signs of PTSD

[Liahona]

Well, difficult child 1 had a mood swing tonight. We were going over what autism is and what I'm going to say to his class on Tuesday. He was wanting to make sure I don't say anything embarrassing. I have a good idea of what I'm going to say and rehearsed it for him. After I got the o.k. from him we were just talking about what autism looks like for him. I mentioned that when he gets excited he does weird arm movements.

WHAM. He starts tearing up, body language gets defensive, and mumbling about how he hates M. Then he starts laughing while he is wiping the tears from his eyes. He gets up and does an imitation of M saying when M gets excited this is what M does with his arms. difficult child 1 then says how hard it is not to laugh. I ask if M is happy when he does this. difficult child 1 says yes. I ask then why not laugh with him? difficult child 1 clams up and won't talk about it anymore. I don't push for more info. I can't because then difficult child 1 will get defensive. All I can do is type my painful observations here.

M is the autistic son of X's 5th ex-wife. (Yes, X targets young single moms whose kids are special needs. Creepy, Ugh, Yuck, Yuck)

 

[Allan-Matlem]

Hi,
I can empathy with your son's emotional back and forth , being tense about his body language, then instead of hating himself for it ,hates another kid who has his autistic difficulties , then finding the kid's body language funny, and then seeing himself again and getting defensive.

as far as taking the conversation further - we can choose another time when he is calm and relaxed and collaborative problem solve on - I noticed that when we spoke about m and body language , you are not comfortable to talk about it , what's up ? You may need to ofer tentative suggestions etc

I am not sure about your question. Adding another label in my humble opinion is not going to give you tools to solve problems. Pathologizing kids sometimes blurs the picture as we tend to forget problems occur under specific conditions when the demands placed upon them outstrip their skills

Allan

 

[Wiped Out]

Hugs to you. I know my difficult child is very similar. We have to decide when we can push him on things because he gets very defensive as well. With him if we try to discuss it later he gets just as wound up, once in awhile we are able to get him to hear us.

 

[keista]

Well, if it makes difficult child 1 feel any better, my friend's son did a 'thing' with his hands when he was happy. He was age 3-5 at the time, but the kid is 100% neurotypical! It was very odd because we all knew of son's diagnosis at the time and recognized this behavior as stimming and we were 'concerned', but the behavior eventually went away and that was the ONLY Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) symptom the child displayed.

And while I'm thinking about it, we can compare autistic stims to socially acceptable things 'normal' ppl do. Girls twirl or chew on their hair, men stroke beards or moustaches, biting nails, chewing pencils/pen caps etc. This might help difficult child and the class understand that while it seems strange or different, it really isn't all that strange or different.