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When did you realize your grown child was different?
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<blockquote data-quote="SuZir" data-source="post: 637906" data-attributes="member: 14557"><p>Mine was difficult from day one, but it came evident he truly was different when he got to toddlerhood and started to have other ways to express himself than just crying. One can of course not know if he inherited his difference, if it was something during the pregnancy (I did have a bad flu early on and few other bugs during pregnancy, I was also stressed and one of course doesn't know about all kinds of chemicals and moulds etc. one may have been exposed to), or if it was just bad luck and some mutation happened in bad time when he was just cluster of cells. In the end it doesn't matter. He was born with certain issues and certain gifts like any one of us. That was what we had to work with. And work we did. </p><p></p><p>We decided that we would do everything in our power to help him reach his potential. To help him become as high functioning than was possible for him. Now that he is an adult I have questioned that decision even though at the time it felt like such a no-brainer. </p><p></p><p>Of course we have no way of knowing how things would had turned out if we have chosen differently. If we had celebrated his specialness instead of being driven to teach him skills and help him function at the top of his ability. We can not know if he would had turned any less emotionally scarred if we would had chosen 'the special needs'-lifestyle for him. In fact we can't even know if he would had turned any less functioning if we had done that (though he very likely wouldn't be a pro athlete nor would his plan B be medication school, if we had done different choices when he was young.)</p><p></p><p>but yes, I have questioned especially one decision we made when he was in elementary school. Because of his school issues he was offered a place from special education classroom targeted to kids in higher end of autism spectrum or similar issues. We agreed to it and after he had been placed there for some time, we noticed he had picked up all the autistic mannerism really well. We felt that his social skills were backsliding and also the academics were in question. He wasn't supposed to have any curricular accommodations, but it was a year he was starting to learn English and we noticed they were really not keeping up with mainstream classes. We didn't consider science or social science a problem (easy to catch up), his reading ability and also ability in our second language (we are not bilingual family per se, I'm only officially bilingual in our family, but because of our environment also husband and both the boys are functionally bilingual) were not the cause to worry and he already mastered the whole elementary school maths curriculum and some more, but English was a new thing and languages are always much more difficult to catch up later, if you get left behind in the beginning. Because of that we asked him to be moved back to mainstream class, and it certainly was easy to get the school to agree (difficult child was coming up with all kinds of 'fun' ideas for his more affected class mates to try.)</p><p></p><p>But if I'm honest, our challenge to accept autistic mannerism was part of the reason. There were two memorable situation that fall. One was in one of the difficult child's more leisurely sports, when the coach started to hint how the other club had a team for special needs kids and how his neighbour's son who is with severe down syndrome really enjoyed it and maybe it would be more appropriate group for our son. The same son of ours who was athletically gifted, extremely competitive, hated losing and had just couple months earlier been selected the best player of the very high level summer camp in his main sport. Apparently one kid flapping his hands while running on the field was too much for them. Other was maybe a month later, when we took boys to Christmas shopping to the big mall. Okay, difficult sensory situation, but still difficult child's behaviour, again running around flapping his hands and shrieking like a rooster whole time was too much for us. Superficial or not, but that change in our son's behaviour was simply too much.</p><p></p><p>We had worked so hard to teach him skills and it felt like all that was for nought. All those countless hours used to train him with latest animal training methods provided by most cutting edge behavioural science, all the occupational therapy, both by therapist and by us at home, everything we had work so hard with seemed to be going to drain and he was backsliding to much more special needs kid. </p><p></p><p>When back to mainstream the mannerism slowly rubbed off and he also quickly caught up in English (and ended with 97 % in his final exams.) But maybe if we had left him to that class, or pressed to get him to special education even earlier on, when it was considered before he started school, he would had grown up to be a happier, less scarred person. Or maybe he would be angry he wasn't given a chance to become what he wanted, to try to chase his dreams. One can not know. Even if I would ask him, he would have no way of knowing, which route would had been preferable. </p><p></p><p>And of course: Alea iacta est. And now we are all living with it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="SuZir, post: 637906, member: 14557"] Mine was difficult from day one, but it came evident he truly was different when he got to toddlerhood and started to have other ways to express himself than just crying. One can of course not know if he inherited his difference, if it was something during the pregnancy (I did have a bad flu early on and few other bugs during pregnancy, I was also stressed and one of course doesn't know about all kinds of chemicals and moulds etc. one may have been exposed to), or if it was just bad luck and some mutation happened in bad time when he was just cluster of cells. In the end it doesn't matter. He was born with certain issues and certain gifts like any one of us. That was what we had to work with. And work we did. We decided that we would do everything in our power to help him reach his potential. To help him become as high functioning than was possible for him. Now that he is an adult I have questioned that decision even though at the time it felt like such a no-brainer. Of course we have no way of knowing how things would had turned out if we have chosen differently. If we had celebrated his specialness instead of being driven to teach him skills and help him function at the top of his ability. We can not know if he would had turned any less emotionally scarred if we would had chosen 'the special needs'-lifestyle for him. In fact we can't even know if he would had turned any less functioning if we had done that (though he very likely wouldn't be a pro athlete nor would his plan B be medication school, if we had done different choices when he was young.) but yes, I have questioned especially one decision we made when he was in elementary school. Because of his school issues he was offered a place from special education classroom targeted to kids in higher end of autism spectrum or similar issues. We agreed to it and after he had been placed there for some time, we noticed he had picked up all the autistic mannerism really well. We felt that his social skills were backsliding and also the academics were in question. He wasn't supposed to have any curricular accommodations, but it was a year he was starting to learn English and we noticed they were really not keeping up with mainstream classes. We didn't consider science or social science a problem (easy to catch up), his reading ability and also ability in our second language (we are not bilingual family per se, I'm only officially bilingual in our family, but because of our environment also husband and both the boys are functionally bilingual) were not the cause to worry and he already mastered the whole elementary school maths curriculum and some more, but English was a new thing and languages are always much more difficult to catch up later, if you get left behind in the beginning. Because of that we asked him to be moved back to mainstream class, and it certainly was easy to get the school to agree (difficult child was coming up with all kinds of 'fun' ideas for his more affected class mates to try.) But if I'm honest, our challenge to accept autistic mannerism was part of the reason. There were two memorable situation that fall. One was in one of the difficult child's more leisurely sports, when the coach started to hint how the other club had a team for special needs kids and how his neighbour's son who is with severe down syndrome really enjoyed it and maybe it would be more appropriate group for our son. The same son of ours who was athletically gifted, extremely competitive, hated losing and had just couple months earlier been selected the best player of the very high level summer camp in his main sport. Apparently one kid flapping his hands while running on the field was too much for them. Other was maybe a month later, when we took boys to Christmas shopping to the big mall. Okay, difficult sensory situation, but still difficult child's behaviour, again running around flapping his hands and shrieking like a rooster whole time was too much for us. Superficial or not, but that change in our son's behaviour was simply too much. We had worked so hard to teach him skills and it felt like all that was for nought. All those countless hours used to train him with latest animal training methods provided by most cutting edge behavioural science, all the occupational therapy, both by therapist and by us at home, everything we had work so hard with seemed to be going to drain and he was backsliding to much more special needs kid. When back to mainstream the mannerism slowly rubbed off and he also quickly caught up in English (and ended with 97 % in his final exams.) But maybe if we had left him to that class, or pressed to get him to special education even earlier on, when it was considered before he started school, he would had grown up to be a happier, less scarred person. Or maybe he would be angry he wasn't given a chance to become what he wanted, to try to chase his dreams. One can not know. Even if I would ask him, he would have no way of knowing, which route would had been preferable. And of course: Alea iacta est. And now we are all living with it. [/QUOTE]
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