Please help !

I completely agree thank you so much for all your kind words Lonewarrior !

NAS 38972 Who ??? 

You will find this site is the best place to find out information.

NAS38972 seems to have a fixed idea and elsewhere states he is an expert on his older sons “ severe” autism, we are all individuals, he has a seemingly negative attitude towards his son, I wish I could link to his words where he describes various reasons for autism, brain damage at birth being one, he says his son does follow some commands?

Autism is not a defect, it is not an illness, it is how we are born, we are wired differently to the majority, not wrong,,,just a minority of normality.

take care and please listen to those of us that are autistic and accept my words, you are an amazing mum, you came here looking to find answers to nurture and help your child, you are amazing just as all the other mothers who strive to understand how best to help and support thier child,

take care and be kind to yourself.

Thanks Lonewarrior, 

I thought this chat was ment for support and advice not for upsetting parents who are seeking help...

Surely this behaviour from NAS 38972 shouldn't be just ignored from NAS ??? 

If this the case I'm considering to leave this chat, although lots of others were really helpful and supportive.

Shame ...

I cannot understand why NAS 38972 thinks severe autism means a child was or has been born with brain damage?

His previous responses on other threads to mothers with young children are of similar language, negative!

He has said  unkind words about his son, words like he follows ceratain commands?

In response to NAS38972 May I remind you Your son is not an animal. Issuing commands is not the way to interact and help him. You talk of restraining him in his buggy when he was younger, and whilst he is obviously over whelmed in a shop and has a melt down or shut down and falls to the floor you stand by him and tell the tut tut brigade they are lucky they are not “ disabled”!

I am sorry your son has caused you so much stress and worry all his life but your words only seem to put him down and tell everyone how bad he is and that anyone with a young autistic child should follow your guidance, which is negative, unhelpful to him and certainly does nothing for any parent coming here to learn about thier own child.

By the way I am autistic, always have been and always will be, I do NOT consider I was born with a defect, 

Please read our words and try to understand your child, He isn’t what you think is normal!, he is himself and needs help and lots of love to open his world and allow him to start living it. 

Are you trying to be helpful ? I find your response rather strange and No my son is NOT severely autistic ! 

If he goes for peoples eyes, he must be regarded as biing severely autistic, this is classic repetetive behavoir. My son will if he gets the chance go for people mouths to get  at their tongue. This comes from watching a lifetime of bart Simpsons Cartoons, where Homer strangles Bart and Bart's tongue comes out ofhis Mouth. He will als hit you on top fo the head,

Some one some where some how at some time introduced your son to eyes.your son is obsessed with eyes, You should not talk to him abut it, It will get him into trouble. Dont show him babies as he will become more curious.  If he is autistic he will only be interested in himself. .Don't draw eyes.They are used to communicate with, Maybe you use Contact lenses , Maybe he sees you Make up your eyes, Maybe it's on TV, or wherever. You will have to try and get him to forget eyes.  Somewhere some how He has eyes imprinted in his brain as something to exoplore to seek the answer to his problem of what can only be a very confusing world. Yes you will have to be aware always of where he is and what he might  do. Dont ever show him a glass eye of Marbles.  Think NO EYES,

An autistic person when drawing a face will draw eyes with all the pupils in and the dot in the Middle.. 

I'm so pleased for you and your boy Eddie. Good luck x

We only do quiet times at softplay and you are right it's so much better :-) 

There is only 1 autism group /trampolining/once a month in my area so not that autism friendly city, but things are improving with my boy back at school and doing very well ! 

All the best :-)

Thanks Anna, very helpful thank you ! Eddie is now back at school with 1:1 support and doing really well.

He is kind to all the other (even small children ) so we are so relieved...

Thanks again x

hi my daughters 5 I have the same issues I've found a lot of soft play areas now do quiet days if there are places you like to go ask about quiet days or days for special needs it makes it nicer for parents but more fun for kids 

Hi bluebabyboymum

I am a mum to a 4.5 year old boy who is autistic. He used to be drawn to younger kids and babies, wanted to talk and play with them but problem was he didn't know how. I realised he just didn't understand how it works. It's all simple to us but to him it was very confusing. He would go up very close and try touch kids faces or even pulled hair when any of young kids would play. What I decided to do was to approach every time with him and say hallo as he is often repeating things I do. And always repeated to him " gently" as he could get a bit too excited. This is only what I think and I don't know for sure but I believe more fun and excitement for my child he can get quite aggressive like push or hit or kick. He often laughs afterwards because he believes it's a game and he doesn't understand someone might be hurt. Now he's in school he interacts with a lit of kids and he learned when we see a baby we tickle their feet when a young child we wave and say hallo. Of course this routine has to be repeated on and on but I think now he grew out of it a bit. And I understand it is difficult for you because I used to go out with my boy and I just couldn't relax because I was afraid he could hurt another child. Hope it helps a bit

Thanks for your input Cassandro, 

He is very affectionate towards his sister and loves her very much, but if she is crying he tries to hit her... He does sometimes pokes her in the eye and laughs it of or hits her if she starts crying... He loves his Dad and me but we do get pokes in the eyes first thing to get us out of bed...

He has lots of peers from school who wants to be his friends but he is only interested in ones who are pushing him away and gets too close to their face ...

He is all about baby toys at the moment and he still wants to be a baby.

Just a thought. Maybe he wants to interact with another living being, but doesn't know how. Maybe Eddie only knows some ways of making an impact on the world, and the social stories don't cover cases of being excited?

Do you have any pets? How is he with his sibling? Can he get some sense of nurturing? How about a Tamagotchi (there seem to be similar toys available at the moment)?

I can't really help as I wasn't like that at 5.

He does have headphones and really loves to listen to the music...He only started this recently as he wouldnt keep anything on..We don't have ear defenders but will look into getting them.

Babies are not crying when he runs towards them, usually asleep .. 

He seems to practise different face expressions lately, loves the crying one ! 

Thanks again you have been very helpful Emma ! 

No worries. Completely understandable, I'm just aware that it gives you a certain vulnerability to state it that bluntly and I wanted to make sure that you were ok 

"He does get physical if someone is crying" Now this rings bells. Could it be a sensory thing, that Eddie is distressed by the sound of crying and doesn't know how to react, so he lashes out?

I certainly find baby cries unbearable due to my oversensitivity to high-pitched noises. It's very common in autism.

Perhaps investing in some ear defenders to wear in places he may encounter babies could help with that specific reaction. 

Hi Emma,

Thank you so much I would definitely try your suggestions,  unfortunately I don't have anyone with baby to help but will try with baby-dolls . I do realise that I shouldn't have said 'please help I'm willing to try anything ! ' as it might comes across wrong ... All I was after was some tips, techniques even to hear that someone's child is doing something similar.... I had a chat about it with child psychologist and she said she have never heard of anyone with this behaviour towards babies...

I am terrified that he is going to seriously hurt someone...

He does get physical if someone is crying so it gets extra hard when we're out at playground or soft play.

Eddie once kicked a dog and laughed afterwards and few times after that he tried again and we always stopped him..He doesn't seems to do it anymore..

It is not just babies, he would go for babies if they are there but pushes over toddlers too..

He is smiling afterwards... So scary...

I think he just wants to be friends and he really loves babies but I'm getting to the point when I have to force myself to take him out and it always ends up with 'incident.'

Thanks again Emma really do appreciate your help ! 

I must also comment (as I cannot seem to PM you) to warn you be very wary of potential autism "cures" that you may see, if you post things like "Please help I am willing to try anything" (I understand that feeling of desperation, it can be very hard on the whole family, it was on mine when I was young). 

Our best current evidence points to autism being hereditary and lifelong (it is certainly possible that conditions exist that may come on later and display similar symptoms, which may or may not be curable, but your son's history as you've written it points very strongly towards true "always-there" autism). 

There are many things you can do to make your son's life easier and improve his interactions with the world around him but I would be extremely suspicious of any "instant cure-all" solutions which may 
A. Do more harm than good
B. Cost you a lot of money for no benefit
and/or
C. Distract attention from potential proven strategies that may improve your son's quality of life.
And always speak to a qualified GP/child psychologist first.

I'm sure you already know all this, but I would feel guilty if that wasn't the case and I didn't comment so I feel compelled to do so. I hope you can excuse it if I come off blunt or patronising; not my intention. 

Best of luck to you both, I hope Eddie's interactions with babies are more successful in the future! x

To get onto the topic at hand, BlueBabyBoyMum, it's likely that he just really likes babies and doesn't quite understand that he is causing them discomfort by being so hands-on. 

Hopefully he will grow out of it. I used to be very similar with dogs, even strange ones, despite being taught again and again that
A. doing so was very dangerous.
B. I might upset them.

Nothing sunk in for a long time. I very nearly got bitten around the face outside my primary school when I was 7; the dog's teeth actually grazed my head as I jumped back (I didn't tell anyone until much later because I was scared the dog would get the blame, so I was old enough to understand consequences, but I just couldn't stop being too forward with dogs).

What did help, eventually, was replacing my innate, unsuccessful "greet" behaviours towards dogs with new ones that were more dog-friendly. We did this by treating the new approach as a sort of "dog meet-and-greet ritual" (autistic kids are all about rituals) that we would do religiously, approaching it almost like a little game. I learned to put my hand out to the dog flat, so that it could sniff me, wait until it wagged its tail, then approach. 

Is there some sort of similar ritual you could get Eddie to associate with babies (by doing it yourself with him, etc.), rather than expecting him to leave them alone entirely (e.g. make peekaboo motions with them three times, or something)?
Does a friend have a baby you can rely on to give him a positive response (i.e. let him play with them) to said ritual as reinforcement? 

You might still get weird looks of course but a 1 minute "baby greeting ritual" would give you enough time to get to him and prevent him getting overly hands-on! ;)

Hiya,

Sorry Bluebabyboymum. I thought I read that you had 4 kids. Oops.

I also didn't think that a 10 year old could suddenly exhibit symptoms of Autism & Alzheimer's in the space of 6-8 months either, but my son did. Dementia in a 10 year old? Thought they were things you were born with or what happened as you went into old age. Apparently not in his case. My son had all of it and was extremely ill. All documented and baffled everyone. But I was able to find something that brought him back. He is back to his normal self now.

Ok...hope you get some help soon.

All the best

x

Often what happens with the late-presenting child is that they have some inherent ability when it comes to masking. This is extremely common in females but can occur in boys too. 

Usually at a time of change (moving up to high school, puberty hits, etc.) the child finds that keeping on top of schoolwork, socialising and masking at once is too much and they just suddenly lose it.