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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 370755" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>Welcome to the site. It's not easy sometimes, trying to get a 'handle' on your child.</p><p></p><p>I am not suggesting your son could be on the autism spectrum, you haven't really given us enough to go on and anyway, we can't diagnose on this site. But always remember, every kid is different and sometimes we have preconceived ideas about what a particular diagnosis looks like. it's amazing how people can get it wrong, especially with diagnoses that are still being fiddled with. I'm using autism s an example, because it is the diagnosis in our family. But when I was a kid, autism was considered to be a mysterious condition where children lived in another world, were locked out of ti world somehow because of something wrong in their brain; that they were incapable of feeling any emotion or attachment to anyone and simply spent their days sitting in a corner rocking and slamming their heads against the wall.</p><p></p><p>Flash forward to ten years ago, and autism was considered to be a mysterious condition where some part of the brain didn't work properly and tended to make kids with it withdrawn, difficult and sometimes violent, incapable of expressing and feeling love. Communication problems, social problems and sensory issues. There were still a lot of people saying that kids with autism are withdrawn and unemotional.</p><p></p><p>Now let's look at my own understanding. I believe that people with autism feel emotions extremely keenly, but not necessarily in ways tat observers recognise as valid. The often deadpan expression is because they have never been properly taught that facial expression and body language is a method of communication. But with difficult child 3, his older sister easy child used to play a game with him when he was a toddler, where we would say an emotion and make the matching facial expression, then get difficult child 3 to copy it. So on demand difficult child 3 learned the facial expressions to match "happy", "sad", "angry" and so on. So by the time he started school, if difficult child 3 was feeling angry he would deliberately put on his angry face in order to communicate this to the teacher. But it looked so fake that his teacher had difficulty realising that the emotion displayed, while looking fake, was actually felt as real.</p><p></p><p>difficult child 3 is also very outgoing, he always has sought out people and willingly approached total strangers in order to instigate social interaction. This seems contradictory for someone with autism; but the social problems come about because difficult child 3, although outgoing, is still socially inept and often inappropriate.</p><p></p><p>All I'm saying here - in trying to determine a diagnosis, often you need to be broadminded and prepared to think outside the square.</p><p></p><p>But when trying to ensure your child's needs are met (not always the same thing as getting a good diagnosis and medications) you need to focus more specifically on your own child and where he can excel, what he is interested in, and where he is struggling. Use the strengths and abilities to try to overcome the problems. Also you as parent have to be confident in your own knowledge and abilities when it comes to your own child. It can take a lot of personal sacrifices, but if you consider your efforts to be an investment in your child's future, it is a lot easier to justify the effort and not feel so resentful. We have a fairly narrow window of opportunity to help our kids, before they are legally adults and out of our reach. All we can do is the best we can, in the time we have.</p><p></p><p>We are home-schooling difficult child 3 (in a way) via a state-based correspondence school. As I said, difficult child 3 is socially outgoing and also because he is autistic, homeschooling was greatly resisted by the education department. difficult child 3 is also very strong-willed and resists my teaching him. However, tis is working for us better tan anything else. It's as if he is finally learning anything at all, he learned noting while in mainstream. Well, a nothing - mainstream taught him tat his lot in life is to be bullied. He also learned some bad habits socially from the bullies.</p><p></p><p>So for us, this works. But it works because difficult child 3 has a lot of control over his own education. He has standards to meet but within those, I let him choose what subject to work on and when. If he is falling too far behind in one area because he is preferring a different subject, he soon makes the choice to balance things out so he is working at about the same level for all subjects.</p><p></p><p>"Explosive Child" is a brilliant book which helped us a great deal, especially in putting together a good system to get him working well at home. On the social side - when school hours finish and other neighbourhood kids come home from school, difficult child 3 has finished his academic workload and is ready to go play. When he was in mainstream, he was coming home with loads of homework, which was made up from all the work he had not been able to complete during the day. Now, he is far freer to socialise than before. also he sometimes accompanies me on shopping outings which gets him mixing with members of the public in a standard life skills environment, so he is learning practical socialising and also helping me buy the groceries!</p><p></p><p>Anyway, welcome and let us know how you're getting on.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 370755, member: 1991"] Welcome to the site. It's not easy sometimes, trying to get a 'handle' on your child. I am not suggesting your son could be on the autism spectrum, you haven't really given us enough to go on and anyway, we can't diagnose on this site. But always remember, every kid is different and sometimes we have preconceived ideas about what a particular diagnosis looks like. it's amazing how people can get it wrong, especially with diagnoses that are still being fiddled with. I'm using autism s an example, because it is the diagnosis in our family. But when I was a kid, autism was considered to be a mysterious condition where children lived in another world, were locked out of ti world somehow because of something wrong in their brain; that they were incapable of feeling any emotion or attachment to anyone and simply spent their days sitting in a corner rocking and slamming their heads against the wall. Flash forward to ten years ago, and autism was considered to be a mysterious condition where some part of the brain didn't work properly and tended to make kids with it withdrawn, difficult and sometimes violent, incapable of expressing and feeling love. Communication problems, social problems and sensory issues. There were still a lot of people saying that kids with autism are withdrawn and unemotional. Now let's look at my own understanding. I believe that people with autism feel emotions extremely keenly, but not necessarily in ways tat observers recognise as valid. The often deadpan expression is because they have never been properly taught that facial expression and body language is a method of communication. But with difficult child 3, his older sister easy child used to play a game with him when he was a toddler, where we would say an emotion and make the matching facial expression, then get difficult child 3 to copy it. So on demand difficult child 3 learned the facial expressions to match "happy", "sad", "angry" and so on. So by the time he started school, if difficult child 3 was feeling angry he would deliberately put on his angry face in order to communicate this to the teacher. But it looked so fake that his teacher had difficulty realising that the emotion displayed, while looking fake, was actually felt as real. difficult child 3 is also very outgoing, he always has sought out people and willingly approached total strangers in order to instigate social interaction. This seems contradictory for someone with autism; but the social problems come about because difficult child 3, although outgoing, is still socially inept and often inappropriate. All I'm saying here - in trying to determine a diagnosis, often you need to be broadminded and prepared to think outside the square. But when trying to ensure your child's needs are met (not always the same thing as getting a good diagnosis and medications) you need to focus more specifically on your own child and where he can excel, what he is interested in, and where he is struggling. Use the strengths and abilities to try to overcome the problems. Also you as parent have to be confident in your own knowledge and abilities when it comes to your own child. It can take a lot of personal sacrifices, but if you consider your efforts to be an investment in your child's future, it is a lot easier to justify the effort and not feel so resentful. We have a fairly narrow window of opportunity to help our kids, before they are legally adults and out of our reach. All we can do is the best we can, in the time we have. We are home-schooling difficult child 3 (in a way) via a state-based correspondence school. As I said, difficult child 3 is socially outgoing and also because he is autistic, homeschooling was greatly resisted by the education department. difficult child 3 is also very strong-willed and resists my teaching him. However, tis is working for us better tan anything else. It's as if he is finally learning anything at all, he learned noting while in mainstream. Well, a nothing - mainstream taught him tat his lot in life is to be bullied. He also learned some bad habits socially from the bullies. So for us, this works. But it works because difficult child 3 has a lot of control over his own education. He has standards to meet but within those, I let him choose what subject to work on and when. If he is falling too far behind in one area because he is preferring a different subject, he soon makes the choice to balance things out so he is working at about the same level for all subjects. "Explosive Child" is a brilliant book which helped us a great deal, especially in putting together a good system to get him working well at home. On the social side - when school hours finish and other neighbourhood kids come home from school, difficult child 3 has finished his academic workload and is ready to go play. When he was in mainstream, he was coming home with loads of homework, which was made up from all the work he had not been able to complete during the day. Now, he is far freer to socialise than before. also he sometimes accompanies me on shopping outings which gets him mixing with members of the public in a standard life skills environment, so he is learning practical socialising and also helping me buy the groceries! Anyway, welcome and let us know how you're getting on. Marg [/QUOTE]
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