Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi,
My Son who is 4 was recently diagnosed as having autism. I'm still struggling to really understand. I wanted to ask a few questions if possible from people who are experienced.
My Son is such a happy beautiful little boy, he is currently obsessed with trains and flaps his hands with excitement when watching them.
I'm struggling a little with his need to want things his own way, example, i go to open the front door, he goes mad and says Kye do it, (his name) If I don't let him he has a meltdown, even things like if I decide to sit in the back garden he tells me no garden and will get really upset if I don't go inside, if we are at the shop and he wants the man to serve him but the lady does he again gets really distressed. Is this the type of behaviour you see in people with ASD? do they want everything to be particular and how they want to do it? I only ask because people are saying his pushing boundaries and it isn't part of his ASD, I'm struggling to understand why he gets so upset over the smallest things?
Could someone please help
Thank you x
Mags
You know your son best! There's always a reason and when young, it can have something to do with deeper human values that might take a long time to understand.
We can be more in-tune with our environment or with sensing connexions and the order of things, and sometimes get these wrong :)
In the shop it simply sounds like he sense-perceived a better connexion with this man over the lady and this is normal for all humans. We might have a favourite barista or prefer a particular wait staff at cafe we frequent. Autistic children (but also all children) will need a spelled-out Rule to manage their 'hopes and dreams' in this situation. This could be as simple as telling you what he wants and then watching how you handle it.
It's OK to have preferences and sense connexions with other humans, we just have to learn how to navigate. If we can make everyone feel valuable and still have our favourite individual who we feel better connected to help us in a shop, all the better. I taught my son early on to always confide in me by getting to his level and letting him express somewhat privately his thoughts so I could help him navigate. By doing this on repeat, and checking in with him to see if he'd like to open doors or if he'd like to say hello or even just pausing for a minute before going into a shop and letting him know the plan, made everything much easier for everyone.
Children are somewhat in a becoming-adult default mode. Only with out the learned physics and psychology and social rules to navigate. At this age, most of his hopes and dreams will be based on feeling a sense of being connected rather than disconnected.
Help him navigate this by letting him know "I need to step into the garden in 20 minutes." and give him something useful to do with you which he enjoys (would you like to open the door? Would you like to carry a watering can?). Perhaps you could work on building a train set outside for him.
An analogue clock will help greatly. It's not changing numbers at a nebulous rate, but continually moving forward with a second hand we can follow. It's quite useful for matters of reliability and stabilising future expectations, even if they're 15 minutes in advance. Always give warning of transitions until they ask you to stop. I just kept doing rather mothering things until my son announced he was ready to do them on his own.
Thank you very for taking time out to reply to me. I really appreciate it, I'm struggling to understand so it's really helped me to try understand! I hope soon enough I can fully understand alot more ️