pianist in nappies... 4) There are going to be long-term social problems, but Aspies CAN learn to find ways to reduce the problems, as long as they are taught in ways they can take on board. They WILL NOT learn social skills purely by being around other kids. This may seem obvious, but we found that a lot of educators simply couldn't understand this and have caused us a lot of grief. Something that has been important for us - we have taught our kids that yes, they have a disability, but they needn't have a handicap. It is up to them, to make the best they can of the brain they have been given. They may have difficulties in some areas, but the same brain wiring that is responsible for those difficulties has also brought unexpected gifts. difficult child 1 can't mentally multi-task, he has short-term memory problems. However, he has learnt to compensate by using his long-term memory, so it has deveoped to a prodigious level and he has an amazing wealth of information in his head. He can also narrow doen his concentration to such an intense, fine point that he can shut out all distractions and concentrate to an unbelievably intense level. His sensory integration issues also mean that he is very aware of imperfections in a surface, so in his recent job he was put in charge of sanding furniture because he ensured a perfect finish. He was proud of his workmanship and enjoyed his work in a way a lot of other people might find difficult to understand. He would come home from a hard day's work with a deep sense of satisfaction. There are a lot of misconceptions about autism and Asperger's. I recently was talking to a relative who has a 70 year old brother with Asperger's. He commented how his brother "of course" isn't capable of loving his family. I immediately corrected him - I had just met the brother and his intense need to please people, to be loved by them, was obvious to me but only because of my own experience. I pointed out to the relative that in my experience they ARE capable of loving, very much so, but it doesn't always show in ways we recognise. My boys feel emotions very intensely, but it doens't always show on their faces and so other people don't always recognise it. With the 70 year old cousin, in the days when he was a child it WAS believed that people with autism had no feelings, no emotions and couldn't be reached except very peripherally. His parents were told he was retarded and as a result they would have treated him as such, never expected him to be able to do much. Even as recently as when difficult child 3 was a toddler, there were research papers being written which stated that autistic people with savant skills weren't really skilled, it was just a freakish semblance of intelligence, in the same way that when a parrot talks we think it amazing and an indication of intelligence in the bird, but in reality the bird is only functioning as a tape recorder and not really using language. I happened to make contyact with a researcher at that time who was working on a new and at the time controversial idea - that you could use the high skills to help the child make progress in the low skill areas. Ideas are changing all the time. I have had strong ideas which were at odds with the scientific thinking at the time, but which have been since shown to be right. I have felt vindicated in my parental instincts and this encourages me to express my ideas, to have faith in myself as a parent and to see myself as an expert at least with regard to my own children. Of course I will still listen to professionals, but if their views clash with my own, I will not automatically dump my own ideas, I will discuss it all and weight it all up, keeping an open mind and gonig forward carefully, ready to change direction should things prove to be not what is expected. We are at the coalface of parenting our kids, at a time when scientific/medical thinking is changing dramatically, with regard to autism and Asperger's. At such times, we need one another very much, for support, for confidence, for help. Welcome! Marg [/QUOTE]
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