Autism As A Whole

Have you ever been in a store and saw a kid screaming on the ground and thought about what hi/her parents were doing wrong? That may have been my son. What about when the child is repetitively spinning and bumping into you at the checkout? Yup, Could have been my son again. Do you remember the little boy that was rubbing your micro fiber pants in the store? Definitely my son!!!

What do you do when you encounter these situations? A lot of people pass judgement and blame the parents, but for my son, it is beyond his control. He hears things we don't and gets overwhelmed with all the stimuli. I think for me it is easier for a stranger to ask a question then glare and pass judgement. I will gladly answer any questions but I am not a mind reader. It is important for people to understand what is going on. It took me almost four years to remotely understand my son and it is still a struggle for me. Please, if you are in the store and a child is seemingly having a really rough time, take the moment to consider the possibilities of what is going on.

I know I must seem ranty today and maybe I am but there are a lot of issues laying on my mind. I am a mother with a special needs child, but what classifies your child as special needs? Do they have to have a special plan in school or a diagnosis? Is gifted classified as special needs or are they just smart ass kids with very lucky parents who have no right or reason to complain?

I feel that gifted children fall right into the same category as my son. They are very smart, but so is my son, he just can't show you how smart he is. A gifted child has the same socialization issues as my son and for very similar reasons. They cannot connect cause typical children seem odd. What is your opinion?  Can Gifted children be grouped in with Special needs?

My sister has two gifted boys and she struggles every day with them. Her oldest is extremely smart but wants to do everything his way. He is extremely intuitive and constantly asking questions. I think she must hear the word mom about 50 times every 10 minutes. Nothing keeps the youngest's interest for more than 5 minutes. Buying toys for them, well I have the same problem. For her she wants to find something they will be engrossed with and enjoy and for me I want to find something that my son will be productive with. No, being productive is not lining the books across the living room floor.

There are so many likelihoods between my sister's kids and mine. I like to say we are like an umbrella. She has the top and I am somewhere in the middle. Our children have similar quirks but, hers are gifted, mine has autism. Just to clear this one up, my son is not dumb. He is very smart. Most children with autism are very smart. It is just harder to access it all and they cannot process everything.

Gifted children tend to just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind without thinking about feelings. My son will do the same thing occasionally. The other day we had friends over and they brought a delicious chocolate cake. My son looked at the girl and told her he couldn't eat it all cause he would get fat like her. I tried to tell him that wasn't nice but he didn't understand. My other sister said I Love You on the phone and he said OK. She was a little offended because the typical response would be I love you too... but my son needs prompting still.

Gifted children are in many ways a special needs child. They learn differently, think differently and are emotionally and socially adrift. Think about that when you tell another parent they are so lucky when they mention gifted. I do!!!

If This Is Motherhood recently posted a blog about describing your gifted or special needs child so that it would be easier to explain to the teachers how they can help your child. I thought it would be a great and insightful exercise  to participate in and I encourage others to join along as well. It might be more effective to give the teachers a descriptive of your child to educate them on how to teach them. What do you think? I challenge you to hop on board and join the linksy.

I guess we can't complain about the public school system if we are not willing to look for solutions. I advocate strongly for my son and even though at times I do not feel as if my son's teacher even cares to listen, I know that I have done everything I could do to make his schooling experience as individualized as possible. I gave them the knowledge to teach my son. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. If you don't tell them what the child needs then they guess throughout the year. At least I pointed them in the right direction. That is my job, it is their job to follow through on it.

My son is four years old and ... wow, this is harder than I thought. Charles loves to build and do puzzles. He is a visual learner and works best with hands on work. It is best to visually show him what you expect him to do then just give a verbal direction. He needs a lot of redirection. Sometimes it may seem that he is not listening  as he tends to zone off into his safe world. It is beneficial to try to reengage him into the activity. He has a hard time focusing with noises and other things going on. When he is in a large group he feels awkward which causes him to engage in self stimming behaviors such as chewing on his clothes or picking his neck. A lot of redirection and visual cues are detrimental to his learning. Encouragement rather then discouragement. My son wants to interact with other children he just doesn't know how. I find it helpful to encourage him by example. Encourage him to ask for a toy from another child or give him suggestions for conversation. He is a smart and very passive child.

I am not entirely sure if I have done this exercise correctly but I tried. I encourage you to attempt it as well. Enjoy!!
If you choose to join the hop, which I strongly urge you do, click on the linksy!!

My sister bought a book. Not just any old book, but a book that was recommended by her son's school. Honestly, I am not too thrilled with the schools, so I really can't be sure how much I trust their suggestions on anything let alone parenting. But, I figure what can I lose, I will take the trip with her and attempt to survive another parenting intervention. I am not saying I am a bad parent but hey we all have room for improvement and I really don't like yelling. It is amazing how easy it is to do something that you totally despise yourself. I want to fix that and well, I am going to.


I went through today with the thoughts to remain calm and not to yell. I wanted to put focus on what I want to achieve instead of what I don't want. I think I did pretty good as I only started to yell once. As I heard my tone rising I pivoted. I turned around and said,"I am feeling upset. If I am upset I am focusing on what I don't want. Do I want that in my life?" This feels really weird but yet I intend on following the book Easy to love, Difficult to Discipline, by Dr. Bailey.  As a matter of fact my twelve year old asked me who I was talking too as she gave me a really strange look. When I told her myself she just walked away as if she didn't even want to go there. She might think it is strange but, damn, I haven't yelled at her all day. I gave my daughter a hug and a kiss before bed and she took a shower tonight. I had a pretty good day.


Did everything get done? No, but to tell you the truth I accomplished a lot. I home schooled my four year old today and I even enjoyed it.Charlie counted to ten with me and we did some physical therapy with his exercise ball. We read books, did some music and played with Bullion cubes. Bullion cubes are a really great occupier for when Mommy is cooking. Just make sure that they are individually wrapped. They don't taste good but they won't do any harm if eaten. Best of all, they are a wonderful fine motor activity. It also works to do mimicking.(See what I built, can you do the same thing?) I think it is good that he enjoys learning. We also worked on colors and speech. All of that and I even did dinner, two loads of laundry, and swept the kitchen and living room floors.


I am so proud of my little ones. They are all growing so fast. I also tried out a virtual online school for Autism. Before I talk too much about it I want to really feel comfortable. Charlie seems to like it, for a few minutes at a time. I am considering taking him out of public schools and home schooling. I really can't decide because honestly, I am so tired I am falling asleep blogging. I am exhausted and also really sore. I wish I could say that I understand what the school goes through now, but I can't compare the two. I am one person and I prepare meals, give bathes, do laundry, clean house and now schooling too. They have many teachers working together to do what I did alone. I am not saying that the teachers don't do enough I am saying that the district doesn't give them any lee way to teach anymore. They have to program them. They don't have time to teach anymore and I think it is sad. Well, I am tired and really need to go to bed cause I am starting to rant and that is for another blog. Hey, maybe tomorrow. I will be posting a yelling log at the end of every post until I master this skill. Ummm... slight hesitation as I stated that. LOL.. I only yelled twice today and one of them was at the cat so does that count?

Image by J-E-F-F via Flickr