Life with Aspergers

This is a "best of the best post. Check the link: SOS Best of the Best Edition 11: Family Life from 15th October for more posts on this topic by other authors. Normally I tend to keep my family life quite separate from my general aspergers posts. No, I'm not fussed about privacy, it's all there on a different blog (see: http://gbollard.blogspot.com ). I just do my best to to shield my readers from the boredom of my daily life. This month's BOB topic however is "family life" and I guess this is one of the hardest posts I've had to write. How do I make it sound interesting? You see, apart from unexpected change, our lives are pretty much the same as everyone else's. We've got things down to a routine. It wasn't always like this. We had years of terrible struggle until we developed all of the rules. As parents, we've gotten very good at predicting events and distractions. For example; We can now look at food with the eyes of my eldest son an...

This is a "best of the best" article. Check back here after September 15 for more articles by other authors on this topic. There is a saying about Aspergers which I believe applies equally well to most, if not all, other special needs - to paraphrase; "if you've met one person with special needs, you've met ONE person needs". Just as all special needs people are different, the calming techniques required are also quite different. Techniques which calm one person may simply infuriate another. Trial and Error In this post, I plan to cover a few approaches but the application of these is very much a matter of trial and error. If your actions seem to be worsening a situation then stop and try a different approach. Getting Attention No technique is going to work unless you have attention. It doesn't have to be total attention, part attention is fine. Don't forget too that many special needs children have issues with eye contact, so "attention" ...

This post is part of Best of the Best, Edition 9: Special Needs Therapy . If you check the above link from August 14 onwards, you'll find a whole host of similar articles by other authors. Introduction I'm presuming that most people will be writing from the point of view of parenting their own children. I could do that. My children have been through speech and occupational therapy (both of which were excellent), listening therapy (which quite frankly I found unhelpful) and a couple of other formal therapies. They've also had plenty of chances for informal therapy - did you know that simply owning a dog can be theraputic too? As usual though, I'm going to try to be different. I want to talk about what it's like going through therapy and how it helps. Speech Therapy When I was a child, I went through a couple of different types of therapy with the two biggies being speech and occupational therapy. I wasn't diagnosed with aspergers then but simply had a ...

** Parents please note - there are some concepts in this post which may offend or may be unsuitable for children ** Censorship Long time readers of this blog will know that I'm firmly opposed to a lot of today's censorship even when it applies to children. In some cases however it's in the child's best interests.  If a child has special needs or issues which impact their understanding of concepts, then media censorship takes on additional meaning. The bad effects of media on children can range from social gaffes all the way up to life-threatening behaviour. Of course, like everything, media has a flip-side too and it can have many beneficial effects particularly for children with different learning styles. Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash How do you figure out what to block and what to allow through? How do you draw the line between providing a safe versus a sheltered environment? Can the media really be of benefit to your child's education or is it just a baby...

Anxiety in children is a topic which is very close to my heart at the moment. It's not that my children are particularly anxious at the moment although we've certainly had our issues with anxiety in the past. This time it's the fact that that my wife and I are both scout leaders (she does Joeys and I do cubs) and we both have some anxiety issues within our groups. It's quite different when it's not your child. When you're outside of the day-to-day life of the family (scouts is mostly once per week). This time, instead of being the parents, we're the "professionals". Being on the other side of the fence is giving us a whole different point of view. Immediacy of Results The parents of our anxious children are coming up to us and talking about how "they can't see their children settling" and about how they feel like "maybe they need to take their children out of scouts". We understand their position - after all, we used to be t...

Is there such a thing as "taking a vacation" when special needs children are involved? I know many people whose whole idea of a vacation is "any time without the kids" but aside from the respite services that some parents can take advantage of, there's little chance of that sort of holiday. Even my own parents who take the kids for a "holiday" during their school breaks have stipulated that they can only look after one child at a time. Breaks away from the kids are very rare for us. So, if a break away from the kids isn't possible, then what happens when you take them with you? Driving Vacations These are cheap and easy holidays - sometimes. One of the problems that many special needs children have is that they can't stay still for very long. A driving holiday can quickly turn from a peaceful trip into a nightmare if your child decides to continually unbuckle their seatbelt, annoy their siblings or pitch a "sensory fit" because ...

This is a " Best of the Best " Post. School is a drag. Literally. I'm lucky because being a father, I only have to cope with the school morning routine on my days off. In those instances, I'm a novelty and the kids behave (a little) for me. My wife however has to deal with it every day - and it's not unusual for me to get an early morning phone call asking me to "tell my children something" or clarify "did you say that they could wear [insert ridiculous article of clothing here] to school today?". I'm sure that getting ready for school is difficult with neurotypical kids but for children on the spectrum, it's enough to make you give up the "rat race" and home school instead. Waking Up and Getting Dressed Unless it was a late night the night before, we usually don't have too much trouble getting the boys to wake up. Insomnia is however, commonly associated with Aspergers, so depending upon your particular child, they may ...

I want to briefly talk about the best of the best series because up to this point, I haven't introduced it properly. The Best of the Best series was devised by Danette Schott of Help! S-O-S for Parents . It's a great site, so if you haven't visited, please do. The idea behind the Best of the Best series is for a group of bloggers to all post different viewpoints on a shared topic at the same time. This is great because if you don't find that my particular view suits your situation, you may find that someone else's does. You'll find Danette's rules for the Best of the Best here . You'll find a list of the bloggers who are officially part of the best of the best series here . Note: This is not some kind of secret club. If you're a blogger and if these topics seem to be in your area, then please get in touch with Danette and join in. The more, the merrier - and the better the chances that we'll provide well-rounded and balanced information. So f...

Some of the biggest issues that children with aspergers and other forms of autism tend to face are social ones and in the early years these tend to be most obvious during play. Children with aspergers often have no idea how to join in games or how to play co-operatively. While other children will play with toy boats in water, children on the spectrum may simply sprinkle water on their hands and enjoy the feeling. Parent concerns are often pushed aside with the phrase, "it's a sensory issue". Then there's parallel play, where the child will sit with a group of other children and play similar games but not make eye contact and not engage in discussions or interplay. Again, parents are often told to expect the worst. Their child won't socialise, won't interact and isn't friendly. Finally, there's lone-play, where a child will go into a corner and will line up cars, organise toy kitchen utensils or simply cuddle up to some soft toys. In this case, parents...

The Help! S-O-S for Parents site is having a blog carnival on traditional and non-traditional treatment options for autism. It should be very interesting to see a wide range of views and opinions on this. I'll link to the carnival pages once they become active. In the meantime however, my article, as usual is on acceptance. Autism Acceptance By Gavin Bollard The world of autism has changed a lot over the last fifty years. Back in the 1960s, it was common for autistic children to be institutionalised for life. It was common for children with autism to be subjected to painful, humiliating and often life-threatening "correctional" therapies, like shock treatment, LSD therapy and behavioural punishment. One of the most prevalent theories of the time was the "refrigerator mother", a theory which put the blame squarely on the parents. In fact, it was Leo Kanner, the "father of autism", who suggested that these children resulted from a " genuine lack...