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The long diagnosis process!

Sjw

Hi all 

im new here :) I have an 8 year old son who we suspect has high functioning autism and possibly ADHD. 

We are at the moment going through the long process of assessments etc. I just feel so angry as i've been telling the docs since he was 2 that he needed some help and I was turned away and belittled all the time, and now my poor boy is so confused and his confidence has taken a true battering! 

Today I told him to make his own way home (as he always does, we live in a small village) and a teacher who didnt know the routine told him he couldn't leave with out me and he thought she was going to keep him there forever and totally freaked out bless him. There was swearing and shouting and finally he did a runner. I was mortified when school phoned, but I find myself not confident in how to handle these situations as we have no idea on his prognosis and have been given zero guidance from the hospital. Luckily his school is amazing and I've had a look online and am kitting him out with a couple of worry bags (one for school and one for home). I just wondered how other people got through these times and just neleer to know I'm not alone on this. 

thanks :) 

  • Sadly it seems to be very common to get the brush off when parents express concerns related to autism.

    I have to confess I am very concerned at you letting him walk home alone, being only 8 and probably autistic too makes him very vulnerable.  Small village or not, it can lull you into a false sense of security, predatory abductors/attackers are everywhere, including villages (whether they live there or are opportunists passing through).

  • Hi 

    sorry I should have said, I can see the school from my house and was advised to let him walk as otherwise he is the only one getting picked up and it was resulting in teasing which made massive problems. The path from school is also fenced in and being a very tight knit community the parents of the younger children keep an eye on the older ones on their way home :) 

  • I agree with IntenseWorld.  I would be having kittens letting my sons walk home at that age.  I understand that need for parents to want to instill independence, but many ASC children will run if they feel threatened and loose all sense of awareness of danger, such as cars on the road, etc.

    If work is the driving factor as to why he is having to walk home, then maybe giving him a basic mobile phone will at least help you find him should he wander off.

  • I just wonder if the teacher was thinking it through. After all, if the teacher is going to change a pre-determined arrangement, she has a duty to contact you to say she is detaining your son, otherwise you are expecting him home and would be worried if he didn't show.

    She might have just been tired or felt she should meddle, but I think she acted irresponsibly.

    But the school only phones when your son made a scene. Well aspergers or otherwise that's pretty frightening for any child who doesn't know why he's not being allowed to do what his mother has instructed him to do.

    Villages vary pretty widely, and yours might be a safe one to walk through, but also village communities necessarily have to take a hardier view of getting around, simply because of everyday practicalities.

    My image of villages in influenced by the ones I encounter walking through: no pavements or distances without pavements or even a safe grass verge. Or there is a pavement but some or more selfish individuals park on the pavement up against a hedge. Crazy road junctions with blind corners and locals particularly driving through way too fast because they think knowing the road makes them immortal. Or farm entrances with tractors and machinery moving blindly in and out, or farm dogs. But I'm just a townie that concludes that you village types are all mad crazy to live like that.

    Having said that I was living in a village when I started infant school, and we had to pass a row of houses where there werre squatters we were warned might be dangerous.