A plea for help

Tonight I read the following comment on my posting from earlier today.......

Laura said...
Scott, Still loving it that you are here writing on your blog. I had a tough day today with Jared. He is 8. He was almost kicked out of the day camp for biting. He is not a malicious kid but I think he is so frustrated with being teased and trying to fit in that he lost it today and bit a kid. I don't condone his behavior and I explained that his choice was not the right one, but I can understand where he is coming from. The frustrating thing for me is trying to get normal people to understand that this behavior is not bad behavior per se, it is just him trying to release his frustration. I don't know how to explain the neurotypical world to him and I don't know how to explain the autistic world to neurotypicals. Any suggestions would be appreciated???? I'm so frustrated myself I could just cry!!

First of all Laura, I feel for you deeply and can relate completely. I went through exactly the same kind of things with Tony in kindergarten and first grade. This is the reason I pulled him out of first grade and home schooled him for a year and a half. He was biting, and hitting and kicking both teachers and students. I was told by the school that there might be charges pressed when he bit his teacher hard enough to draw blood and she had to get a shot at the hospital. Through those first two years of school for him I tried different punishments, I tried talking and explaining to him that he could not behave in that way. He once was even pulled out of the school by the police officer that they have stationed there and taken to the mental health facility. For your sons the only thing I can recommend is repetition. Repeat, repeat, repeat. This is one of the few things that I consider my father doing right when he was raising me. Abusing me didn't help, although between him and my brother they made me too scared and insecure to lash out like our children do. Which does show you that your boy is raised in a loving environment. He's not scared to show his emotions. He doesn't keep them locked up inside like I've done most of my life. But yes, repeat what you are trying to teach him as much as you can, day after day. For some reason the mind of an autistic person has a hard time accepting any new information that conflicts with how they think or feel at that time. I can't explain why, I'm not an expert, I'm just living with it so I know. People also have to look at the fact that in his mind he's younger than his body's age. My son is eight and in his mind he's about four. My daughter is going to be five but she barely acts like a two year old. With me, I am almost forty, I have that many years of knowledge and experience with the world, I can pretend to be an adult quite well, but most of the time I still feel like a child myself. I'm guessing roughly around ten. The world has to understand that emotions are SO much more amplified with all the autistic, no matter where on the spectrum they fall. The sensory side of our brain is different too. I still can't stand raw cotton, don't know why. Any kind of emotional or sensory overload can send us into a meltdown, or even self-defense mode. Some could call it an instinct of self-preservation. This is why your son does what he does. It will take time and patience from everyone until he learns how to better control his emotions and understands how to control himself. I still have my doubts as to whether or not Tony is ready, but I'm trying him in school again this year. The first sign of trouble I'm going to pull him back out. No one with this condition should be expected to handle that type of environment until they are ready. Some of the autistic may never be. But all of the emotional and sensory issues in a school environment can cause multiple meltdowns in a single day. No one would want to be subjected to an environment they can't handle. There are normal people that are scared of spiders and wouldn't want to be put in a room full of them. The examples can go on and on. You as the parent will know how much your child can handle and if you don't feel he can take it pull him out. The main job of our schools in this country is nothing more than a training ground to teach our children how to conform to rules and regulations so they can grow and enter the working environment and pay their taxes. Our country isn't hard to figure out, it's just a big money machine and we're the ones keeping it going. So you can't expect the schools to really care about the children as much as parents do. They're just making their money and paying their taxes. We have to take a stand. We have to look out for our Aspergian and Autistic Angels.