"You have something called Aspergers"

[mygifts1306]

Dear all

 

We have been thinking about telling Ds about the condition, explaining to him why we go for appointment at the Mental health unit, why he does not have friends and things like that, but at the same time telling him in a loving manner, so he knows Aspergers is not something that we can take out, and it is nobody's fault and that whatever conditon that the professionals say he has, whatever name, we love him very much and that has never changed. Well Ds is not daft, he has seem books floating about the bookcase, Tony attwood text, he has seen " finding aspergers in the family" and many many more books, and while we make the conscious descision not to discuss him while he is there, we felt we had to do it a bit at a time, so we started by telling him that The clinician he went to see has seen a lot of boys and girls, and that there is a selection of boys and girls who seem to have peculiar strengths and weakness, and he thinks that he is one of those boys and girls and those boys and girls have Aspergers Syndrome, and left it at that. and little by little we intend to tell him what we think he can deal with, and we try to make him look around him and obviously not frightening him, that some people are on wheel chairs, and some people are born healthy and have accidents and can never talk again, yes this will be a very long process for him and a learning curve for all of us, I have ordered the recommended book and i will let you know how we get on. Like most parents here i dont want DS to think his behaviour is because of his As, I want him to starts with his strength and everything else is seen as a little weakness that we can work on, we use social stories and have been really well until about 10 days ago, as i have indicated in another thread, sorry rambling, i just want to share ideas about this topic, also for adults who have recently been diagnosed what difference do they think it would have made to know a bit about autism? I have never heard about autism, and i thought i was quite a clued person, i had not heard about it until around 2 years ago, I mean how naive was I?. I remember vaguely 6 years ago I was reading about Tourretes(spelling), syndrome, and ADHD, I said " fiddle sticks, why do Britons always want to call things disorders", until it hit me with ds, and sometimes i say to myself, " it had to happen to me", since i was so naive even in my 20s i always maintained " when I have children, the will be polite, behave themselves and i will make sure they reach thier true potential", and this was all i expected, i expected this because this was all my family did, they are all very successful and very intelligent people. As you can see I could talk about this all day, so thats enough now.

 

kind regards and thank you in anticipation of your replies. x

Edited November 3, 2009 by mygifts1306

[JsMum]

 

 

 

J was told at the clinic that he had ADHD and that helped massively as he was very impulsive and inattentive and giving it a name helped, he attened a clinical Childrens ADHD group operated by psychologists who went throw visual explainations of what ADHD was, how to deal with it and for that part it was good because he understood what he had, at the same time he had been assessed for Dyslexia and went to a specialist so again understood why he found it difficult to read and why he hated writing, so was able to understand Dyslexia, it was a big step for a boy who kept telling himself he was stupid.

 

Over the years we went throw similair books to help him understand Autism spectrum disorder he also goes to a specialist school were there is boys with varing degrees of Autism and he has a fair understanding of it now, he is 12 years old, I feel the younger they are the better as they become more familairised to it, a late teenage dx could make it more difficult for the young person come to terms with it, Im confident now that J understands his disabilities and gets the support he needs.

 

I would say specially designed books looking at telling a young child is an important step, with a slow journey of learning more about it, a book J looked throw recognised many of the same difficulties, though he also pointed out to me that he doesnt do that though, so you have to remember that Autistic Spectrum Disorder is an individual experience and there is no two identical ASD children out there because even with ASD we are all different.

 

It may be a good idea to get intouch with NAS to see if there is any services they can offer around children understand their ASD.

 

Good luck I totally understand why your choosing to tell him early.

 

JsMumxxx

 

 

 

[justine1]

I was interested about what you said on how people seem to want to give the name disorder for every little thing(I know its not an exact quote so apologise) I felt the same before learning more about AS and in all honesty like many people when I heard the word autism I would think of a child rocking constantly unable to talk and not able to love or be loved,I guess this may be because at the age of 12 my teacher would bring his autistic son to school (I believe he had some childcare issues) and his son was exactly what I have described.I feel so bad for this stereotype but I think lots of people do this.My eldest brother used to make jokes about disabled people often saying they are "retarded" at the age of 23 he suffered a severe stroke and two more strokes thereafter(over a period of 2 years) he is now disabled, he cried so much at the time as he said that it happened because of his jokes he made as a child,it was heartbreaking to see him feel so guilty.Now he works with children he makes them accept people for who they are and its great,he also does talks etc for stroke association.Sorry that this didnt answer the question at hand but just wanted to share this.