I'm sure I made a post but it must have disappeared :-( We like a few of you had an OK Christmas but we a building to a MAJOR meltdown at the moment. I wrongly assumed that becuase we had already had 5 Christmases that things would be OK well you know what assume did don't you. We had a few tears and not an overly joyful day but at least we didn't have to go anywhere!!!
He has made a new hidey hole, where his desk slides into his bunk bed - don't ask me how he gets in there but he does and it seems to be keeping away the worst of the melt down moments, that along with his new DS.
I don't know what to do with DS at the moment. I am tightening up on the diet as we have been a little lax and I am making up our calender/daily plan as i type :-) but he is not looking for any of the things that used to help - jumping, wall banging etc??? I'm clueless and OT is closed until mid Jan :-(
Also ... haven't mentioned this to anyone else but DH has applied for a new job... which will mean a move of about 1000 km. In the opposite direction of family. I'm not even trying to think about the implications until we find out for sure.
RE family members - OMG! Isn't it funny how when you mention the "a" word to family and friends immediately they start comparing to the "autistic person' down the street blah blah blah. I hate it! My newphew is ASD so you can imagine the comparisons we get from MIL. When we first looked at getting him diagnoised we got the same statement, "nothing wrong with DS, he's nothing like DN" grrr. The only person who was suportive was of course SIL. We have lovely long chats now about our gorgeous boys and relate on sooo many levels (including b*&%$ing about MIL :-)
Arm flapping - didn't start really noticing it until about 4 1/2 and it comes and goes. He also does the finger twiddle where he looks like he is playing a piano in mid air or something.
Love the Matilda sandwich!
have any of you talked about autism/aspergers with your child? We told DS a few months ago and got the book "all cats have aspergers" he was so stoked the other day when I told him the inventer of pokemon is a person who has aspergers :-) He is dreaming big dreams for himself now :-)
You know what we say to Matilda is, "honey you have something in your brain, which makes it confusing when you are dealing with most people who think differently. That is why you get so frustrated with us. Neither of us are "right" or "wrong" just different from each other." So that when she goes towards a melt down I can sometimes help her through it saying "that will hurt your brain, that is why you have to back away...." etc etc...
I hate it when you can see a melt down coming, and there isn't much you can do. Maybe a few stim free days in a row? We've found Matilda is calm after a trip to the beach, so we have been going there a few days a week.
We don't really talk about it to Mason but we're going to have to soon I think. He knows he is a bit different to other kids in the way he thinks and does his school work though.
I've seen that book Sarah. I think it's gorgeous I think I should get it for MIL who is in total denial about him, and she's seen him in full melt down.
Sarah how is he with the DS? Does he get fixated on it? (One of my biggest worries with stuff like that). Interesting that you have another ASD child in the family too. Same here but on my side, though I think my DH has some spectrum features and possibly his dad did too.
We had a big day yesterday with a wedding (the 10 year anniversary of them meeting, very sweet) and he did so well. It helped that there was a lot of kids there and they hired a jumping castle. We hardly saw him but oh boy did we hear him lol. He has quite a shriek when he gets excited. Come home time he didn't want to leave so I left him there with DH and half an hour later he decided it was home time. Hopefully any issues today will just be because he is a bit tired seeing it was almost 11pm by the time he got to bed. I checked on him before I went to bed and he was doing the plane thing with a glo stick.
Sarah - we got A DS for WIlhelm for Christmas too...he's heart broken cause he's already lost a game and he keep's telling me that he needs to buy a new one. Ive made a rule that its an hours play adn then it gets put up in my room. Ive always made this rule since the boys were small and ive been consistant with it so I dont get any **** when the hour is up.
We tell Wilhelm that he's a special boy with super powers that we dont have. I told him about 2 weeks ago that he has 'Autism' and that we dont care if his brain is different to ours. He took it alright but I think it's gonna take a bit more for us to get it through to him. I like the idea of the book about it...Might have to invest in it I think. I know NIkolaus get's frustrated with him at times...but ive heard him tell his friends (proudly) his brother has Autism and is really smart....the 'normal' child seems to always suffer more then the child that is affected but it Poor Nikolaus has been through so much and it hurts cause he can remember everything that happens.
Wilhelm is heavily into movies....like who the actors are, the people who help make it and trialers. He'd rarther sit and watch the second disc about the movie making thent he actual movie. We always say he's gonna be the next Steven Speilberg lol.
The last week we have been prepping him up for Mateauz birthday...which he told us was in October until about 3 weeks ago lol. We're having a party here on saturday so hopefully he'll be alright. there are going to be heaps of pools of water for the kids to play in go his water fixation will be in fine form.
Sarah - I bought one of those egg chairs from Ikea for Wilhelms time out. Its great cause it has a pull down blind so when he's really bad he goes and sit's in it and chill's and can block the outside world. When we first got it he used it 2 -3 times a day and now he is lucky to use it once a week.
A for other children in the family on the spectrum - my niece has 2 that are on it. Funyn thing is...When Wilhelm was diagnosed my sister and both nieces laughed and told me suck ****! yes i dont talk to the loser's at all but anyway...her 3 yo daughter was diagnosed (unformally) with aspergers and now her almost one year old son is showing exactly the same signs...Karma people is all im saying! although I would never wish it on anyone but still they now live my life
Our problem with Wilhelm atm is that he plays with his penis all the time....drives me insane so I just tell him to leave his penis alone...I sound like such a broken record
Oh Maz, my heart goes out to you and Wilhelm about losing the game, Xander is completely paranoid about losing a game or the stylus! We got some free games with ours, which one did he lose I might have one here that is similar. Xanny is only playing pokemon at the momnet so he wouldn't notice if one of other ones vamooshed.
I lent the book to another family whose daughter has autism and they loved it and went out and bought there own copy. They found it was excellent, not only for their daughter (6) but for their older kids to understand too! We got ours from sue larkey's website.
Maz - OMG at your family! I wouldn't be talking to them either. I have been eying off those egg chairs! Just need to find somewhere local that has one/stocks it to see if he will sit in it.
Sam - Yes he does get fixated on the DS and playstation but we set the oven timer and he knows what that means. we also use the DS to destress when we HAVE to go places like shopping etc. The other thing is he is already heavily into the pokemon world and plays "pretend mode" where he acts out pokemon - usually an episode he has seen on tv or somewhere else. We have found by directing him towards playstation/DS it helps with his communication with other kids as it gives him a topic they understand rather then his "pretend mode" which no-one but him truely understood all the 'rules' to.
We spent 3/4 of the day in a cardboard box today. But Ari thought it was awesome and made a car out of hers. I also managed to get him on the trampoline for a little while today which has helped to settle him a little. Only 27 days till school goes back Xander is counting down!
Hi - did anyone watch a show called Magnificent 7 on the ABC last night ? It's based on a true story of a single mum of seven who has four sons who are 'on the spectrum'.
I missed bits of it, but have found it is in 10 minute parcels on youtube.
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I think I should get it for MIL who is in total denial about him, and she's seen him in full melt down.
Poor Nikolaus has been through so much and it hurts cause he can remember everything that happens.
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