The Jouney Continues

Autism.

Just hearing it makes a mom's heart go racing. Fortunately for me, my son is not "autistic".

After the visit with the nuerologist we made the appointment with the doctor that he referred us to. This one has a title of pediatric development and behavioral doctor, or some such thing. This doctor was extremely informative, very friendly, and most importantly was able to have a conversation with my son. Who wonder of wonders was not hateful to him. Actually, he bordered on chatty, which was rather unusual for him. Not always or for long periods of time, but cooperative. For once...

We come prepared with the forms that were filled out by relatives and teachers. Once he reviewed them, he had a whole other series of questions for me and my son. He observed my son in the room and talked with him. We had a couple of visits of this that each lasted for quite some time, certainly not the usual 10 minutes and we're outta there type of thing. As much as two hours. Which by the way is a really long time to sit in a doctor's office, for kids as well as adults. Finally the doctor is ready to give an aswer. It is not autism in the true sense of the word. He says it is something called Asperger's Syndrome. Say that again?! Asperger's. Oh yeah, and the reason he is so difficult is he has something called Oppositional Defiant disorder. So he's crabby and it's not something I did? Hooray! I thought I was doing something wrong. So the social difficulties are not my fault either? Hooray again! Not that I want my son to have any problems, it is just a relief to know I was not a complete failure at being a mom. I mean, my son has had me in tears before with his attitude and I thought it was something I was or wasn't doing. Now how do we fix it? Is it like the acid reflux, we just give a pill? (Kinda sad when even as adults we think that there is a pill for everything.) No, no pills, but we can help him.

As hard as it has been with me with his mood swings and irritability, of course it was even worse for my son. Who did not know why he felt the way he did. Or why the kids did not want to play with him, or why the kids were mean to him. Why was everything so hard for him. You know those questions you really can't answer as an adult to the satisfaction of a child.

The doctor recommends social therapy. Says social therapy will teach my son social skills, which he is seriously lacking. It should teach him how to interact with others, to figure out what they mean, learn how to make and take a joke. Learn how to be "normal", just like the other kids. Learn how to play with kids. Learn how to play. It takes a little while to find a therapist on the insurance that I had. There was not really a lot of options for therapy with the insurance we had. We ended up going to the local childrens services facility. We were assigned a social worker who I was not sure I liked but since we did not have any other options went with her anyway. I think this social worker lived in another world. She was trying to teach my son social skills that would have worked in the 50's perhaps. Or maybe in Mr. Roger's neighborhood. But after a few weeks, my son said he thought he liked her. He actually talked to her some. She still to me seemed as if she was missing a few important points, but if my son liked her, okee-dokee. I did not think she helped a whole lot, as she kept her head in Mr. Roger's neighborhood, but my son did learn to adapt some. They did discuss issues that my son felt he was having in school, things the kids "did" to him, and how he could have reacted differently and what the other child's response would have then been. I also talked to his teacher in kindergarten about encouraging him to join the other kids in play and she was more than helpful with it. She said that sometimes though he would ask the kids to play what he was playing with and when they said no they were already playing something, he took it as a personal attack that they did not want to play with him. The teacher was more than willing to help keep an eye on him and talk to him when that happened. I do believe just the teacher helping is what made improvement with his social skills. The therapist just was not up to par in my book. After a while my son started saying he did not want to go back to the social worker/therapist. No reason, just don't want to go. I don't like her anymore. No reason, just don't.

By this time he is in first grade and we are having all sorts of problems with the teacher. She is brand new and has strange ideas of what 6 year olds are capable of. Like writing 50 sentances in one evening. Yes, I said 50. Now I agreed that my son was in the wrong that day, but thought that was excessive. I made him write some, but not all. After all, this was a private school and the tuition I paid is what pays her salary. She works for me, and if I think 50 is too many then I am the parent and what I say goes. The response was that I was undermining her authority. Of course, this was not the first time I "removed" a punishment that I thought was too harsh for small children. With 6 year olds, you make them have a time out from recess or no recess, send them to the office to have their parents called. That would sure be embarassing. Or don't let them have the free time in class. You don't make them sit at the front office for an "inservice" at a desk all day like you would older children, or make them write 50 sentances in one evening. Now, I know that some of this is the Aspergers and some is the ODD (oppositional defiant disorder). You have to have very set rules and plans for the day for someone like my child. When things don't progress in the day like he thinks they should, or like yesterday did, it is just too much to handle. Then he tends to get out of control. He gets rather anxious and upset. And because my son who used to love school now hates it, I decide perhaps I need to start going to the school to see what the problem is. I start going on my lunch hour. This coincided with the time he was at recess. I did go when he was in kindergarten, but was made extremely welcome by the teacher. This teacher for first grade, not so welcoming. I would watch him interact with the kids, sometimes playing along with all of them. Sometimes talked to the teachers and parents out on the playground watching the kids if my son was standing in the time out area to see what his problem was. My concern was how can I find out what is going on if I don't go and see for myself. Am I supposed to take the word of a 5-6 year old child who doesn't have a good understanding of social rules and just jump to conclusions, or go and see? I would prefer to go and see. I do not believe that my son lied to me, just did not see things the way everyone else would. I would like to note that other parents go to the school and give time, check on their kids, or just hang out. It seems it was only a problem with me because I put some of the blame on the teacher. I actually now work with another mom with children at this school and she went all day everyday for two weeks to see what was going on when her son's grades fell. No one said anything to her. But she was not trying to make any complaints against a teacher.

I felt like I had a lot on my plate with everything that was going on in the therapy and at the school. My son made some progress only to fall back a lot. I was not sure if this was normal or not. The therapist just was not overly intelligent in my book. And I was receiving a lot of resistance from the teacher and principal at the school. All I wanted was to help my son and keep him from having such a hard time. Isn't that what all parents want to do? Smooth out some of the bumps in front of their children? I just did not want my son to be so unhappy. And at end of 2006 all hell broke loose. This is when the threats began.........