Autism Without Limits
I was all too aware that we had disturbed all of the people around us, that none of them really knew what was going on. When they boarded the plane that day they could probably tell by the fact my 13 year old was wearing bright blue ear defenders, a sunflower lanyard and sucking his thumb with a taggie blanket, that something was different but they couldn’t have known he would have a melt down mid flight.
Well that’s it! A whole year in a specialist secondary school and we couldn’t be happier!
It is 10pm and we have just arrived home from hospital. The day progressed as you would expect, with my son becoming hungrier and tired. We watched two films and played cards for a bit before he got quite tearful and generally fed up.
I am writing this from a hospital room where we are based for the day. My son is in for day surgery and I am already seeing some of the potential problems with taking an autistic child to hospital for surgery so thought it may be useful to share our experience with you.
She then marched over to him and pulled his hood off his head. I have no idea why she would do that, but for my overwhelmed 9 year old who didn’t want anyone to see his hair, to have his hood pulled off in front of the whole school, whilst being shouted at was just too much.
There were two class teaching assistants that really helped my son when he was in primary school. One was in his class for years 3 and 5 and the other for years 4 and year 6. These are two lovely ladies that I can never thank enough for taking the time to care and understand my son because, they made the world of difference to us.
It was twenty past three. I put on my shoes and coat and set off to school to get my child. The school was only down the road so I would be in time to wait a couple of minutes in the playground.
I waited, those minutes seeming like an hour. My heart was in my stomach as usual, and I didnt know what to expect. Was he going to run to me crying, run as fast as he could away, or would this be one of the rare days he came out calmly?
At the beginning of this week, I found out that Autism Kids On Tour has got through to the finals of the BAPS Awards
For most parents of twelve year olds it may not be a good thing for their child to be on the computer for hours, shouting on the phone and ignoring their parents. For me, I shed a little happy tear last night at the thought of where he was a year ago compared to now!
I had run out of options. I had no distraction tools, no calm down tools and no energy left to deal with the imminent meltdown. I reached a point that I know many of my readers with autistic children will know well and one I have been in many times before. I felt helpless, exhausted and didnt have a clue what to do. I so desperately wanted to help my son to cope with his feelings, to take away his complete frustration, but I couldn’t.
